Hi PuffofSmoke,
I manage a private Nursery in Scotland, and the standard in relation to 3+ funding is that each Nursery will be asked to hand out application forms to parents and return them.
3+ funding is available to every child and starts the term after their 3rd Birthday. However funding only granted prior to the start of a term, and so August would be the next available term for you.
We usually would aim to send out and collect back in the funding forms in June, so we can send them away, however I have been able to work a late application in right up to the beginning of August.
Like most things, although the funding is a UK wide system each council takes responsibility for run the funding and so it will vary from place to place.
Your best option is to ask you Nursery Manager for more information, we get asked about 3+ funding all the time, I am sure they will be able to help.
As your daughter has not started at the Nursery yet, just phone or email in, and they will be able to answer your question over the phone.
If you are only doing 2 days you will not be able to claim the full 15 hours of funding as there is a limit on how many hours you can claim for any given day.
Also something to think about is if you want to run the funding over term time only ie 38 weeks of the year, or if you want to spread the hours over the full 52 weeks of the year, this would mean you would have to pay more during term time, but would still get the funding paid over the holidays, this gives you a steady invoice total, which means you are not stung with higher charges during holidays.
Hope this helps,
Mark.