Conservatives & Nursery Top Up Fees

[gravelchops]

The Conservatives will allow nurseries to charge parents of three- and four-year-olds millions of pounds in "supplementary fees" if they form a government after 6 May, the Observer has learned. Campaigners have described the move, which would end the guarantee of a free place for every child that age, as "a huge blow to parents".

The party has kept the policy out of its election manifesto.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/25/conservatives-charge-nursery-places

(I know i'm going to get toasted for this but..)

There have been a lot of studies done (please don't ask me to point to them as my computer crashed recently and I lost files) that say putting children into a pre-school setting is harmful and makes them both anti-social (bad behaviour) and less likely to achieve acedemically overall (burn-out).

There was talk of increasing the age which a child starts school (not sure if it was 6 or 7) because the studies found that these young children can not cope with this forced learning that the government has forced on them.

And yes I know there are children out there who's parents don't give a but surely a lot of those parents either use sure start or can't be bothered to take their kids to nursery anyway.

I think Franca brings up some very good points
but I too can't see how they can justify fundng it if they have to cut nhs , care home or school budgets for example
hope the child trust fund gets knocked on the head too

For working parents the free 12.5 hours a week is knocked off your private nursety/ childminder fees
so getting rid of it will make childcare more expensive for working parents Stix

Franca, My opinion differs only slightly from yours. A civilised country should have free nursery schools for children aged 3 + whose parents cannot afford to pay for them.

I cannot see why as tax payers we should pay for nursery places for children of household with six figure incomes.

The studies are on children under 3 in childcare.

Here where I live primary school starts at 6. We have free nursery schools for children from 3 to 6 yrs of age. There is no formal learning whatsoever.
I still have yet to meet a child who hasn't enjoyed it, nor a parent who begrudges that part of his/her taxes go to fund it.

Actually our "lovely" govtm is cutting the amount of money spent on public education (and nursery schools are involved) and I think it's disgusting.

"As for the working parents, they pay for the extra hours to make up a full time place but i'm sure they're grateful for the free hours relieving a little bit of the childcare costs. "

WTC subsidy would pay for most of this so the only people this would affect are people on too much money to get WTC (over 50,000 in tory manifesto) so I don't believe that it's an issue for most working parents.

Ah, thanks compo. That's what it's called: child trust fund.
Now I'm sorry but that IS a luxury we can't afford.
Just saw on another thread that 2 payments are made; at birth and then at 7yo.
We are a nation in MASSIVE debt. We cannot afford that sort of gift, civilised society or not.

Clam,

I agree with you on the child trust fund. I received a payment for my ds and am grateful for it but if the choice is ds having a bit of money in an account in 18 years time or the lady down the road getting the cancer drug she needs to keep her alive until xmas, I think it should go on drugs.

I agree on the child trust fund too. It's nice to have it (given that CTF and Child Benefit are the only two things we benefit from at all under this government), but it really, really isn't going to make any significant difference to us. And we are not extortionately wealthy - just well off enough not to feel that two dollops of £250 is going to make a huge difference to our DCs' future. On the other hand, a school voucher scheme would make a big difference to us...

anastaisia, I'm glad you clarified your comment. I was about to have palpitations.

So, we're billions of pounds in debt but "children are learning to develop friends without parents' intervention" and "We are both refreshed and happy to see each other after a session."

Well, as a working parent I founf this of no use at all. The Primary my kids go to has a nursery. So this money funds the nursery. But, anyone who can't afford to be a SAHP has to pay the childminder or nanny to do that school run so it isn't saving the parent a penny. Not one. Waste of money.

I do see that if you use a private nursery then you get a discount. But, it's really not worth what it costs.

And I sort of think if you can afford to stay home then you can afford to pay for your own nursery provision rather than expecting the working people to pay for it when they still have to pay full whack.

Yes, please get rid of Child Trust Funds, I might be ungrateful but would prefer to start up a savings account for my dd. One person I know put their dd's child benefit into the ctf and has not seen any significant growth to it but quite a fair amount of loss and I wonder what the point in giving her all that money was as she obviously didn't need it on a day to day basis!

am hoping that they don't get rid of the opportunity for Childcare Vouchers as this has just become a possibiity for us as my dh found out and at the moment more than 50% of my salary goes on childcare (which sometimes they forget to give me the bloody invoice for so some months I have a double whammy!) But I have to admit that I haven't looked too hard at that and am not sure of the political ramifications of it etc etc.

Clam.

The nation is not in debt due to the funding of 2.5 hrs of nursery a day.
And yes, it can be vital also to sahp, why not, they pay their taxes too, and in a country where many families don't have the support of the extended family 2.5 hrs a day can be a life saver.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. In my country (which is not a perfect country, far from it, it isn't sweden unfortunately), free nursery schools have been in place with decades, and I came to appreciate their importance for society as a whole.

The nation's debt might not solely be due to nursery funding, no, but if we're trying to reduce it, then some of the things mentioned in recent posts are good places to start.
And it's very difficult to measure exactly how beneficial nursery is. It's too subjective and there are too many variable. I'm not denying that it's a nice thing to be able to offer, but WE ARE IN MASSIVE DEBT AND LUXURIES HAVE TO GO!!!!!!!

i wasn't sure of my view before but after reading all the arguments, it does sound like the free 12.5 hours is a bit pointless.

It definitely won't save me money, as I would have to pay my nanny (share) for those hours anyway. Do childminders/nurseries really knock it off their bill? It's not like they could otherwise fill that slot, why would they??

The thing is, families have got used to these benefits now, so to remove them is going to cause an outcry. Whereas if they'd never had them in the first place, we'd have just got on with it and muddled through.

Sorry for being off topic and not answering the OP, but having read some of the replies I just want to say that as a working parent, the 12.5 hours has helped me significantly.

I am extremely blessed to have twins (naturally conceived) but a less than desirable side-effect is that it doubled my childcare costs. When TTC we were working on the assumption we'd have a single child and planned and budgeted on that basis.

I am now a single parent and despite tax credits paying a proportion of the fees (for which I am hugely grateful), I have been struggling to find enough money to eat at times in the last three years. Now my children have turned three and qualify for the hours, it has eased some of the burden.

For everyone who thinks subsidised childcare is a waste of money I would ask how my being consigned to the ever increasing number of people on benefits would help? What example does it set to my children? My skills and confidence would atrophy making it all the more harder for me to get back into the work place and certainly not at a level I would be if I'd stayed. Subsidised childcare OTOH sets a great example about self-responsibility, allows me to continue to work and develop my career so that I will pay more tax back into the system. Also, I am still paying tax and while my childcare costs may be subsidised, that money is being used to pay the childcare provider, which in turn pays wages (and therefore tax) and benefits the local economy. And I am still paying tax on my own income. Over the course of my life, I will have paid out far more than I received. If I had no childcare and had to stop working, it would take me more than a lifetime to repay what I had claimed in benefits.

That said, I think the general cost of childcare could be brought down massively be cutting a lot of the needless bureaucracy generated by OFSTED and allowing children a much more informal style of childcare.

but wouldn't it make more sense to target support at people who need it for childcare OptimistS, rather than to give every child free non-compulsory early years education?

So, basically Clam your main reasons for getting rid of these "benefits" is that when your children were little you just had to get on with it?
With these arguments you can't make much progress in many areas, imho.

If they do axe the funded places for 3yr olds i for one would have to give up work.

My dd attends the local preschool, she is funded for 15 hours a week - she goes mon tues and fri 9-3 (2 and a half days free, I pay for one afternoon) while i go to work (for the nhs). I pay a childminder to have her on thursday. If nursery wasn't free my entire wages would go on nursery bills, which would be pretty pointless, and I would have to give up my job as a breastfeeding support worker, helping new mums on the postnatal ward and in the community. How would that be a good thing? Oh and we don't get WTC despite our family income being below 40k so we wouldn't qualify for any help with childcare even if i had to spend the whole of my wages on it.

Not at all, Franca. That would just be churlish and mean-spirited. If the country's finances were in fine shape, additional nursery provision would be a great thing. But, as I've said many times, THEY'RE NOT! Cuts have to be made somewhere, and everyone is going to jump up and down if it looks like it's going to affect them.
I have mainly advocated removal of the Child Trust Fund, actually. And I queried someone's justification of nursery funding on the grounds that it meant she and her DD were happy to see each other after each session.

Yes I agree, anastasia, but then I also agree with the arguments that places are needed for disadvantaged children whose parents may not work at all.

Nursery education and its effect on children is quite controversial when you look into it. I don't really know enough about it to make a bold claim and defend my posts vehemently, but I think that research tends to show (and I know I'm hopelessly generalising here) that children born to loving, educated, hands-on parents benefit most from staying at home, while children born into disadvantaged circumstances benefit hugely from nursery education. I think offering less fortunate children the chance at a level playing field is just as important as (if not more so than) helping working parents avoid falling into the benefits trap.

I suspect that its easier, less controversial and actually cheaper to apply a blanket rule than to make judgements about whose children are 'disadvantaged', in the same way that it's cheaper to give child benefit to everyone than it is to finance the cost of means testing.

Ok, I see. I still think that those 12.5 hrs a week are quite important for many families.
I just hope it won't be schools next.