Extending To 15 Hours In Maintained Nursery Classes

[catma]

Is there anyone out there who is engaged in looking at the issue of the anticipated flexible 15 hour provision in a maintained nursery class, i.e raising it from a usual current half day session of 2 1/2 hours a day= 12 and a half hours a week. Has anyone looked at how to provide the extra 2 and a half hours a week and if so how would you manage the staff hours etc within a primary school framework. This is in its infancy, my LA is in the pilot for it this year so I'm hoping people won't get alarmed and think this is something they've missed or have to do something about right now, but it will be required to be in place .(It's all in the childcare act 2006/every child matters website for info) . I'm just interested as to what thinking may be going on in other LAs as we have a bit of an impasse with our school leaders about how this could be managed.

 

Cx

[Guest]

I read somewhere that some nurserys are doing a sort of lunch club to count in the 3h.

So 9-11.30 nursery then lunch time 11.30-12.00

With afternoon children doing 12.00-12.30 lunch then 12.30-3 nursery time.

This was to enable staff to still have their hour break, I think they used TA's lunch time staff to supervise children in this time. Something like that! That still means staff have time to set up and clear away at end of session.

[Guest]

Yes I have also wondered how nurseries in the maintained settings are going to manage this. Currently the nursery where I work is offering it flexibly - some stay for morning session and lunch some come for lunch and afternoon session and some stay all day - teachers then take ther break at lunchtime and leave the ta's to monitor lunch.

I think the bigger issue is how schools will offer extended services in line with the new remit for children to remain all day from 8-6. Currently looking at how we manage this in conjunction with the children's centre offering and having to comply with the extended care provision. We are looking at before and after school care at the moment outside a 9-3 provision.

Good to hear other peoples thoughts

[Guest]

Hi

As I understand it the really big issue here is the word 'flexible'. The proposal is that a parent is entitled to use the proposed 15 hours flexibly as they wish. This is not so difficult within a daycare setting (although not without problems) but within a setting which only offers 15 hours then it raises questions about how the scheme can possibly work.

[Guest]

I have no idea how we are going to meet the requirements. We are a pre-school we offer a morning and afternoon session, one finishes at 11.45, afternoon starts at 12.15, we are in one room, we use the half an hour in the middle to set up for the pm session, parents don't want us finishing later as they have to pick older ones up from the school which is 10 minutes walk away at 3.15.

[Guest]

We are part of the pilot scheme and we are allowing parents to choose. They can carry on with 3 hour sessions every day or take their 15 hours across 2 and half days. We have took on another memeber of staff and the children who stay all day bring pack lunch. We are an FS unit so we already have LSAs covering dinner times and also allows children to access different activities throughout the unit. We have had a lot of money which has enabled us to remodellled the unit and take on new staff. I am glad we started early and set the standard rather than have to follow on without help. The more flexabilty you offer the more money you recive. Parents do not have to take it up you just need to offer flexabilty.