UNFAIR FREE ENTITLEMENT TO EARLY EDUCATION FOR 3 YEARS OLD BORN AFTER APRIL

[moemazen]

My daughter is turning 3 on the 4th April and some of her peers will receive the free entitlement from April as they were born before the 31st March, which is 4 days difference.

It does not seem fair that my daughter gets the entitlement from September, 6 MONTHS LESS than someone born only 4 days apart???

Have I missed something? Have I not understood the policy?

When I called Barnet council they said that that is the way it is and they were just following a policy created by Ed Balls and I should contact him to complain.

It just infuriates me that I cannot appeal to Barnet council and have to send an email to Ed Balls ([email protected]) who may not even read it, it seems that he created the policy. I will contact him but wanted to check if other parents also feel the same way.

Is anyone else on the same situation?

I was calculating how much this would cost our family and it turns out it is nearly £1000 for the 6 months we would miss out as my girl goes to nursery full time, outrageous!

The nursery my child goes to has been very helpful and they said the Early Years team at Barnet have not been very helpful, I felt like the lady was just giving me a COMPUTER SAYS NO kind of answer.

[LIZS]

If you continue to use a private preschool and delay the reception start or enrol at a private school you may still be able to claim until your child turns 5. It is worth c£600 a term max.not £1000 and is only 13 weeks' worth. If you think like this now I'm afraid you will find your dc's childhood tough going though.

[Bumpsadaisie]

There has to be some system.

My daughter only got a year's worth free - June birthday so she got from September to September (then started school). That's three terms.

My son (October birthday) will get five free terms before he starts school.

Hey ho.

[GossamerHailfilter]

Free childcare places are supposed to be for the benefit of the child, not so parents can claim free childcare.

[JodieGarberJacob]

Blimey 10 years ago if you wanted ANY pre-school provision you paid for it! Now people are saying they want 2 years free? Yikes

[Madasabox]

My DC was born on 1st September and despite the fact that the regulations actually say children get their 15 free hours from the term after their 3rd birthday and the term does not start until earliest 3rd September, they still say that we cannot have the 15 hours free until January. Now that is unfair!

[Mandy21]

I think you're over-reacting to be honest.

You are missing out on a term's money. You are not entitled to any funding in the school holidays (no-one is), the funding is for 37 or 38 weeks of the year divided into 3 terms (although the September term is always the longest). I think you'd probably get funding for 12 weeks or so for the summer term.

You're entitled to 15 free hours - for 12 weeks. So unless Barnet pays 5.55 per hour (for those 15 hours) which I think is massively overstated, you can't be "losing" 1000??

Its a cut-off point like everything else. School entrance is based on birth date, ability to drive, drink, collect a pension etc is based on a birth date.

[GossamerHailfilter]

And it wont be £1000, or for the full term. Our LA pays for 36 weeks of the year.

[littlebluedog12]

But there has to be a cut off somewhere.... and the whole point of the policy isn't to save money for parents who are already using childcare anyway, it's to ensure that children get access to early years education. No different to school- that isn't free childcare either.

[givemeaclue]

What is the proposal you are suggesting as an alternative, I can't tell

[givemeaclue]

Op your dd will get 3 terms, September term, January term, summer term. So if your proposal is to give everyone 3 terms, you are already getting that

[TheScience]

I agree with the OP that it would be fairer if all children had the same access to pre-school education, rather than older children getting more.

[moemazen]

I know Ed Balls is opposition guys, believe it or not the Barnet council suggested I should contact him. What is he going to do about it? nothing i am sure.

I am not talking about the government changing the policy for me. Thank you for the suggestion to write to the queen, although I find this kind of comments so unnecessary.

Just wanted to hear other parent's views. I also don't think the policy is only unfair on me, surely other parents feel the burden.

[Mothergothel99]

I rarther pay for a year of nursery than ave an August born child. You win one you lose it's just how it is.

[Mothergothel99]

Stupid I pad
Have
Some.

[givemeaclue]

I think the council were having you on op.

Can you share a draft of your letter to Ed?

[Mandy21]

OP as other posters have said, you win on some aspects, you lose on others.

As a sweeping generalisation, if everyone took the same amount of maternity leave (say a year, and they put their child in nursery at 1 year old), you will have had to have paid nursery fees for 3 full years and 1 term by the time your daughter starts school.

In contrast, a parent who had their child in September will have to to have paid for 3 full years and 2 terms.

They've paid more nursery fees than you just on account of the rule that children start school in the September following their 4th birthday.

Its all relative...........

[noblegiraffe]

At least in a nursery your free hours will actually reduce your childcare bill. My DS was at a childminder who charged for the hours he was at pre-school (entirely reasonably) so my childcare bill didn't reduce at all.

[MrJollyLivesNextDoor]

I know Ed Balls is opposition guys, believe it or not the Barnet council suggested I should contact him. What is he going to do about it? nothing i am sure

If you know he is in opposition why are you writing to him?

What do you think he can do about it?

More importantly, what would you like done? Do you have an alternative proposal?

[kilmuir]

Thats life, get over it

[moemazen]

givemeaclue, probably they just wanted to get rid of me...

[sanityawol]

I'm sorry for my comment about the Queen.

However, I used to work in Local Authorities (not Barnet) and often had to deal with people haranguing me about things that I had no discretion over and no power to change. They seemed to believe that my role was to make their life as difficult as possible.

I may be being unfair, but I would hazard a guess that you had a very long phone call that went in circles, with you refusing to accept that things were the way they were? I would put money on the person you were speaking to telling you to write to Ed Balls to get you off the phone so that they could get on with other work.

That's not to say that you shouldn't complain where there is a genuine grievance and a possibility of change.

I have hesitated over posting this in case you see it as a personal attack. If you feel it is then please report me. It really isn't intended that way though... just a view from the other side of the fence.

[NCagain]

I only got 5 months maternity leave with my DC. No free nursery until 3 and a half, and, if I went back to work part time (rather than full time) I had to go back on the lowest pay scale.

All in all I think things have improved.

There does have to be a cut off point somewhere.

OTOH, DS 2 had to start school at 4 yrs and 3 months, even though I would have preferred him to have a bit longer in nursery. No option as the system was rigid. I was a bit fed up about that.

[meditrina]

The cut off date for Easter is unfair for as long as the rubric remain "the term after the children's third birthday" for when there is a late Easter, it is possible that a chid who turned three before the end of the January term to be ineligible for finding for the summer term. And that will always rankle.

It would be better/clearer to state eligibility by the actual dates, not use 'terms' as that dis not actually always apply.

[moemazen]

sanityawol, thanks.
when i post things here i open the discussion for whatever comes, don't take it personally, although this is something that affects me personally and my family.
the call was so quick and I just wanted to check if I could do something about it. I don't understand the system very well, it is my first child.
i think everyone has the right to complain if they see something they fell is not right, I am not a moaner or a whinger as some poster suggested, I am, just as many other families, a bit on the edge with childcare.

[morethanacondiment]

I don't think I see it as unfair, OP. School starts in the Sept of the school year children turn 5, and the Government wants to ensure children are as likely as possible to access 15 hours of quality preschool education for at least a year before that. They have decided children are ready for this the term after they turn three.
If children only received it for a maximum of three terms, then parents of September - March birthdays would probably leave it till that last year to access their free childcare (because it would be odd to start them for their three terms then pull them out when the money ran out). This would mean that three year olds (who the Gov have identified as ready for informal quality education) wouldn't be accessing anything unless their parents had extra money available.
It's really not about free childcare, it's about this arbitrary age (the term after they turn three) that has been recognised as the 'right' time for children to access education, and then ensuring they access it.
There are, of course, flaws to this system, but I don't think your child's birthday being in the summer term is one of them.