Please help me understand..

[Beck999]

Hi,

I am Dad to Max (currently 2), hope you can help me understand all this..

Situation:

Max will be moving to a local Child minder soon (ofsted), he will turn 3 in October 2012, and will start at pre-school in September 2013 (they only intake during September). This school is our local council infant school.

Questions:

1. When he turns 3 in October, when can we start claiming the government 15 hours 'free'?

2. When he starts school in Sep 2013, do we have to pay for the half days hes in school? Or is this free?

3. Our plan is for child minder to have him from 7:30am, she will take him to school for afternoon session (3 hours), then pick him up and have him until 6pm. Presuming the school is free, can I claim the 15 hours for the time he is with the CM?

Thanks in advance for any help clearing this all up for me. Ive read/been told different things. Some say the 3 hours at school have to be paid for (or claimed part of the 15 hours).

At the moment, the funding is available for 3 and 4 year olds and you are entitled to 15 free hours a week term time from the term after he is 3- so that will be Jan 2013

The school is 'free' because you will be using the 15 free hours for it

I would have thoght that yes, you can claim for the hours he is not at the childminder because you might find that the childminder will bill you for this anyway. as presumably she will be the named contact if he has to be collected because of illness and she has to cover her costs as she will find it difficult to fill these 15 hours a week. Also, because you will probably havre to use her in the holidyas you will need to pay to keep your place. What has the childminder said, or are you still looking?

Hi insancerre,

Actually the CM has just confirmed that she is not registered for the funding. You have just confirmed to me that the time he is at 'school' is part of the 15 hours free.

So I presume the following will be true:

We will pay the CM full costs up until Max starts school in September 2013 (they dont do january intakes). He will then do 5 days at school for 3 hours each day, this will be free as per the 15 hours gvnment. For mon/tue/wed, Max will be at the CM for the other half of the day, I will check with CM but presume usual case is they will charge for hours they have Max, so should reduce costs by a few hours for those 3 days.

Let me know if I have any of that wrong.

Thanks.

CM usually continue to charge while the child is at pre school as they can't fill a short slot like that and I expect if your child was ill at pre school your CM would be on call to pick up.

You will have to ask the childmimder what her terms and conditions are, but I expect you will still have to pay her for those hours max is at pre-school because she will find it very hard to fill those hours.
Have you considered the holidays? The childminder may not be able to have max in the holidays if she has filed his hours during term time.

As Max would not be attending school during holidays, he would be at CM for 3 full days and we would pay full cost as always.