Nursery fees / funded hours question

[michgross]

We just went to visit a nursery today which we were very happy with but we found out that they charge for a full 10 hour day (8am-6pm), independent of when you drop your child off and pick them up. Probably naively, I was planning to use 30 hours free childcare for our son for 9am-3pm, 5 days a week. But it sounds like we'd be forced to pay for 5x10=50 hours per week and so only 3/5 of the week would be free (for 38 weeks of the year).

I'm just wondering if this is common in nurseries before we start looking into other options that might give us a better deal?

Very common in nurseries. You may have better luck looking for a childminder, but these days a lot of them are charging full days. Its the only way they can make the figures work with the funding being so low.

If that's the opening hours, then yes. They will still have the same overheads if you pick up two hours early.

There is a wide variety of how nurseries offer the funded hours, some may offer morning and afternoon sessions for example - I am looking at one now that offers 1pm to 5:30pm or 1pm to 6:30pm fully funded, and any other hours you want to take you have to pay for.

Yes that’s normal. Are you planning on using childcare all year round or term time only? If all year then it won’t be 30 hours a week, it’ll be 22.4 hours a week. You’ll need to pay the full fees for the rest of the hours.

Yes, entirely normal. They can’t fill the extra hours in the day with another child and they still incur the same costs for being open.

Yes this is fairly common for nurseries to offer either full day or two half day sessions but not more flexible hours such as 9-3. Many offer term time only hours if this is what you are looking for.

Yes, you can’t pick and choose your hours. It would be very difficult for nurseries to fill the 3pm-6pm slot.

Also check for stretched hours and other extras, our nursery has the same opening times as yours and our 30 funded hours work out as 22.5 funded hours de facto, so not even 3 days. There’s also a daily extra for consumables.

Yes it’s what our nursery does and also remember the funding is based on term time hours rather then the full amount of weeks in a year.

Ours is spread over the year too. Term time no longer an option. And has to be used towards “full” sessions. So we only get 2 days a week and 2 hours are “lost”. They do do half days though.

Ours isn't like that, they allow 9-5/8-4/8-5/half days - you obviously have to pay for the hours you sign up for. They spread the hours over the full year so we get 22 hours a week of funded hours. We do 2 x 8-5pm days and 1 x 8-4pm day, so 26 hours total, so we only pay in full for 4 hours. Might be worth looking around for another option. Or can you work 3 full days instead of 5 short days, if that nursery is your only option?

And it's not 'free' childcare, nursery tend to charge you on top for consumables like nappies, wipes, meals, milk etc, because the hourly funding they get isn't enough to cover those costs.

Can you look for a preschool or school nursery that is only open 9am-3pm?
Or possibly a childminder might be able to do those hours if they have before/after school children.

This is normal.

You’ll need to look at a school nursery,

we don’t get any funded hours (minus the 15 hours universal entitlement) but have flexibility with work, so always used school nurseries to keep the childcare bill down.

It's normal but it's worth shopping around. My son's nursery offers 'family friendly hours' 8:30 - 3:30 which has been an absolute life saver. We've stretched the funding over 51 weeks so he does three 7-hour days a week with just consumables to pay.

Yes totally normal for an independent nursery, if you want those hours you’re more likely to find it with a school nursery/pre school.

This is 'normal' in the sense that a lot of nurseries do it this way, but not all, so it's worth phoning around to ask.

How old is your child? If you're looking for a 3 year old I think you are likely to be able to find 9-3 options (preschools, school nurseries). For a one year old they will be much fewer and harder to find.

You need a pre-school - this is a full day care nursery. We do the same - morning, afternoon, or a full day. Pre schools will offer school hours

Most nurseries will offer full days or half days, but very few will offer short days like this. It doesn't hurt to enquire, but I would be prepared to discover that they all have the same policy.

A school nursery would offer those hours, but they'd only be open in terms time and of course wouldn't take a baby.