State funded full time nursery criteria? Please help, getting nowhere with this

[FoxyLoxie]

Ds's birthday is 28th sept, and he'll be four this year. His other friends who are also four start reception this coming sept, but obv he won't.
Our local nursery do full time state funded places....but on a certain criteria and chosen by the head teacher. (It's a school nursery) .
Only problem is when I rang to ask more questions the office staff wouldn't tell me the criteria!! Are these places only for certain children? Can anyone help me?
Thankyou in advance

The criteria is mainly age surely? In our area all get 15 hours and you can pay to make it FT. ( 9-3 or 8-6 etc) The fully funded 9-3 places may be for certain postcodes based on 'deprivation' levels? Last year lots of people I know who are all comfortably off got more free hours than me because of where they lived. May be linked to income also?

If it's a state funded nursery school (rather than day-care nursery) then you should be offered 15 hours of free education - ours runs 9-12, 5 morning a week.

If they offer full-time you would obviously have to pay for the other hours. I'm not sure why they haven't been able to give you their criteria - they might just mean their admissions policy if it is linked to a school and part of their foundation stage. Either way they should have a written policy that they can give you.

As your DS is already 3 he has been entitled to 15 hours free since January of this year - maybe not in that nursery if they don't have space at the minute but certainly somewhere else.

It might depend where in the country you are. In my borough in London all council run stand alone nurseries (not attached to schools) offer 9.30-3, but some attached to primary schools offer the standard 15 hrs

In the nursery where I work, every child is eligible for their 15 hours from the term after they are 3. In addition, if we have spaces, anyone is able to access additional sessions (up to 15 additional hours) either by paying for them, or provided free of charge, funded by the school, if the child is eligible for free school meals.

Either way, we are completely open with parents about the different ways of access sessions.

Any sessions above the 15 hours will be coming out of the school's budget and therefore, the allocation of those hours will be according to criteria devised by the school. I would be surprised if there was not a link to free school meals or SEN.

Where I work, the dc offered a Full time place are those dc who are in social need, or with SEN/Ds where it is felt the parents need more support. It's not the HTs that set the criteria, it's the Local authority funding panel.