How much do you pay for funded nursery

[Bluecoldpillicheppers]

Talk to me about how much you pay with 30 free hrs. This still seems crazy

private nurseries around here seem to average the hrs out over the year so 22.3 hrs per week and still on a 3 day week, im being quoted £90! Basically it only reduces the bill by approx £80
per week so FT is still pretty much £200 (before TF childcare)

nursery attached to a school (not quite school nursery) 3 days is £22 (much better becasue that’s lunch supervision) but then you’ve got school hols to worry about but ok, but on full time it’s still £110 per week and then school hols on top.

They cannot create artificial breaks in the day, it’s clear in the guidance. Again, these need to be referred to the local authority which is responsible for ensuring the funding is handled in a way that is compliant with the guidance, and then on to the ombudsman if not resolved.

From the guidance: “A2.5 Where it is reasonably practicable, local authorities should ensure that children are able to take up their free hours in continuous blocks and avoid artificial breaks being created throughout the day, for example, over the lunch period.”

This is the sad part. My daughter's preschool is the last remaining setting in our borough that only offers the funded hours (parents can pay fees if they are using the funding elsewhere) and it's going because it can't make the money.

My daughter is going to a school nursery where she can just do mornings and do the 15 hours.

The crisis in childcare is coming from every angle at the moment. At our setting the increase to the living wage would have destroyed us were we not already closing. We want to pay our staff a fair wage, but if the funding doesn't scratch the surface of our overheads how can we?

And of course it's women that are predominantly forced out of the work force because of this.

@FartOutLoudDay

But surely it's not artificial breaks in the day if they offer those sessions to everyone to buy as standalone sessions without using funding.

It's morning session, school session, and afternoon session. You can make your hours up from a combination of any of those regardless of funding.

I can’t say for certain but based on recent findings from the ombudsman I think it would be considered an artificial break if it prevents the child from taking up their provision in a continuous block. You’d have to complain to them to have it tested though!

'Where it is reasonably practicable...'

And they would probably argue that 3+5=8 and therefore it's not reasonably practicable to use the funding in consecutive blocks.

Literally every nursery I've ever looked at make you pay for at least an hour in the middle of the day.

I’d be interested to know which local authority area you’re in as I know at least one is reviewing arrangements at all nurseries following recent ombudsman investigations which pertain to a lunchtime charge.

Reasonably practicable is quite a high bar, it can’t just be because the nursery won’t make enough money. I’m not saying the funding of nurseries is being done fairly, far from it, but they would likely be in breach of the guidance for splitting the hours that way.

Private nursery, it reduces the bill by just under 1/3.

It’s a 10.5hr day, you get up to 5hrs a day funded so pay for 5.5hrs plus £12 for food and consumables. A normal day is £55 and it reduces it to roughly £37.