Denied 15 Hours Free Entitlement

[retrohsnevets]

Hello everyone. First post.

Without beating about the bush, has anyone found it difficult to get the full 15 hours entitlement out of their nursery?

We have a child in a Kingston Nursery and they refuse to honour the full 15 hours, despite attendance in excess of 9 sessions a week, i.e. 3 mornings and 3 afternoons.

Are they allowed to do this?

First of all, are you sure the nursery is part of the free early education entitlement scheme?

If so, how many hours are they allowing you to claim?

...and hello

Some nurseries here allow to to only claim 2 morning sessions (3hrs each) maximum, and the rest of the hours (9hrs) must be taken in the afternoon.

And I've also come across others that only take 12 hours a week off your bill. That is because the EYFS funding is only term-time whilst the nursery only offers full-time contracts and so they "spread" the hours across the year.

and sometimes they just don't have the sessions to spare, so can't exceed their maximums. i've known nurseries run a waiting list for additional sessions.
3 mornings and 3 afternoons covers 15 hours though, doesn't it? even at opne we went to which was a 2.5 hour session each time, then 6 sessions is 15 hours?

Complain to the local early education unit at your local council, it varies by region but here they are very keen to hear of settings who are not allowing parents to use their entitlement.

Agree with 5. What TeamLemon describes would seem to break LEA rules so I would complain!!

Really? It seems quite normal here.
I've been looking for 2 nursery care for DS2, 8am -5pm. But I've been told I can only claim for up to 12 hours (4 sessions of 3hrs), not have 15hours knocked off the bill for the 18 hours.

is that not because you can only claim a maximum of 2 sessions for 1 day i.e. 2 x 3 hrs for each of the 2 days so 12 hours in total.

The maximum you can claim is 15 hours a week but only for 38 weeks a year, so you can only have 570 hours of free entitlement each year.

If you're at a private nursery open 52 weeks a year, the '15 hours' only equates to 11 hours per week.

In Northants settings can offer either 15 hrs over 38 weeks or 11 hrs over 52 weeks. It equates to 570/2 hrs per year.

yeah my son goes to a private nursery and he has 11 hrs a week, but for the wghole year, rather than 15 hrs a week term time only

Hi all,

I am pretty new on here and have no idea how this 15 hours free childcare actually works! I don't mean to hi-jack a thread but if anyone could enlighten me at all I would be most grateful!

At the min my DD attends a day nursery for three full days and I will look to reduce her hours to three half days once Dc2 due in Dec arrives. The nursery has a "funded" price on the website - is this what I am exected to pay on top of whatever allowance the nursery get for the 15 free hours?

Thx!

hmm it's hard to know without seeing exactly what is written.
the "funded" price may be a price for full time childcare, minus the govt allowance

you'd need to talk to the nursery and see how they structure it.

Glasgow is currently cutting back on those who receive the the full 15 hours. Many many people i know do not get any of this entitlement at nurseries with their kids in private right up to starting primary school. i also know if a few families recently where whole classes / groups in the 3-5s have lost their places and they are struggling to find anywhere to take the kids.

Thanks for the replies. Our child attends 3 full days, morning and afternoon, and the nursery says we can only claim for 9 hours of free entitlement a week. It seems that they, the nursery, don't think it's fair that a child who attends 5 days a week, should get the same entitlement as a child who only attends 3 days a week, and have cut our entitlement accordingly. It's company policy. Apart from that, I have no idea why they have decided to do it that way as it seems to go against the code of practice. The amount we receive in 'rebate' from the nursery equals the exact same amount that the government give to the nursery for our child.

ps

When I say we get 9 hours a week, that is for 38 weeks of the year. They nursery then divide that by 51 weeks.

the allowance is supposed to be given in 3hr slots (this is why a lot of pre-schools only run 3 hour sessions)

some nurseries are fine with you running them back to back (ie, we are allowed to do a 6hr session, comprising (obviously) 2x 3 hr sessions)

other nurseries, quite legitimatly, will only allow you to have one session per day. which yours must be doing.

they aren't breaking any rules by doing this, in fact they don't have to offer any free hours at all afaik

You are allowed 15 hours but you can only spread them over a minimum of 2.5 days. The fact that your child does 3 days means they are entitled to their full 15 hours.

My DS2 does not get a penny. He is at a nursery that cannot offer just the 15 hours, and so cannot offer any funded places. As a result, my DS (who goes to nursery for 5 hours a morning) does not receive any funding.

like sittinginthe sun says not all settings are 'eligible providers' so aren't able to accept the gov funding.

It's really up to the provider, that's what I have been told in our area. Some nurseries can't or won't offer it, or won't offer all of the hours. Some places will get you a bigger subsidy for attending fewer hours, while another will get you a smaller subsidy while attending for more hours! The council says if you are not happy with that, find another nursery/school/childminder who will get you a bigger subsidy.
OP, it's worth asking them if you would get more if your child attended 5 days a week instead of 3. But if you can't afford to send your DC 5 days a week, that's that, unfortunately.

hartey:
www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Preschooldevelopmentandlearning/NurseriesPlaygroupsReceptionClasses/DG_10016103

Have you asked them if they will do the 15 hours over 5 mornings instead? I know some won't do back to back, some will only do a proportion of the week so if you have 1 full day they will only do 3hours or even less in some london boroughs - I think its because they don't have to do it and the differing costs of childcare (out of London our nursery is the same for a day as a friends morning session in London - which is also the same price as a nanny day rate ) and she only gets 1 hours paid out of 1 full day.

I have the same problem at the moment, I'm desperately trying to get both my sons into a nursery in my area and every single one I have spoken to either has no places available or says 'we don't do soley funded places, you have to pay for a full time place and get 15 hours discount'.

I didn't even think they were allowed to do this?! Can they refuse you the 15 hours free?

Hello. Thanks for all your comments.

The nursery in question capitulated, but only because they were in breach of contract. They had not notified parents correctly of the decision not to offer 15 hours free entitlement, and have offered compensation.