Hi

I'm probably looking at this wrong, but I have just received my funding for Autums term, everything adds up which is great!!
BUT - this for us is a 14 week term, we then have a 12 week term, then a 13 week term. Now my maths isn't great but this adds up to 39 weeks!! Our funding is for 38 weeks!!

Where am I going wrong!!

Any help PLEASE!!

Do I need to finish a week earlier in the summer, or should I have an extra week off in February? Or am I just being stupid here?!!

Kristina

I think this sort of thing needs carefully watching, I suspect there are terms starting mid week or ending mid week, but when days are added together etc..... If you know it is 39 weeks, and you are going to open for that amount of time to stay in line with local schools, you either charge for the extra time you are open over 38 weeks or, finish the week before schools, or start later!

This happened to us a few years ago. The school we are sited on are open 39 weeks of the year and have 5 teacher training days per year so we run in conjunction with them and shut on their teacher training days making it 38 weeks. We then also shut 3 separate days for our training days too.

Hi Shiny

This may sound stupid (yet again!!) but the teacher training days are split over the whole year, so when you file your headcount do you just deduct 1 week from any of your terms to take these into account?

Think that makes sense!!

Kris

I keep getting caught out like this - not being good at maths makes it difficult for me to count to 38!

One thing I used to get confused about is the fact that the funding runs across the financial year and not the educational year. If this is the case with your LA, it might be worth checking again - I'm sure that I've counted 39 weeks from September to July, but only 38 from April to March!

Maz

This is getting more confusing by the minute, especially as I have 2 year olds who pay fees!! Think I'm going to have to sit back down with the calendar (and a bottle of wine!!)

Kris

Yes we're in Essex to and this has caught us a couple of times financia; vs academic year.

last time we just asked what the parents wanted and abouts 95% of parents opted to pay the extra.

xx

So just another quick question, now I know we are funded on the financial year and not the academic year, we only opened in September (new setting). So If I am looking at this right my headcount weeks will be 14 for the Autumn term and then 12 for the Spring term, then it all starts from the begining again for the summer term (that bottle of wine's really not helping!!), so I am only funded for two terms this year as wasn't open before September?!

Is this right?

Kristina

Certainly in my LA that would be right kristina. It would be much easier if financial things could follow the school year or vice versa wouldn't it?!

I know what you mean, but then wouldn't that play a bit of havoc with your tax year and accounting records?

Ah we moved our end of financial year to end of August to solve that problem. Of course we would probably have to convince the rest of the country to move to then too....

My year end is also end of August!!

Kris

All LA's financial budgets would run from April - April, it is a bit of a pain as you need to keep track of 2 different calenders. There is a difference in the amount of sessions we are open for between our financal and academic years. Our finaciql year end in April but really we could do with it being end of August.

we are on a school site and follow the same dates as the school. so our 39 weeks we are open includes 5 closure days when the school is closed for inset. this then makes 38 weeks. i just claim whatever the maximum weeks is each term e.g. 14 this autumn, 11 for the spring 2010 then it will be 13 for the summer term 2010.

didnt know we could also have extra closures for our own inset though - is that true? i hope so...

I think it will largely depend on how your LA operates the funding, anju. Ours funds part-weeks as if we were open all week, so we have an inset day at the beginning of each term and a tidy up day at the end of term, so although we are only actually open for four days, we receive five days' funding.

Maz

And we don't get any closure days paid for no matter what the reason. I am planning to ask for some in line with schools as part of the SFF discussions.

After all of this (working out my dates by financial year) have just received my new training brochure and Essex news and the LA have decided to go back to an academic year and not financial, so now it's 14 weeks autumn term, 12 weeks spring and 12 weeks summer!!
Have to sit back down with that calendar again!!

Kris

Don't forget the bottle of wine!

That really didn't help last time!!

Thanks for the tip about the training brochure will contact the person who gets us to look out for it. Always missing out on the training.
smiles