Is 30 hours free childcare a fair system?

[Pastnowfuture]

I wondered people's thoughts/knowledge on this issue. A child born on 31st of August would be entitled from the following day but a child born just a couple of days later couldn't access free 30 hrs childcare until the new year. This doesnt seem fair but does it somehow even out somewhere along the line? Just interested generally.

Well a child born the following day would also have a whole extra year of childcare.

Is it fair to 31st August child that they'll have to deal with being youngest in the year? But someone has to be.

Where we live it's rolled out from 2YO. There is a system called early entitlement. So children born in autumn/winter and spring (pre-easter) terms actually can qualify for up to another 2 terms of funded child care until they go to school.

Under this scheme, my eldest was born in March and qualified for 4 terms of funded child care. My youngest was born in May and only qualified for 3. So it actually benefits the older children in the school year.

It depends if you are thinking of it as childcare or education. The school system is based on the Sept - Aug year and divided into three terms. The official rule of starting age is the term after a child turns five. Before Reception year became the norm Sept - Dec born children started in January, Jan - Easter borns after Easter and the rest in the September. So some children got 2 extra terms, some 1 extra term. However until the very early 1990s Sept - Easter borns could leave school at Easter in their final years. Rare by the 90s but at one time Easter Leavers were quite normal. So they had extra terms at the beginning, but less at the end.
Schools now however pretty much just do September starts. So all children who attend Nursery Class within a school will start the September after they are 3. A whole academic year for them all. Those who are the Sept - Easter borns will have already been 'entilted' to the free 30 hours but as the academic year wouldn't have begun those 30 hours would be in a childcare setting not an educational setting.
So I wouldn't say it's 'unfair' that some children get more 'free' hours because they all get the same education once they start school. Before that it's childcare which not all families need or want.

But an August 31st child will require less childcare/preschool education that a child born in Sept. It all evens out.

Life isn't fair

Of ourselves it’s not a fair system. Why on Earth would anyone expect it to be fair? It was never intended to be fair.

The 30 hour scheme was the result of a cynical election bidding war between the main political parties, with the sole aim of buying votes cheaply from a combination of desperate/gullible/ignorant/greedy parents.

There were numerous messages at the time from the childcare industry, warning that the scheme would be unfair and cause serious damage to childcare services. These warnings were almost universally ignored, and now we’re beginning to see the consequences.

Sorry, typo. The previous post should say: Of course it’s not a fair system.