Pre-schools & Single Point Intake 2011

[Columbiancoffee]

Hi,
I am the chair of a small pre-school in Devon and am currently attempting to update our business plan with the impact of the up and coming Single Point Intake for the school Year (ie - ALL eligible children going to school in September, rather than the split intake Jan/ Sept, that we are used to.)

We have approx 50 children on our books, and are open 17hours a week.

How do other pre-schools balance their terms? I am concerned that the Autumn term will be empty (maybe 20children)but then come the Summer term we won't be able to satisfy the sessions demands of the older children as we will be having to ensure we are taking in enough younger children.

We do not have the space to open for rising three's (or the staff).

Any help very gratefully received!

We struggle. It's very tough in the Autumn term and very busy by the summer term. In addition we are finding that more parents are waiting until the preschool funding starts before they enquire which makes forecasting a nightmare. We have picked up 12 children since the end of the last academic year but we are still quieter than we would like. We have just agreed to drop the admission age to 2 yrs 6 mths to keep us competitive with other preschools who have done the same.

Perhaps you need to rethink your operational model?

We have been single-point-intake forever, so we do find that we have a smaller uptake in autumn term, then build towards summer, then it all starts again.

We do take from 2.6 though, so have a mix of funded and unfunded children.

Thank you....do many 2.6 year olds take up spaces? I wonder whether we would see any return on the additional costs we'd incur. Most of our parents only use the free funding as it is.

How do you manage your staff? I was wondering whether we could introduce annualised hours so that we could drop staff for the Autumn term, but ask them to work longer hours in the summer term?

How can you predict (or maybe you can't) how many hours your older children will be using in the busier summer term, as I assume you need these hours to offer to the next year intake?

Often, we have 2.6 year olds that are either siblings or friends of previous/current children at the preschool.

Most 2.6 year olds do around 2 sessions per week, simply because it costs the parents too much if they are not funded. Having said that, occasionally a parent will pay for their child to have more sessions, as it is their main childcare source.

Staffing is quite flexible, I think. Staff are contracted for a minimum set of sessions, then offered overtime during busier times. They receive all of their annual leave as a lump sum during the summer holidays, so are heavily discouraged from taking leave during term times, although at discretion of the manager they can if essential.

You know how many children you are allowed due to OFSTED restrictions. You can convert that into number of sessions you can offer (ie. max 26 children per session, 16.5 hours open per week, so 429 hours per week total to offer.) You also know that most 3 year olds will take up 15 hours per week. So you know that you can have a maximum of 28 children on your books if all of them take hours neatly to use up all your availability.

Although your end point for the children is fixed to once per year, your start point will vary.

January born - July start, April funded
February born - September start, April funded
March born - September start, April funded

April born - October start, September funded
May born - November start, September funded
June born - December start, September funded
July born - January start, September funded
August born - February start, September funded

September born - March start, January funded
October born - April start, January funded
November born - may start, January funded
December born - June start, January funded

So you will find that you start Autumn term with less children, then build towards Summer, then the cycle starts again.

"A mum"

Our local pre-schools take children as soon as they are 2. My DS will be 2 on 25th Nov and is starting on 30th Nov! I was going to wait until January to start him, but the leader said if he starts at the end of Nov he can be in the Christmas play!

They are happy to take children still in nappies (as many are at just 2) and to assist with toilet training when you start.

Friday is just for the "rising 4s" but he can attend Mon-Thur am and Wed/Thur pm is I wanted him too . . (not yet!).

Most of the 2 year olds do 2 sessions a week. Then when 3 go to about 3 sessions a week, then once funded it ranges from 3-5 sessions a week.