How much do you pay?

[Ineedsomesleep]

Our pre-school is refusing to tell us how much it is per session, only per month.

I've worked it out to be £8.79 per 2.5 hour session. Is this about right?

Ours charges £6.98 per hour for rising 3's and £6.48 per additional hour to the free 15 hours for rising 4's. (Plus 50p snack per session). Are you including the nursery grant in your costs?

£7 per three hour session here. Includes snack which is a drink of milk and a biscuit.

No including the grant no, she won't get that until September.

Ours is £12.50 per session for rising 3's

Yeah, I was thinking £8.98 sounds a bit steep.

My problem with it is that she evens out the cost over the 11 months. DD only started after Easter, get a half term plus inset day and finishs in mid-July but she wants me to pay a full 4 months which means I'm funding other children who have been there longer.

I only queried it with her as her own figures didn't add up. She has been quite aggressive with me though I kept my cool.

Thinking of moving DD out. The pre-school is in the grounds of the school so she is with the children she will be at school with but we had problems with DS being bullied there before and now she is being so evasive and rude over the fees I'm not happy leaving DD there.

Do you mean DS was bullied at school or at the pre-school? If it's the pre-school and you are not happy with how they do things, I would probably consider moving her. It sounds like they have an odd attitude. I'm having issues with our pre-school over new session times and costs, but on the other hand I'm very happy with the care they offer.

Its a bit of both. DS was bullied at the preschool but we were lucky in that he was a very good talker and told us exactly what was going on. Other children were being bullied too but were just crying when they were being left.

I told the preschool about it several times over a couple of weeks and they only took notice once DH went in and said if he ever go hit again he was going to remove him and we'd tell everyone exactly why. Was very unhappy at the time, not only as DS was being hit but also by their attitude.

DS has been hit a couple of times at school by the same boy but we think we've got it sorted now.

DD is happy there and I think if anyone hit her they'd come worse off. Its just the fact that she won't tell me how much it is a session and was aggressive with me.

Got hit, not go hit. I've got my RSA in typing, honest guv.

Just been to pick DD up. Pre-school owner said she would give me a break down. She did but she also gave me a really snotty letter.

In the letter it says their fees are £8.37 and so I'll be paying £9.62 extra.

I think the letter is going to be the last straw, especially when DH sees it later.

Its a real shame as she seems happy there and will be with all the children who will becoem her school friends but she does see some of them every day on the school yard anyway.

Will have to have a think.

Our community pre-school is £3 per hour for fee payers and those taking additional hours.

Our local authority is very hot on pre-schools and private nurseries providing a full break down of costs, including how many hours are paid for by the local authority and what the rate for the remaining hours is. If you're unhappy with the breakdown perhaps a chat with your local early years team might be a next step?

Thanks Sofun. Its such a shame that all this has stemmed from me just questioning how they had arrived at their figures. When you go into a shop you should see the prices, so asking a pre-school how much they are charging per session should be a reasonable request surely!

Had a chat with DH when he got home and we have agreed to send her to the end of term and then move her.

TBH the teachers at the school don't send their children to the pre-school which I think says a lot.

The owner was also handing out letters stating the fees from September. DD will be entitled to 15 hours (budget permitting) but will only be attending for 12 hours. The bill is for £27 per mouth but with no explanation. I can't even be bothered to ask her.

As someone heavily involved with a Pre-School and trying to do the best we can to offer parents as much flexibility as we can in a setting with hardly any reserves, it seems to me that some Pre-Schools are just looking at ways to bend the rules to get more money using the new system as a bit of an excuse.

I have been poring over the figures doing cash flow forecasts and if a setting is full or nearly full there should be no reason why they are needing extra funds from parents unless they have huge overheads or are paying the staff an enormous amount which isn't very likely. We will be losing approx £1.40 per 3 hr session per child with not being allowed to top up from the old 2.5 hr session but I think that if you are flexible and offer more variations you will get more children wanting to do more hours.

Would be interested to hear from other Treasurers on this.. the above applies to charity parent led Pre-Schools by the way.

Happy to share experiences - am just about to start Treasurer job! Want to mail me?

Ummm The Code of Practice says

"Parents cannot be charged for any part
of the minimum free entitlement either
directly or indirectly." pg 16

and

"ensure that admission procedures and
administrative processes underpinning
the free entitlement are clear, transparent,
inclusive and equitable" pg 28

"Providers should not levy any fee in respect
of the free entitlement nor should they
charge parents fees in advance for the free
entitlement to be refunded at a later date.
Providers that normally charge fees should
reduce the fees by the amount that they
would normally charge for those sessions
if the child was not accessing a free place.
13.6 Providers can charge for additional
services. The level of such fees is a private
matter for agreement between the provider
and the parent. However, parents should
not be required or expected to take up
additional services in order to access a
free place. Parents who do choose to take
up additional services should not be
charged any more for those services than
parents of children who are not accessing
a free place. Above all, arrangements for
charging for additional services should be
clear and transparent." pg 39

SO your DD is attending 12.5 hrs out of a possible 15, yet you are being charged £27 every month for.....what? It can't be a snack, because that would be 27*12/38 = £8.52 per week.

I don't think that they are allowed to charge for snacks within a session that is funded anyway.

You need to contact the early years section of your LA - they will be very interested to know about this.

We will be charging £3.86 per hour for unfunded places.

We do not charge for funded places - thought they got rid of top ups?

We will offer 15 hours over whcihever days parents require (space permitting)and there is a minimum of 2.5 hours each day.

We are full and have a waiting list, htough afternoons aren't nearly as popular.

By the way, I write the invoices for my children's preschool. They are completely transparent.

Each half-term parents of unfunded children get an invoice which details the billing period, the number of hours unfunded provision, and the rate; the number of sessions for which a snack fee is charged, and a rate.

So an invoice might say "15 hours @ £3.60 and 6 sessions snack fee @ £0.20 - total to pay £55.20"

Is it possible to tell parents they have to do 4 or 8 hour sessions, and if it's 8 hour they can only claim the grant for 6 hours of it? Even four mornings of 4 hours leaves one extra hour to pay. There is no way to make the four hour sessions add up to 15 hours..... These are new rules at our pre-school and many parents are complaining - especially as it is £6.48 per extra hour plus 50p for snack.

No that isn't allowed, I don't think. The provision should be flexible to allow 15 hours to be taken.

But there is a restriction that the funding has to be taken over at least 3 days, so it couldn't be taken on 2 days of 8 & 7 hours, for example.

DD goes 3 full days and 1 afternoon per week, and we pay about £1500-£1600 per term, after the government allowance is made.

CantSleeoWontSleep, you know that your nursery should be taking off 15 hours of their hourly fee from your bill, not 15 hours worth of 'grant money', don't you?

They shouldn't be charging you a top-up between the money the grant covers (around £3.80) and whatever their normal fee is (say £6.50).

lou031205 - the funding can be split over 2 days, but then you get 13 hours instead of 15. If you want 15 - it can be spilt flexibly over 3 days.

At the nursery my child attends - they charge £3.85 per hour for children attending a full day who don't get free grant - and £5.00 per hour for the additional hours that those with a grant. This I as the parent reap little benefit from the free entitlement.

KT12 - in that case I suspect they are breaking 13.6 of the Code:

"13.6 Providers can charge for additional
services. The level of such fees is a private
matter for agreement between the provider
and the parent. However, parents should
not be required or expected to take up
additional services in order to access a
free place. Parents who do choose to take up additional services should not be charged any more for those services than parents of children who are not accessing a free place. Above all, arrangements for
charging for additional services should be
clear and transparent." (emphasis mine)

Yes I know that technically they can't lou, so they have had to change the way that they word things, but in the real world private nursery schools who offer an excellent service like the one my dd goes to need to charge more. Otherwise they would just have to go totally private and not claim any of the government money back, and then we'd all be losers.