snack money in pre-schools

[raspberrytart]

My ds(3) goes to nursery and we have up to now been paying 35p per day for snacks,baking, etc.
The nursery is LEA.
A letter came home on Friday asking for parents to contribute either 20p,25p,30p,35p,and 40p a day(we are to circle which one we want to contribute.)
Any money left over is used to buy something extra.
So,do you pay snack money?
How much?
By the way, none of this money is accounted for.
I am guessing there about 22 children all paying 35p a day,this amounts to a lot of money just for biscuits.
What happens at your nursery?

We pay £1 a week for an orange segment or bit of carrot and a drink each day.

It's 'voluntary' but we are chased to pay it and its marked off.

I don't think its exactly value for money, and I'm not convinced its sufficient to get them through the afternoon.

I probably should raise it, but the school and nursery is so good and the children haven't complained. If they had, then I would.

No-one pays snack money at dd's pre-school. The only contribution is a piece of fruit once or twice a week. This is all put together, cut up and then divided between all the children.

I'm surprised they're still giving biscuits for snacks at your ds' nursery, Raspberrytart. These days there seems to be a big push towards having healthier snacks in pre-schools.

Should add that they have snacks every day, and not just once or twice a week!

DS not starting until august and this isn't the same nursery dd went to.
Ours was LEA as well we paid 50p a day compulsory and dd in all honesty got a mini lunch.
She would get a savoury item, piece of fruit and drink of water/milk (childs choice)
Snack was things like: Soup, sausages, Tuna/ham sandwiches, pizza, gosh anything and everything that you would give them for lunch.
On special occasions where there was traditional food they would get that eg Haggis etc for Burns night, chinese selections at chinese new year things like that.
Her snacks were extremely varied and I was very imperssed at the choice rarely had the same thing twice in a term either.

coppertop-think its more like breadsticks ,toast,oatcakes etc rather than biscuits.
Ohforfoxsake- because the school is good you dont mind paying £1 a week?
Is it a funded place?

Ineedacleaner-wow that does sound like a varied snack!

DD's pre-school-to-be (LEA) asks for 50p or £1 a week as a voluntary donation. It's not for snack per-se as this comes under the "free fruit" scheme, but is used for baking and other consumables.

It is not compulsory or tracked or enforced.

we send in a piece of fruit per session, they eat their own fruit and dont fight over wanting what the other children have (i dont know how they acheive this, i think its amazing)

they get free milk

We have a needed board - where needs for the preschool are listed and parents sign up to donate that term. these include flour, baking powder, salt, food colouring, biscuits, baby wipes etc.
The staff provide the daily fruit snacks or anything else - they are doing tastes from around the world this week

in the setting I work in we suggest £1 per day a week they attend per half term. So if a child attends 3 sessions a week they contribute £3 per half term. Works out around 15p a day.

Goes towards snack - milk is free. we do healthy snacks - always fruit or veg, usually choice of 2 different ones, plus one of malt loaf, crackers and cheese, flapjack, mini scone, toast.

DS1's pre school just asks for £3 a term snack money, so v cheap
they have one fruit/veg snack a day followed by a breadstick/rice cake/biscuit type snack IF they have made an attempt to try the first one.

Ours is free!

i love our pre school. It's a lovely place.

They get a little carton of milk, snack is either cereals [with or without the milk], toast, fruit or crackers.

occasional blow outs of fish and chips! They never charge and I love them. Sigh.

We have to bring in a piece of fruit per week (which is all amalagamated and shared out. On top of that they get breadsticks, rice cakes and sometimes biscuits.

Ours is free.

They get 1 fruit and milk or water twice a day.

We don't have to pay for any baking ingredients either.

I do send in a bag of apples or bananas now and again though.

we pay a top up fee of £95 a term for a full time place (5 mornings/afternoons a week)

would work out cheaper at £1 a day during term time!

We ask for a contribution of £1 per week which is used for baking ingredients and any extra is saved and used to buy those "nice" interesting things the budget just doesn't run to (just purchased nursery rhyme puppets). We keep accounts which are audited and available to anyone who wishes to look.

Thanks all for your replies.
There is lots of variation there.
mrz- are you LEA?

Yes I'm in a school FSU

In reception here it is £25 for the term.....cheaper than having them at home with me grazing all day me thinks!

Ours is free (most of the children have funded places too).

Snack is usually milk / water, slices of banana or apple, raisins, breadsticks or crackers. Occasionally it's a bit more inventive, e.g. they make their own sandwiches or they have cereal or yogurt.

At the last nursery I used though, we had to pay £2 / week for snack (which was invoiced), and because it was Montessori and there was a lot of emphasis on being child-led, they were able to go and have their snack whenever they wanted. DD never once ate snack the whole time she was there so effectively I paid £2 / week for 5 terms for absolutely nothing.

Ours provides a free snack and drink of milk or juice. Surely you can't charge for milk as all pre-schools are entitled to reclaim costs from the Nursery Milk Scheme.

We pay 20p per session, invoiced.

However, when we go over to the pathfinder scheme (15 hours funded, instead of 12.5) one of the conditions is that you don't charge top-ups of any sort.

We don't contribute anything to DD's LEA nursery and she gets 2 snacks of fruit and a drink of milk every mid morning. I know it's the same in all of the nurseries around here as we did the rounds of all of them and they all work the same - I thought there was a government grant covering for foundation stage snacks. Worth getting this checked out, at least you know where your money is going xx