Nursery fees

Firstly, it’s not free, it’s funded. Secondly, the government set the rules and the funding has to start at the beginning of a term and it states literally everywhere the funding comes in to place the term AFTER they turn the eligible age, not ‘when’ they turn it.

Thank you, I understand it’s funded not free, Just don’t understand how a nursery which is open all year round has terms still!

Ours is the same, she starts nursery when she is 8 months old in October but doesn’t get funding until Jan. so for three months it’s full wack with no help. 3 days a week £1150 a month :/ with funding it’s just over £600

@Emma because the government do the funding termly, so naturally they have to follow that guideline as well otherwise they would be massively out of pocket. They’re not doing it just for fun. This is the best the help for childcare has ever been (I think). I wasn’t eligible for any financial help with my eldest until he was almost 3 so just be grateful you’re getting it from a much earlier age!

While I understand that, and I’m sorry you didn’t receive funding for your eldest nor did I! I do think my self lucky, but let’s not forget that this all a gain for our so called government to get women back to work to pay into the economy.

@Terri it is a massive struggle to go back to work just to be paying for someone else to look after your child but at the same time it is a massive benefit to there growth and learning I found this with my eldest. X

@Emma so direct your annoyance at the government. Not the nursery who are simply following the rules.

The funding hours are only eligible term time so 38weeks of the year. That’s all each family is eligible for. As a setting you can either stretch the funding to cover all the weeks you are open, choose to only offer funding in term time or not offer funding at all. The funding rates dependant on area and aren’t always great so people that’s require all year care need to make up the short fall essentially of the other 12 weeks! All my families are all year round so I prorata there fees to ensure 1- I have stable income all year and 2- they don’t go 6 weeks without a bill then get whacked with a huge bill for school holidays/half terms, the families also say it’s helps with their family budget too!

Also it’s in like with the school terms because school is essentially fully funded childcare (30 hours a week 38 weeks of the year)

My sons nursery is open all the time too. We couldn't just have term time only as no spaces left. so our funded hours is spread out over the year. Xx

Right makes sense with the stretched hours I actually haven’t been asked weather I’m doing term time only or the full year. Is that something I need to question them about or do I assume they’re doing all year round. It’s only recently opened.

@Emma I would ask about it, no harm. Then you know where you are with things. We asked for term time. Works out cheaper I suppose, but no spaces left. To be honest it's really handy having it open in the holidays xx

@Ruth thank you, I ask tomorrow as my other girl is 4 in July so might be nice to have some time with her before she goes into school. As she is term time only. :)

@Emma they won’t freely offer stretched as it requires a bit more maths (I offer funding as a childminder) not all settings offer stretched I don’t purely cos all mine are all year so it makes more sense to prorata the payments xx