Awarded only 80% funding

[MooMummyMoo]

I am so angry and upset. My DD is due to start the local mainstream pre-school in January - she'll be 2.

I was so looking forward to it as she loves spending time with other children and I think it would help bring her on a bit too. And it was important to me that she gets to know children in the village, or more importantly they get to know her.

But I have just found out they have only allocated her 80% funding for a one to one. My DD cannot sit unaided, she cannot talk, can't feed herself etc etc. My 10 month old DD is already ahead developmentally.
I mean what on earth is she meant to do for the other 20% of the time??? What exactly do they expect?? That she'll just get put in the corner for 20% of the morning?!

I am just so disappointed. 80% may as well be 0% as I don't see how she can go without someone there to help her at all times.

I am not sure there is any point to this post, I just needed to get it off my chest.

MooMummyMoo

:(

How many hours is she meant to go to pre-school for? So how long is 20% of it?

it isn't right, but you will probably find the staff will still give her one to one anyway.

Who has awarded this, is she statemented or is this a preschool panel thing, can you appeal? Maybe the preschool is expected to fund the other 20% themselves otherwise that seems rather mean.

I think it's quite common that the LEA fund a certain percentage and the school have to pay the rest, it's definitely been the case for quite a few families locally. Have you spoken to the school?

hi not sure if it's same with pre-schools but just got funding for special needs residential college for my dd and we had to get three way funding.....lea funded 80% social services funded 10% and health funded 10%....just wondered if your dd's place would be the same? could be worth a few phonecalls.

She is supposed to be going for 2 mornings of 3 hours. To start with anyway. She isn't yet statemented, this was the pre-school panel I think. We were planning to start statementing in Jan next year or so.

It doesn't seem fair that the school should have to pay the extra, although there is no way we could afford to. It just makes me so angry.

The panel meet once a month so we can put in an appeal for next month. Apparently only 2 children got 100% funding this month, everyone else was 80%. Just seems like a figure plucked out of the air though to me. I mean, which bit of my DD's time at pre-school do they really think she doesn't need help with? I just can't figure out what they have decided she can do from what we put on the forms.

And the really great thing is...the funding anyway is only until the end of the financial year. So we get to start the whole process again in March/April next year...oh joy!

I'd be starting the statement process now rather than in January as statements can take six months (minimum) to set up.

You can apply yourself; you do not need anyone's permission to do this.

Go and ask your local councillor 'for advice' bringing both children with you

Have you spoken to the pre-school?

Certainly when I was chair of our local one we would have made up the funding difference so your dd got full 1-2-1.

We did some fund raising and a portion always went on this type of thing or children who staff felt needed 1-2-1 but LEA didn't.

I'd agree with attila, applying for the statement now might be your best option. Do speak to the preschool, they may be able to help with appeal.