Funded hours mistake

[GC2023]

I messed up and hadn’t renewed my application for funded hours. I enrolled by DD in nursery and realised as I was doing the application and then quickly updated the government website. They are now saying her funding won’t start until next term. I had no idea.

Do I had to pull her out and / or pay privately for this? Has anyone experienced this?

You just pay the higher amount until funding comes through.

You should be able to pay their unfunded session/hourly charges until either 1st April, or the start of the new term (if it’s term time only).

Have a chat with the nursery and find out how much this will be.

Just a thought - any chance you were still within the ‘grace period’ of the funding, or had that expired as well?

Ah that’s so stressful – but it’s a common gotcha. Usually if you miss the reconfirmation window the code/funding doesn’t backdate and you pay the nursery’s unfunded rate until the next funding start date/term boundary.

A couple practical steps:

• Ask the nursery exactly what they’ll charge for the interim (some do a blended rate / “stretched” options, others don’t).
• Check whether you were still within any grace period when you reapplied (nursery/LA can sometimes confirm this quickly).
• If the cost is too high, ask the nursery if you can reduce sessions temporarily rather than pull her out completely.
• It’s also worth phoning your local authority’s childcare/funded-hours team to confirm the start date they’ve applied to you, just in case there’s any discretion/processing issue.

Not a lecture because everyone gets caught once, but I’ve started putting renewal/reconfirmation deadlines into a shared life-admin tracker (I’m trying one called Tidee) so it pings me well ahead of time – it’s saved my bacon a few times.