Is this legal? Change in session times.

[Runoutofideas]

DD2's pre-school has just sent a letter regarding session times from Sept. Sessions are now 8.30-12.30 and 12.30-4.30pm or all day 8.30pm-4.30pm. They suggest a minimum of four sessions. This gives no means of accessing 15 hours for free as only 6 hours can be taken as free entitlement out of an 8 hour day. Not sure if this is their rule or general? The nearest would be 4 mornings but even then that's 16 hours.

They are charging £6.50 per extra hour plus 50p per session for snacks.

If dd did two full days of 8 hours then I'd have to pay for 2 hours per day plus £1 per day for snacks which comes to £28 and she's only had 12 hours free... Does this sound right?

(This is a pre-school not a nursery - I am a SAHM so I don't need it for childcare purposes as such and it seems like a really long day...)

They have to give you the option of accessing your 15 hours free entitlement without incurring any extra cost. Under the new entitlement from September you ahve to be able to access your 15 hours over a minimum of three days, or if you choose to access them over two days your free entitlement drops to 13 hours. A provider would have to give you the option of taking a child out of a session at a particular time which would allow you to therefore access your entitlement for free. It would be logical for a preschool to offer sessions of three hours and/or 5 hours so that they are divisable into 15 hours! Our preschool is offering sessions of 3 hours or 6 hours so that you could if you wanted access your 15 hours over 3 days as 6+6+3, or can simply choose 5 lots of 3 hours. Your preschool is not fulfilling it's obligation to give you the opportunity to access 15 hours free free. Some providers would give you the option of taking your child out earlier from a session so that you can access the free entitlement. So for example they should perhaps off the chance to pick up your child at 11.30am instead of 12.30pm so that you can access it as a 3-hour session then have 5 of them. You should talk to whoever does the session allocation (if it's a committee run preschool then perhaps talk to the Chair of the committee or the Treasurer too as they would presumably have been heavily involved in the decision of how to structure the new session times). But no, you definitely should not be shelling out nearly £30 a week just so your child can have two days and you woldn't even have used up your full entitlement! Good luck, let us know how you get on.

JellyBelly - Thanks for your reply. You've put it in a way that makes sense to me and confirms how I understood that the whole thing should work. I wanted dd to do 6+6+3 but instead I'm being told I have to do 8+8+4 to get the full 15 hours, which can't be right. Plenty of parents are complaining so fingers crossed they'll have to change something. They are sitting on a big waiting list of children though so I'm wondering if they'll be arrogant enought to think "well if this lot don't like it, they can go somewhere else...." - the problem is that the only other pre-school is completely full too!

hi there! I left a message on the other thread but I am pretty sure our LOs go to the same pre school. I have sent a letter of complaint in the way it was handled and I feel really disappointed that if we don't take the full days, they won't do the lunch which ds loves. I have asked for 4 mornings though I preferred the full 6 hour days as it gave me some good time to do things with ds2. I thought the whole idea of reaching rising 4s was that it would get cheaper! I have been trying to find information about all this and whether what they are doing is right. I wouldn't send ds to another pre school as he is really settled with friends and such and it is too late. I feel like they have us cornered!