Funded places - is anyone else's nursery pulling this crap??!!

[ElusiveMoose]

I'll try to keep this brief. I recently started DS (2.10) in a private nursery-cum-preschool locally. He goes two mornings a week (8-1pm). I chose it because I liked it, but also on the basis that, although it's very expensive for us in the short term (basically £250 a month incl. meals), the cost would go down by well over half in January when the funding kicked in (it runs in the holidays as well, so we knew we would still have to pay for those weeks in full, plus the meal costs).

Anyway, yesterday we got a letter to say that free funding is now only going to be offered during part of each session - ie 8-11am in the mornings and 1-4pm in the afternoons. So, in order to get the full 15 hours of funding, you would have to send your child for 5 sessions per week. In our case, DS will now only qualify for 6 hours of free funding rather than the full 10 hours that he attends, assuming I keep him on 2 mornings a week. In a nutshell, this means that the cost of sending him there after January has just risen by 70%.

I phoned the Early Years Education team at my local authority, and they have told me that the nursery is totally within its rights to do this.

I'm very angry and upset about this. My instinct is to tell them to stick their place up their arse. However, DS has only been there a couple of months, and it was a nightmare getting him settled, and he's now formed a really strong attachment to his key worker, so the thought of taking him out and trying to settle him somewhere else is ghastly (and, I think, unfair on him).

So I'm not sure there's anything I can do except try to find the money to keep him there (I'm not working, and I'm expecting another baby this weekend, so it's not easy). But I was just interested to see if other nurseries were doing the same thing?

you could just change your sessions to 8-11?

i know how nice those 8-1 sessions are tho! you can get a lot done in 5 hours.

Oh no, sorry, I should have made it clear - that's not an option. You're only allowed to choose a morning (8-1pm), an afternoon (1-6pm), or a school day (9-3.30pm).

Or a full day, obviously (8am-6pm).

I think thats normal - the nursery that my DD goes to does it this way too, as sessions, so you have to use 5 sessions a week to get the full funding.

I think you'll find that the nursery won't let you change the sessions times to 8-11 espc if they are a popular nursery because they will be able to fill the spot with a child who will also pay for the rest of the session making them more money.

To be honest I think you were lucky finding a nursery who would condense the funding into 2 mornings a week. All the private ones round here do it spread across the week, so only the children whose parents pay for the rest of the session actually benefit from the funding.

I am in a similar situation and it pisses me off.

Slow post there, sorry!

I thought this was normal - all the nurseries around our way apply LEA funding in this way. In fact, I thought they were only allowed to apply 2.5 hrs (or whatever it is) for each day you attend, although could of course be wrong.

oh, so whatever you do you HAVE to pay for part of the session?? that's terrible,

ours is lovely. when ds1 was there i did 5 hour sessions, and used 2 lots of funding for each session if you see what i mean?
so we did 3 5 hour sessions, and ended up just paying for 2.5 hours a week (entitlement was just 12.5 hours then)

ds2 is due to start in september and what they've done is spread the hours across the whole year. so that instead of getting 15 hours free, but only in term time, you get 11 hours free all year round. which works better for me

so ds2 is starting off doing 2 3hr sessions. when his funding comes in in January we have the option of adding 30 mins/1hr either side
so he'll probably do 8.30-12 3 times a week

and it'll all be free! hurrah

Normal, sorry.

They're not going to give 3 hourly sessions to people when they themselves have to fund the entire day/half day (as they are, after all, a private business)

Are you saying though that a 3-hour preschool session is not an option and that they don't do them?

My DS's previous nursery did the 2.5 hour sessions and nothing else to pay (up to 5x per week funded). However, we've just moved and he's a place (in his 'nursery' year, from September) at a private day nursery which doesn't do the hours but allows you to take the 15 hours as 5x 5hr slots. We will, however, be expected to pay for holidays which I am not happy about but it was short notice that we relocated and this nursery is good. I am actually a teacher and not going to be using the place as childcare as relatives will be taking care of my 2 children. Actually, sorry to hijack but didn't think they could do this either?

if you're at a private nursery most don't allow you to use it just in term time because they could have a full-time child there paying

we're very, very lucky with how ours do things I think.

your other option is to not use a private nursery but a regular pre-school/playgroup which ONLY does 3 hr sessions and is only open term time

If you just want the 3 hour pre-school session then use a local pre-school rather than the fee-charging nurseries.

If a private nursery takes a child from, say 1-4pm each day, then they are limiting the people who want a half day (which at ours would be 1:30 - 6pm) This takes places from people who need the extended hours, and means the nursery makes less money, meaning they have to charge more per child.

In my experience it's not unusual to have to attend 5 sessions to benefit from the full funding, so the nursery is not being unreasonable in that respect.

That said, it is unusual for them not to offer 8-11 or 9-12 funded places only.

Unfortunately in this situation it seems that your only options are to pay the extra or look for a nursery or pre-school that offers funded sessions without requiring you to top up.

it does depend on the LEA doesn't it? ours don't let the nurseries force parents to do more than the free sessions.

so dd just did the free sessions, 5 mornings a week. didn't go in the holidays. didn't have to pay.

i asled the nursery manager how she can run the place with folk doing just the free sessions. she said it works fine as most parents do pay for more due to working hours. and she said the empty spaces in the hols is ok as lots of her staff want their holidays then anyway.

Ime all the nurseries round here only allowed you to access full funding if you are doing 5 sessions a week. I think that doing it the way you have is very unusual. Our sessions were 3 hours even though funding was only for 2.5 so you always had to pay for the extra 30 mins, even if you were only using two sessions per week.

Hmm, ok. Thanks for your replies. Sounds like they're not unusual, then. I guess the reason it pisses me off so much is that this is such a change - up until now, they've allowed you to take 10 hours over just two sessions. So we signed up for this pre-school on that basis (as some of you have suggested, if we'd known about this change beforehand, we almost certainly would have opted for a playgroup rather than a nursery).

What I'm still unsure about is whether they're allowed to make us do the full 8-1pm session. I thought I'd read somewhere else that they're not allowed to make a funded place conditional on you paying for extra hours - but then I'm also confused about whether the rules are national or local. Might have to phone the LA again and check. Maybe I could negotiate with them to do 8-12 or something, or just do term times, so I at least soften the blow a little bit....

Oh, and presumably they do get money from the government to compensate them for the funded place?? Though I guess in the case of a private nursery, not as much as they would charge a parent.

Thought I'd post an update in case anyone's still interested . Just spoke to the LA, who confirmed that the nursery is completely within its rights to do everything it's doing, including insisting on extra hours, meals and holiday payments. So we don't have a leg to stand on . Still, I will definitely register my displeasure and see if I can persuade them into letting us do term times only.

im a nursery deputy manager and with regards funding we have to follow guidelines issued by council. in our case the child qualifies for 15 hours the term after they are 3 and these sessions are for 3 hours a time. if a child does a full day they can clam 2 x 3 hr sessions a day maximum and have to pay for the extra inbetween the sessions. so to qualify for all 15 hours the child has to attend a minimum of 2 and a half days! this is due to change though and i think a nursery will be able to claim 15 hours per child per week for parent to use how they like BUT this is still under review as this will mean alot of private day nurseries will lose alot of money as the funded payment in our area is £3.25 per hour and we charge £4.75 per hour!

There is another thread below about this isn't there? Seems like one thread says they can't do this and this thread says they can.

This would not be allowed by our LA. There are a few links in the other thread which might help (code of conduct etc). Think this one will run for a while until preschools and nurseries get used to the new 15 hour flexible entitlement.

5ofus you're right. I'd sort of given up on this, and accepted they were within their rights, but then somebody gave me the government Code of Practice which states pretty clearly that pre-schools cannot make paying for extra hours a condition of entitlement to the free hours. So I'm taking it up with the management of my Local Authority to see how I get on.

My son is also in a private nursery and I recently found out that I will have to pay a supplement rather than get 5 sessions free. However, in no part is it the fault of the nurseries. I have discussed the topic at length with a few nurseries. It is complete false or unclear advertising by the government. Their '15 hours free' principle is based on their belief that a contribution of ~£3 per hour, i.e £9 per session is sufficient to cover the nurseries costs but in private nurseries, the staff to child ratio is generally much higher, the staff are paid more since they are more qualified and other overheads and equipment cost more. Many nurseries have been forced to close since the government subsidy means they are losing money and can't afford to stay open. Don't blame the nurseries, blame the government.

I have just had the same row with a nursery my daughter was due to start at next Monday and consequently told them I'm no longer interested in her going there as a result. I live in Bromley and it is not true here to say it is the fault of the government. Here it is down to individual nurseries how they want to organize the funding. I have today found a local nursery (not part of a big chain) that WILL apply the full 15 hours over 4 afternoon sessions. Check with your local authority, the Family Information Service, what their policy is from 1st Sep 2010 when new rules come in. Not all nurseries will be so inflexible and it is possible to find some places that will help. Blame (some of) the nurseries! Why not just charge parents the difference between the Gov't funding rate and their normal hourly rate rather than denying parents some of the full 15 hour entitlement? The whole point of the change in Sep is to make the funding more FLEXIBLE for parents

Apparently nurseries aren't allowed to charge the 'difference' on funded hours. So much for my brilliant idea lol :0