Pre school and extra hours

[DinkyDo]

Hi
My son is currently doing 9 hours at pre school and we want to up this to 12.5 to take up his entitled allocation. When we approached our pre school to ask what hours are available they told us the only hours available would be offered to those who were happy to pay for them! Apparently our son can not have anymore hours until September now. We have been told the pre school would be unable to claim the money back from the Government if our son was to up his hours in any term before September. Is this true? It seems a little unfair that we have to wait until September. We cant afford to pay for anymore hours so we are at a disadvantage to those who can. Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance.

It sounds like that could be true - if you only registered for 9 hours, than that is what will have been arranged between the preschool and council. However, there should be some provisions in place for changes, as people move around and that should be accomodated. We've just had to register for the period from next September, so it does seem there is an awful lot of bureaucracy involved for the preschools to get the cash.

If I were you I'd contact the local council to find out about it from their side. If they say you can up the hours midway through term, than preschool should do it without problems. Sorry, not much help really

Call the council
Sounds iffy to me
Usually preschools claim on a termly basis

I should know the answer to this(pre-school treasurer!) but I can't be certain, I think they can claim 1/2 termly so in theory they should be able to change the claim after Easter. Have you checked the pre-school admissions policy? This might help as I know at our pre-school we currently can't up sessions for any child until Sept, but that's because we're full. Perhaps that's the real reason? I fail to see how they can up sessions for a paying child but not a funded one! Our pre-school gets more for a funded child than a fee paying one(we are bringing the fees inline slowly)

Who did you ask at pre-school? Perhaps ask the admin person or manager again or instead(depending who you asked before)

Sounds odd

Hi
Thank you all for your responses. Ill let you know how i get on!

Although all LA's follow Govt guidlines, they do have a certain amount of autonomy (atm) on how to roll-out the Free Early Education Entitlement, that said, AFAIK, all LA's (for Private, Voluntary and Private sector settings) fund on a termly basis.
Give your LA a call and ask their advice.

In our LA no increase to funded hours is allowed half way through a term, but would definitely be allowed for the summer term (April - August) as it is a new claim. There are always exceptional circumstances which would mean the child would be funded half way through a term, but in our LA certain criteria would need to be fulfilled.

Oricella, "so it does seem there is an awful lot of bureaucracy involved for the preschools to get the cash."
I'm afraid it has to be that way. Without rules and regs it would be impossible to administer the funding successfully.