4 Billion For Childcare-views

[Guest]

What is everyones view on the input to SureStart of another 4 billion until 2010? Again where does it leave the private sector?

[Guest Wolfie]

Have you got a link to an article, Sheila? Where did you hear this?

[Guest]

Wish I could add a link, but someone will!!!

DFES main website

[Guest Wolfie]

Thanks, I'll have a look!

 

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2007_0144

 

Hope that this link works...my daughter has just given me a quick lesson!

Edited August 8, 2007 by Wolfie

[Inge]

from reading that, full daycare is covered but as usual sessional not mentioned..we still have the same regs and rules but will we get the funding or help for graduatesd in every setting.. we dont at the moment...doesnt look like any change there ... will we survive if we cannot pay the wages or rates for the staff?

 

Inge

[Lou]

Interesting read. I just wish they would spend a bit more helping the exsisting providers who have been trying to provide the service for years but without the funding.

I have always felt if the government had put more funding into the local settings, we would have been able to provide more staff and been able to reach a lot more families. They could have set up central centres that had the outreach workers and other professionals sited and they could have been used by more that the one setting.

Some settings can not compete with the services the centres can provide.

 

I wonder if it means the transformation fund will continue? That has been a great help with paying for training. It would be nice if they extended it the include level 2.

[Guest]

hmmm, £175 million for the PVI sector ( which I hope Inge includes sessional providers) is a very small percentage of £4 billion.

 

I wonder how the extended schools scheme will work this time with it's fund input of £68 million, it failed when first introduced back in 1998.

 

I personally as a small private provider, with a sure start centre within 5 miles on both sides of my setting, will I believe be unable to sustain my business for much longer.

I am in the process of claiming for sustainability grant but I think this will only be a short term solution, in the long term I cannot compete. It will be interesting to see how many of these centres are sustainable once they have to fund themselves. Not their fault but the fault of a government policy that seems to start things off but never appears to consider impact on others or on the long term ie in decades to come.

 

 

Peggy

[Guest]

hmmm, £175 million for the PVI sector ( which I hope Inge includes sessional providers) is a very small percentage of £4 billion.

 

I wonder how the extended schools scheme will work this time with it's fund input of £68 million, it failed when first introduced back in 1998.

 

I personally as a small private provider, with a sure start centre within 5 miles on both sides of my setting, will I believe be unable to sustain my business for much longer.

I am in the process of claiming for sustainability grant but I think this will only be a short term solution, in the long term I cannot compete. It will be interesting to see how many of these centres are sustainable once they have to fund themselves. Not their fault but the fault of a government policy that seems to start things off but never appears to consider impact on others or on the long term ie in decades to come.

Peggy

[Guest]

The NEG is a real bone of contention for me at the moment. I am also the owner of a small setting and wonder how many nurseries in my area are going to be affected by the government's stance on top-up fees. Essex CC have told me that as long as I offer one free place I can set my fees to how ever much I like, so in effect I could charge for a session which, less the funding, would amount to the same figure that I charge non-funded children. I know that this is not allowedin some other counties and if the government get tough with ECC and forces them to change their policy then I stand to lose a lot of money each term. I have got my MP involved and have sent her as well as the PSLA & Montessori Schools Association petitions from parents and several letters arguing the cause for PVI providers. Is anyone else actively involved in campaigning against the Code of Practice/top up fees issue? I have only heard about Kent and Oxfordshire objecting to it. I feel I am on my own here in Essex.

 

By the way, on a positive note I have now achieved EYP status. However, I ask myself "what for?" if my nursery is in danger of having to close because of a ridiculous government policy.

 

Debbie

[Lou]

Hi Debbie, i'm in Essex but not heard of any campaigning yet. The top up fees are not an issue for us but i would support the right of a setting to be able to sustain it's service.

 

Peggy I hope you get the funding. It's sad to think that smaller settings are having to even think about getting a sustainablility grant. The trouble is if these centres are making smaller settings fold how is this helping the community? I can't see how they could cope with the extra families.

 

The other problem is how the centres are viewed by other childcare professionals. I have been with people on courses and if they know someone is from a centre the attitude towards them changes. I dont advocate this at all.

The centre that is local to me sent out flyers for us to give out to our parents for an open day they were holding. Do you not feel that is a little below the belt?

At the moment both my settings are alright but you never know whats being built round the corner.

[Guest Wolfie]

How does the attitude change, Lou? I'm a QTS attached to a Children's Centre, but understand and completely sympathise with what everybody on this thread is saying as before that I ran my own nursery and came up against all the issues that you and others describe! I'm just interested to know what sort of attitude othe people have towards centre staff?

[Lou]

Hi Wolfie

It's as if they no longer are interested in listening to their views. At the last course I was on the person I sat next to was talking about fitting the extended hours in and the person opposite mentioned she was fortunate not to have to worry about that now (worked in a children's centre.) The person next to me got snotty (if you understand what i mean by that) and said it's alright for some. This wasn't done in a joking way and it made me feel very uncomfortable. Then a few of the people in the room started to talk about how the centres were taking children from them. That poor girl and i do mean a girl didn't know what to say. Now I can not believe that they set out to make her feel like that but this is what happens sometimes people get angry at the situation. I just dont want to see a them and us divide.

[Guest Wolfie]

It's so disappointing and sad, isn't it?

 

I remember way back when I first read about the initial concept of children's centres thinking what an excellent idea it was, it made so much sense and would make inter-agency working and partnership so much easier. Unfortunatley, there has been such a gap between theory and effective practice; I really don't think that those initial sound ideas and principles have been developed and thought through properly at all - from central government downwards! The impact on existing providers - who, as you say, were already meeting the childcare and other needs of families in their local community - hasn't been considered effectively and therefore sustainability problems, for both the existing providers AND the daycare facilities in the centres, are becoming more and more frequent. And this has all led to ill feeling and mistrust amongst staff in the various pre-school settings - which I can understand! But I also feel for the girl at your training - at the end of the day, she too is a professional, working to provide high standards of care and education for the children at her setting, and she shouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable as a result of intiaitives and decisions made by other people!

 

I don't know what the answer is, it's just so frustrating when the underlying principles behind children's centres are so good!

[Lou]

Wofie totally agree with you. I felt that if she wanted to contribute she would have been shot down. If i could have taken her away from it I would. The best I could do was sit and talk to her about something different.

The trouble is i do agree with what they were saying (I didn't join in) and i'm not sure they were blaming her for all the govenments doings but i'm sure thats how she felt.

[HappyMaz]

from reading that, full daycare is covered but as usual sessional not mentioned..we still have the same regs and rules but will we get the funding or help for graduatesd in every setting.. we dont at the moment...doesnt look like any change there ... will we survive if we cannot pay the wages or rates for the staff?

 

Inge

Nursery World says today that the Transformation Fund (which I'm gobsmacked to see was 'severely underspent' in 2006/7) is being replaced by the Graduate Leader fund. I gather from a quote from the NDDA that its £175 million.

 

Maz

[Guest]

Debbie

Seeing your note about what your LEA says, did you realise it is not up to them. It is main government that dictates the top up fee issue and they state that from last year (I think it was) that top up fees on the 2and half hours cannot be charged. you can charge what you like for the other part of your session but you cannot tell a parent that they have to have more than the 2and half hours if thats all they want.

Say if your session is 9am to 12pm and your parent only wants 9.30 to 12.00 you cannot make them have any more.

We have had great debates on it in our Borough because we are a local small LEA and it has divided the child care community in that the nurseries are completely against it and the pre-schools are not quite so against it.

We have had Dfes representatives down to speak to us and everthing, but as we have been told the law states.........!!!!!!

Our Borough has told us that if we don't comply we risk having the NEG (Standard School Fund as it is now) being withdrawn.

Meeting I went to on Tuesday we have now split into separate Networks and each will send a representative to sit on the School Forum so that we can have a more equal say on how much the grant money will be per child, because at the moment it is decided by more head teachers and governors than pre-school/nursery representatives.

We wait to see where we go from here

Good luck in your area.

[Guest]

Just to add I have 3 children's centres within 3 mile radius of my setting they are all being placed attached to 2 neighbourhood existing nurseries and 1 maintained nursery at a local school. they have not been a problem as they already had children at them and have not extended. our other 3 are just outreach centres for information etc and not with nurseries.

We had so many arguements about them before they started that I don't think our LEA wanted to do anything else to rock the boat.

[Guest]

In my borough there are 8 CC's being developed - but only one of these, the one I work at has to offer full core services i.e. full day care and mine is really small - only 17 children in total. Most of the work we do is outreach or services from the centre antenatal, HV, ESOL etc I personally think that they are a good thing but I also know that some are in areas where there are already childcare places. Sustainabilty is a really big issue for us too. Low fees and high (well not high but the right amount for staff) wages will become an issue.

I think that the day care of cc's should only be a small element of what they provide - these huge centres with large day care centres are perhaps not always in the best interests of the children and families they serve. Certainly, very large private day nurseries came in for a certain amount of criticism not least for the fact of what they were charging. Generally, I think there ought to be a limit on the amount of children you can have on one site - this would make the service more personal and community based.

Yes, I am sure as a CC we will get more money - I do know that we will be funded for an outreach worker next year which will be great.

The way I saw it was that it was only a few years ago the private sector became quite greedy, nurseries were selling for huge amounts of money as there was so much money to be made from them - I know the situation has changed drastically since then and maybe has gone the other way too far. But there needs to be a happy medium.

I do think it grossly unfair that sessional groups are somewhat overlooked in all of this but I think its because they probably have the most qualified and dedicated of people already working there - I am sure I read that the qualifications of people in sessional settings are much higher/more than in other settings. I do believe it will probably come full circle at some stage. Sessional settings are not treated fairly and I for one would much rather my child attend a sessional setting than have a part place in a full day care setting. This does seem to be missing the powers that be though.

As for people getting upset with each other - actually, it is all wrong - we wolud not accept our children in nursery behaving that way so we should not accept it in adults.

For me the day care is only a small element of what a CC is all about - its all the other things that we have to provide to make a children's centre.

Will there ever be a level playing field - I don't know - probably not but then education has never been on a level playing field either - people have the right to choice but there should be a starting position for that.

Nikki

[HappyMaz]

As for people getting upset with each other - actually, it is all wrong - we wolud not accept our children in nursery behaving that way so we should not accept it in adults.

I must admit when I was reading all about it that I wondered what the course leader was doing in letting all this get so personal - if someone not involved felt uncomfortable, what must the poor girl have felt like? Well done Lou for showing her some basic kindness: she must have felt very friendless indeed..

 

Maz

[Lou]

To be honest Maz it was during the tea break so I dont think the course leader was fully aware of what was happening. They all knew this young girl worked in a centre.

Most people know the difference between right and wrong behaviour but some people do not think they are behaving badly.

I just hope this young girl will continue to attend training courses and not be put off.

[Guest]

What is everyones view on the input to SureStart of another 4 billion until 2010? Again where does it leave the private sector?

it leaves the private sector in the same position as the rest of us free training to better ones staff and nursery, cant be bad

[Marion]

The current bill for Sure Start is around £21 billion and I really have to disagree with church about the training offered.

Jay Belsky , the man brought in to assess the Government's Sure Start family centres scheme, claims those children who spend time in centre-based care from a very young age are particularly at risk.

"Professor Belsky and his team on the £20million evaluation project have published no major reports in two years - not since they showed that Sure Start was doing more harm than good for the worst off children."

[Guest BevPiper]

I am the owner of a Full Daycare Setting (private) and am really confused about our funding. I have been told that we are currenlty receiving £3.40 per hour for our funded sessions and therefore am not allowed to charge more than this for the remainder of the hours in our 10 hour day. I do not understand how the authorities can dictate to me how much it costs to run my business. In a day nursery I do not accept that we are funded as we receive the funding and pass it directly back to the parent by way of a credit on their account. Our fees are whatever they are set at for either morning, afternoon or full day sessions and remain the same regardless of the funding as the funding is passed back to the parent. I understand that the funding received by both playgroups etc and schools is kept by those settings and the funding is used to fund wages, resources etc and in some cases benefits the setting as fees paid by non funded children are often lowere than the NEF. In the nureries case, as the funding is passed back to the parent, the nursery (or children) do not benefit at all, other than if we did not offer funded places then the parent may move to a setting which does. Am I a funded setting or have I got funded parents????????

 

Because we accept funding we are obliged to follow the Foundation Stage and soon the EYFS which my customers are not sure of as they have noticed that the standards of education within the Nursery have dropped having had siblings in the nursery prior to having to follow the current curriculum. Surely if we are funded for 2.5 hours or 3 hours then we are only obliged to carry out the curriculum during that time and as the Parents fund the remainder of the session then we should surely be allowed to provide the service that our Parents thought they were buying into. We are constantly told to work in Partnership with Parents and as the Parents are paying the majority of the fees then I feel obliged during their time to provide what they want for their children (routine and little more structure).

 

Help, I am so confused.

 

 

 

Bev