DD, private day nursery and SEN funding.

[Needingsomeadvice]

DD has had her name down over a year for the (very good but private) day nursery that DS attended. She was due to begin in January and use her 15 hours Education funded place. DS had . 3 sessions of 5 hours and paid during the holidays so I could keep the place.
Fast forward to now. DD has ASD. No problem say the early years team (where DD was assessed)...we will provide support and training, apply for highest level funding for DD. Nursery now concerned they can't afford DD as funding not enough. There will be a meeting next week with all of us to discuss DD. The possibility they won't take DD is being discussed.
I no longer work right now, but this will be very last minute. One option may be offering fewer hours to DD.
I suppose I am concerned that DD may not have her needs met. Also if they do say no what happens with the funding? Can we give it to another nursery?
Don't want to out myself too much so sorry for lack of details. Any advice/ experience? DD does talk but is not clear. She is quite aware but cannot really hold a conversation. How much support does your child receive?

By the way, it is likely she will gain a place in school nursery in September but they only have a September intake.

Dd2 quite happily had 1-1 funding from the LEA in two successive private day nurseries. She has cp and was not verbal or mobile.

I would wait and see what the outcome re the nursery is before you panic (and ask the area inco to liaise with the nursery directly).

The fact that they are a private nursery is usually something of a red herring in nursery terms, as they are still ofsted inspected and can utilize all of the facilities via the LA. They may just not know this if it is the first time they have had an sn child.

Ours had not a clue when we started, but it was all fine.

They really don't have a leg to stand on if she is going for 15 hours, and has 15 hours of 1-1 funding. Fwiw, we had to pay for hols etc as well, as obviously nursery don't get the funding for this period from the LA. There is sometimes an additional early years pot in the LA that can be accessed.

The second nursery asked us to put dd2 in full time as it was easier for their staff scheduling and they could employ a ft 1-1 for her, instead of trying to juggle an additional ,ember of staff for only certain sessions.

Sorry to say this needing but in my LA we just cannot access funding for pre school children.

I am currently trying to get some for 2 Dc's on EYA+ in the setting I work in. It is proving very difficult

We will not turn these children away as we are a community non profit making setting but IO have heard of private settings not taking DC's with SN's and even one case where a child's place was suddenly unavailable
We are very lucky to have high staff ratio's so we can give one to one as much as possible but this can have implications.

Sorry, I really hope you have a better experience.

Thanks for replies. I know that the nursery attached to the children's centre would have her but it is an hour's walk away, no bus and I don't drive. For 3 hour sessions it would probably unworkable .
So what happens if we are refused? Another idea is for her to do 2 mornings rather than 3.

With the second option of children centre DS2 received transport, this place was through the LEA and needed ed psych referral but could be an available for you.

I think it would be worth phoning your Children's centre and just ask the question. They are the best people to help with funding.

I was approached by our Children's centre manager to apply for short breaks for carers funding as we would be in a position to take a preschool child with SN's during our normal session times and be able to provide one to one with the funding.

Sadly we are currently full, so it is not an option for this year but next year we might be able to look at keeping one or two spaces open.

It really shouldn't be an issue. My dd attended a private nursery and they managed to et some additional funding from local auth and some from their own funds to support dd. I think that unless they are v small, it may be a case of whether they want to have her or not. If this is the case then obviously you might want to reconsider sending her there?

another for whom it is not a problem. My DS is 2 and a half and the nursery have had 1-to 1 funding for him since he was just over 1. It goes up and down about how much he gets, at the moment its 25 hours from the early years budget. At the moment that works for us. It takes a bit of form filling and a few meetings a year I could do without, but if tha's how to get the money that's how to get the money. We also got money for adaptations (he has CP and can't walk/stand so they put rails and ramps in here and there).

However the nursery did have to learn about all this themselves, as they had had some SEN but nothing like DS before. They were also very keen to adapt. I suspect he costs them a bit more than they get for him, but they get extra staff and in fact training for their staff by DS physios and OT and so they see it as win win. The staff also love DS and clearly find him rewarding as they know how much effort everything takes. If they didn't have that attitude or were trying not to have him because of money it would make me question whether it was the right place for ds.

Generally, I try not to deal with problems until they exist. I willfully ignore them until they materialize. There are a gazillion things to worry about, without starting to worry about stuff that hasn't happened and may not.

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