Is nursery attendance of some kind important?

[StarlightDicKenzie]

We are moving area two weeks into April into a very oversubscribed school area and dd will miss getting a place at a state nursery.

All the private ones have such conditions attached to the 15 hours of funding plus charge top ups as well as holidays that it will cost us almost £300 per month for her JUST to attend roughly 15 hours.

I'm thinking that there are better things to do with that money, which could benefit her.

Fwiw we used to live in a very deprived area and she has been attending preschool since her 2nd birthday. She is very independent and socially advanced. In some ways my heart bleeds for her not to have a peer group, especially as she is a Sept birthday, but on the other hand.....£300 when I don't need child are to bring in an income, and personally HAVE no income.

Good luck

I applied for an amazing nursery which I love for DD to start last January- she didn't get a place as we live too far away (a whole 550m ), but they rang me this week to say that they have a place for her this Easter and did I want to take it up or wait until September

So there is always hope.

Oh, great news tethersend.

Thank you Scarlett, we'll probably try that then.

Try putting your new postcode into the ofsted search for preschool childcare, and see what it throws out at you. They all need to be ofsteded and might help you spot one you missed.

dd is a sept birthday and due to start reception this sept. She has always gone to private nursery for 2d/wk since 8 months old and had been in pre school for 3 full days a week since sept. Yesterday she literally cried to go even though it wasn't her day :(

Six months ago she wouldn't have done that! So would suggest getting her where ever you can- its so hard for sept b'days as they are usually ready for school a long time before. My dd is so bored (despite me taking her places) as all her friends were summer b'days and started school last sept.

Pre schools round here don't operate on 'who came first' - everyone on list gets sent an application form on the same date and its who returns it first gets priority - seems fair as that takes care of all the late comers too- certainly no formal admission criteria!

Hi there!
Your DD is similar to mine, mine is 4 in November and will start the state primary nursery in September- where her older brother is already in Reception. I feel for you. We were lucky as when we applied for his nursery they weren't strict at all about moving (I guess it depends on how oversubscribed schools can be?), and although we hadn't moved we just put down the new address and by the time places were offered we had moved. We moved in January.

A couple of things occur to me. First is that I would definitely want my daughter doing some sort of pre-school/nursery next year. I've noticed more and more how she is interacting with her peers and also forming relationships with other adults and doing all the pre-school stuff re learning to socialise, be in groups of children/do what you're told etc etc. I completely understand re the cost though, I wouldn't want to pay that either.

So...... definitely worth applying to the state nurseries- the age thing does count, I didn't know this either, but it always came on all the stuff we had from DS's nursery sessions saying additional sessions will be given to older children first. Secondly, do you have any villages close enough near to where you are moving that have pre-schools that go up to 5, ie include the state nursery year? Would you consider driving her to one of these? When we moved DS had 2 terms of pre-school left and I couldn't get him in any local ones that I liked. I was also not going to pay loads of money. I did get him into a village one, 5 minutes drive away that was great as had older ones as the village school only started at Reception.

Sorry so long! Hope you find her somewhere good. Worth looking at children's centre information/council etc etc and phoning up places. Good luck!

Thanks Tggr. It is worse than I thought. Nurseries around here are mostly insisting on full days of 10 hours and charging close to £500 per month for 2days a week and that even after deducting the funding. What is worse is that they only have a handful (if that) of children my dd's age.

I'm going to try my luck with the state, send them our tenancy agreement and also Ds' statement to try and make a social/medical case. I.e she needs to be with typically developing peers. It's true that she knows more about our solar system than Brian Cox himself as a result of hanging out with ASD Ds.

Starlight - if a nursery is offering the 15 hours funded places, then they are not allowed to insist on additional hours or top ups. Pleased phone the early years team at your local authority. If it's a private provider, then ask to speak to whoever supports PVI settings and let them know what the nursery is doing. It goes against the conditions of them being able to claim the funding.

Certainly investigate if Littlefish is correct, but if there aren't many children your DD's age (all in the school nurseries I guess!) then you probably wouldn't vote that your best option anyway. My DD is in a day nursery at the moment 3 days (school days) a week and whilst she is thriving there I wouldn't want her there next year for the same reason.

Hope you get some joy with the tenancy agreement etc. If you apply to several state nurseries I would really hope you get something- maybe cast your net wider than you would if moving wasn't an issue. Reception is a whole new application so don't worry about that. You only need one place- are all the local schools oversubscribed?- get a list of any possibles eg within 5 miles and phone them up re places/rough idea if the information isn't on the internet. Sorry, too bossy- you've probably done this already . Good luck!

I'm definitely correct - I was in a meeting with my local authority to discuss it this week!

If you have an address to go to that you can prove with documentation, then they should accept your application. I'd wait and see. If you are moving area, there is a lot for you and her to get used to anyway and it will be quite an adventure to do it together. 22 nursery places is an odd number - are they limited by the size of the space or something?

I dunno. She'll cope with the move though. It will be her 4th address in a year and 4th placement.

StarlightDickenzie

My DDs did go to nursery because both DH and I were working full-time at the time so had little choice. The benefit really is about socialising them. The down side is that as a parent you miss out a lot of time with them, which is very hard.

So how can you help with socialising if you don't send a child to nursery?

Simple - go to play groups, join a music with mommy group, join a reading group at the local library, etc...

Start scheduling a couple of events a week and then between your one on one attention at home, play dates with friends and going to groups + her personality as you describe it, she'll probably be fine.

HTH

FWIW, I think there are many things you can do for/with a toddler if you are a sahm on a low income. However, although I personally have never used childcare I think that the pre school year needs to be spent with a peer group in preparation for school. My ds1 never went to pre school because we didn't have access to one. He took longer to adjust to school which I feel was a combination of no pre school and being an August baby. My other kids went to pre school and were fine.