Community pre-school - session costs

[Twiga]

have recently taken over as the chair for my daughters pre-school and as a committee we're currently over-hauling a few things. We're currently looking into how much we charge for sessions - currently £9 - some friends I've spoken to have said this is very cheap, and I'm just wandering how much other people are paying out there for their community pre-school sessions. Thought would be good to get a general feel for costs and see how it all compares - it's my eldest two are now at pre-school but I'm still relatively new to it all and this is our first nursery so nothing to compare charges to. Thanks x x x

You don't say whereabouts you are?

I live in the rural north east and pay 8.50 for a 2.5 hour session for preschool. Think this is standard around here

We're based in Hove, just outside of Brighton. Government grant for sessions is £9.30 per child for a 2.5hr session so it doens't seem to make sense to charge less than that - we a fairly affluent area.

We charge £7.00 for a 2.5 hour session - we are Midlands

Come join us on the other thread - preschool committees

Cheers racmac, will look for it now

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/preschool/878248-Pre-school-committee-chat

hope that works

I found you, thanks!

We charge £3 per hour. In practise people do mornings or afternoons, so £6 a session, £12 for a whole day 9-3. We are tiny, and very rural.

£3 per hour, east anglia

We're in the south west, urban area but not especially posh.

We charge £6.75 for 2.5 hours for 3 & 4 y.o.

We're a lot cheaper than day nurseries but about average for community preschools.

That said, it's starting to be a bit of a financial problem because people are choosing to use their funding to save money on their bills at day nurseries, and come to us on other days so it's cheaper.

So as of September 2010, we'll be saying that our session rate (which will obviously go up to take into account increasing to 3 hrs) will only apply to children who are not yet eligible for nursery education grant (i.e. 3 but not yet funded). Anyone else who wants to self-fund will have to pay the same amount as the local authority gives us for a funded child (which will be £11).

Hope this helps.

My DS goes to a pre-school in a small, rural village in the Midlands. It is registered as a charity and in the grounds of the village primary.

The session is 3 hours (9-12) and costs £13.50. Local prep schools charge £17.50 for a 3 and a half hour session. There are local day nurseries who charge exactly what the government grant is so essentially they are free. There is only one "state run" nursery in the area and that is free, but obviously has a massive waiting list.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, ours is undersubscribed but it is very lovely.

Wow, there's quite a range, isn't there?

We are in touch with a rep from the Primary Learning Alliance and it was comments from her that have really got us thinking - she was saying that our session charge is low and we should be up at at least £10 if not a little more. Obviously this then means charging top up fees for grant funded kids so everyone is paying the same. Our initial thought is to raise perhaps in increments starting by bringing the non-funded kids up to £9.30 to match the grant rate. We're also a reg charity and I'm not sure if that makes any diff to what we'd look to charge. New parents that have been coming to look at the nursery and book spaces for Sept have also commented on how low our charge is - all of which is making us think we def need to look into it but money always a sensitive area and selling to current parents a worry.

Misshardbroom, is the rise to 3hrs just happening at your pre-school or is there about to be a change - sorry if a daft query but I'm very new to this and still getting up to speed on it all.

Part of what is motivating us to really think about the fees is tht our staff are currently paid below the recommended pay scale according to our local authority ed peoples advice and they are fantastic and really deserve a pay increase to bring them into line with everyone else but the two hikes will obviously go hand in hand.

To be honest my head is really minced thinking about it all!

I don't think you charge top-up fees

Katymac, can you elaborate? I just assumed that would be a given as surely you can't charge diff rates for funded/non-funded places. Like I've said, very new to it all, so advice very welcome.

If you get £9.30 for your funded sessions you cannot charge £10 & ask the parents to pay the 70p

You can make a longer session & charge for that extra bit of the session

Or for craft stuff or food

Ok, so does that mean we also can't raise the non-funded charge above the funded limit or is that down to us? The other thing that's confusing with it all is I've recently moved down here from Scotland where the system is totally different so I'm effectively learning a whole new set up anyway.

What you charge the other children is not regulated - simply that you cannot charge a top-up (but I did mention some ways round)

How long is your session?

We get £7.50 for funded children but charge £9.75 for non funded (2.5 hr session - Midlands).

Katymac is right - we can't charge the funded children the £2.25 difference - it has to be free at the point of delivery.

Katymac and Tidybush are spot on, children have to be able to access their funded provision for free, no top-ups for the basic session.

You can charge parents what you like / what you think they'll pay for non-funded children. It doesn't have to be the same as your local authority pay you for the funded children.

And yes, big changes afoot in September 2010. Nursery entitlement is currently 12.5 hours for children from the term following their 3rd birthday (except for a few areas trialling more hours, funding for 2 y.o etc). From September 2010, it increases to 15 hours, with a number of conditions attached.

As someone new to all this, you could do yourself a big favour by getting up to speed on it as it will affect the length & funding of your sessions, plus possibly other factors such as your staff's contracts.

Your local Sure Start office should be able to give you information about this, or failing that, someone on here will find you a helpful link (I'll have a look in a minute)

This might be useful

This is what I really wanted to find for you.

It's a gigantic head-messing bunch of documents, but it is worth reading.

Honestly.

Katymac/Misshardbroom, are you able to explain more fully how you can get round the whole fees thing on a snack/craft front. Been looking at the EYFS stuff and it seems to imply that you aren't allowed to prevent acess to free places by having any related charges - maybe I'm mis-reading but the implication seems to be that you can't charge anything at all to funded kids as you could in theory prevent someone taking up their entitlement as a result. Sorry to disappear after initial posts, had family bereavment and have been somewhat distracted with that the last wee while.

Well I am a childminder so I don't know if the rules are different - but I only offer a place 50 weeks a year so I charge for the out-of-term sessions plus snack/arts stuff

Whether I should or not I don't know - however if I didn't I wouldn't offer the sessions - they cost me too much