Nursery Fee Help!

[buckleybear]

Can someone help me workout what my child's nursery free should be for this month? I'm so confused by it all and the finance team at his nursery keep ignoring my emails. We're entitled to 30 hours as he's still under 2 years old but they still keep charging me the full invoice amount?

Breakdown below

3 mornings a week (8am - 12pm)
£7.50 per hour (£90.00 per week)
Snack £0.75 (£2.25 per week)
Consumables £1.00 (£3.00 per week)
Breakfast £1.50 (£4.50 per week)

I understand we still need to pay for his breakfast, snack and consumables.

The nursery fee works out this month at £390.00.
That is what we've been paying since October last year and our entitled funding was starting from this month and the invoice is still for the full amount of £390.00?

This has left me very confused?

I don't know if I'm being silly but if anyone can help me I'd very much appreciate it. Unfortunately I don't have anyone I can discuss this with and as I said above, the nursery do not respond to my queries.

Thank you

Have you given them the code for your funded hours?

your bill should be around £15 I guess.

They can choose whether to take the funded hours though and 12 hours a week may not be worth it for them

As PP says have you confirmed your eligibility and provided your code?

It would only be the hours that could be covered by the funding, food etc is an extra charge so that’s separate. Some settings have rules about how they use the funding though as in can only use full days/between certain hours etc so it could be that, you’d need to check with the nursery.

Do you need to give them a code? Or if it’s the universal free hours do you need to sign something? Have you checked your contract to see if the nursery have any rules about how the funding can be used e.g. only for full days?
If the finance team are ignoring you I’d ask for a meeting with the manager to try to figure it out.

There is no universal funding for under 2s. All those entitled to the working parents funding will need to provide an eligibility code.

It's a shame OPs always seek to disappear, replies were given very quickly here.

Have you given them your code? Have you checked their policy on funded hours eg some nurseries here only accept funded hours between 9&12 then 1&4 but the sessions are 8-1 and 1-6 so to get the 30 hours you need to be in full time.

Ah yes good point the universal hours are indeed for over 3s.
But still I think the advice still roughly stands- check you’ve done what you need to do, check the nursery’s requirements for using the funding and then ask for a meeting with the manager if still no response from finance.

Thank you so much for you all your replies. Yes, we have given them our code but like some of you have said, it may only apply to full days. I will definitely ask to speak with the manager and find out their funding requirements.

My nursery would only use the 22 funded hours for two full days at least I think … so weirdly it might work out cheaper to pay for 2.5 days even if you pick her up early

Funding only applies during term time, so any dates over school holidays are charged in addition. Or at least that’s how it worked when DD was at pre school.

You only get the 30 hours starting at the beginning of a term so if your child started to qualify after the start of the Spring term (Jan 5th usually) then they won't start till after Easter.

When they do start your fees won't go down as much as you hope. But I don't understand why you are only being charged £390 which is only the £7.50ph main fee at 12 hrs per week. Your bill ought to be £432pm before the "free" hours kick in.

Evening everyone,

I contacted the Nursery manager and this was her response below.

''Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email.

The funding gets deducted off of your hours which (child's name) attends the setting. You can up his hours if you would like, to meet the amount of hours which you receive in funding. However you do not need to do the full amount of hours we just claim what you have put on the funding form which you sent to me via email.

Just send me an email with what you would like and i will see if we have the availability.

Look forward to hearing from you''

It still don't really understand it other than he doesn't need to do full days or meet the 15 hours.
Should our January invoice have a small decrease?

Thank you for all your help so far.

You need to phone or ask for a meeting. We can't tell you what she means.

Surely you should be only paying £9.75 per week if they take his funding for his hours. Even spread out across the year, the funded hours work out as 22 hours per week which you're clearly under. Why are they charging you £7.50 extra per hour? It makes no sense. Your consumables are dirt cheap. Our nursery is £2 per hour!

Nickyknackered
Thanks but you do not need to be so demanding and aggressive with your responses.

In what way was she demanding and aggressive?

I thought i was pretty helpful 💁‍♀️

She was demanding as I didn't reply quick enough to her liking after the 1st post. The last post was very blunt and made me feel like I'm being stupid. I came on here to get some advice and support, not to feel like I'm being an idiot. Thank you for your help, I will leave this now.

What??

I am very experienced with funding and administer, invoice and apply for it in my setting. And even I haven't a clue what that email means. So, telling you to speak to the manager in person, so you can follow up with questions and request deeper explanations is a perfectly reasonable one.

But whatever.

she's read your email as if your asking for more hours.
i agree an in person meeting will be best as you are both now confused.

What a ridiculous comment. She wasn’t rude at all !! No one else can help you understand, we can explain funding but can’t understand it for you!

I think depending where you are the 7.50 an hour is likely to be after the funding has been deducted. 7.50/jour for a full day would be around £50 so very cheap.

theyre not technically supposed to charge top up fees but often do in terms of additonal
services on an hourly rate.

You should be paying £9.25 a week.
This is for breakfast, snack and consumables. Your 12 hours childcare should be funded.
They are not allowed to charge you any 'top ups' other than the above.
Email again and ask for an exact breakdown of you invoice

To me, it seems like they have simply forgotten to give you funding as that is your normal invoice??