Education Funded Place - can they charge for holidays?

[StrikeUpTheBand]

Hi,

My DS has a deposit down to start at a private day nursery for 15 hours per week (spread over 3 mornings) using his funding. He's 3.5. He starts in September. I only want it for term time as I don't need it as childcare (it was just the last minute house move which meant we couldn't get a school nursery).

I just wondered if anyone knew - can they charge for the holidays? They have been very clear in telling me they will have to charge me for the holidays - which will amount to about £70 per week of school holidays during the year (time which I wouldn't really want to use). (His last nursery did the 2.5 hours a day/5 days per week and didn't charge any extra).

Thanks for any advice. I don't want to annoy his new nursery but it's a lot of money for something we don't want to use...!

This sounds like a nursery that opens all year round and would be used for childcare by working parents. So, yes, I am afraid that they will charge you for holiday time as the early years grant is only available for 38 weeks (?) a year and you are effectively taking a place that they could offer to another child who would use it all year round.

I doubt very much that the nursery would budge on this - if they let you have holidays for free then they will have to do it for everyone else and the nursery budget will be calculated on the basis of everyone paying all year round.

The funding is termtime only so if they keep the place open for holidays then they can charge for that period. Unless they employ term-time only staff or they can fill the space temporarily the costs to them are the same.

From Sept 2010 when the new 15 hours comes in everywhere some Councils are giving an option to parents to sign a 52 week contract which gives the same number of hrs per yr spread out through the holidays as well as the 38 week one of 15 hrs per week (I think it works out to about 11 per week). We are Northamptonshire and they are definitely offering this as an alternative but I don't know if all counties are.

This may be an option for you.