New Starter Enquiries

[Guest]

Has anyone noticed a decline in the number of enquiries from new parents. We don't seem to be having so many new enquiries as we did this time last year.

 

Our prices are the same, good Ofsted report etc.

 

Just wondering what other PVI settings are experiencing.

 

Also, are you all going to put up your fees this year or does the thought worry you as it might scare parents off/make them leave due to affordability.

[Shiny]

We have put our fees up by 50p as we do every year. I understand that we have to remain affordable, but what with the increase of minimum wage in October and holiday pay increase in April we have to ensure these increases are covered.

 

We also stay inline with the NEG entitlement, so paying parents aren't subsidising funded children and funded children aren't subsidising paying children, if you know what I mean??!!

 

As for enquiries, we have had a waiting list for the last few months and what with the children turning 2.5 in September we are full 3 sessions a week and have a few spaces in the other 4 sessions offered. Had you asked me the same question last year I would have been in the same position as you with fewer enquiries. The ebb and flow of children!!!! Lets pray for a power cut or two!!!

[hali]

i am being inundated - our recent ofsted is geeting about and they are all on the phone wanting a place! i have had to turn down 26 new starters for Sept as i cannot accomodate and we have had to tell them to make sure their children are on other lists!

 

I have approached the church for extra sessions (hall user) but to no avail!

[Guest]

We have had lots of people registering for sessions, I have 33 children on the waiting list and more telephoning daily. I do say to parents we have no places before at least next summer but they are still registering their children. We put our fees up 6 months ago by £2 per day.

[Smiles]

We put our fees up in line with NEG. We have suddnely had an influx of people asking for places in September. Almost full - well we are registered for 24 but ususally stick to 20 considering increasing it but not sure. We take children from 2. We are also considering having another session if church will allow it.

 

smiles

[Guest MaryEMac]

Our numbers have dropped a little this year.Probably due to the fact that we took children from a nearby village because their playgroup was full. Now they have spaces the children are leaving us to go there. Also we share children with another local village group and these parents want to support both of us. We won't have enough children to open afternoon sessions until at least after christmas.

 

Mary

[laura]

Numbers are quite low in our area. We are lucky that we have 22 going to school and 27 to replace that age group. We take from two so effectively we have 3 year groups. It is the middle year group, the rising threes, that we are low with. Currently we only have one boy - my son! - and about 6 girls. Other children have their names down but with the credit crunch they are waiting until they are funded. By Christmas we will probably have more of our first year 2 year olds than the rising threes. On the plus point so many of our current parents have babies, including me! so in a couple of years our numbers should be quite healthy.

 

Locally another pre-school is losing 30 to school but only has 7 older ones to replace them, not sure about their younger ones. A day nursery has told its staff that their jobs cannot be guaranteed and another day nursery in a town nearby that has always been very busy and has been open at least 25 years is closing as they only have 10 babies. THeir local school nusery is taking them from three - before they are funded so they will get free places!

[beth1]

We are nearly full only a few spaces maybe about 10 during the week at most. I still needed to sort out the numbers to see if I can get preschool full for September. Next Year we loose about 25 children to reception class so we do need to build up the waiting list this year ready for the school leavers to be replaced.

 

 

Beth

[Guest]

We only have 8 pre-schoolers but seem to be having daily requests for places for our younger group. That said we have already had one mum on the phone insisting we had never responded to her request for a place and has so taken a place elsewhere. That is so untrue and I have the emails to prove it, but hey if it's only one so what. Last year we had one mum claim she never even applied for a place - not sure how we got her address details etc then!

[Guest]

Thanks Ladies. I have around 22 pre-school children leaving. Some of which wouldn't have been leaving but they have been offered a FULL day by local school nurseries, so who can blame parents taking up those places to save on fees!!

 

I do have plenty of new starters in Pre-School, I just feel in my area it seems to be quieter when it comes to the under 3s. Mind you, there are so many nurseries around here, with more opening up recently, that is probably a good reason.

[Guest colechin]

From September we will be offering 3 afternoon sessions along with our 5 morning sessions. We have had lots of interest.

 

We use to have mixed ages in the morning 2 to 4 yrs but from September we will just have 3's and over. Due to this age group we have been registered to take 18 children per session instead of the 16 registered.

 

We are full every morning session and every afternoon session. We could have offered 2 more afternoon sessions but feel staff need a break.

 

I have just put up the price of our sessions for the under 3's to £7.20 + £0.30 for fruit from £6.75 + £0.25 for fruit.

We still get more for the grant children £8.75 per session but feel that I couldn't charge paying parents this charge as it is a big difference.

 

Should I be charging the paying parents the same? I know that if I did we would be financially better off and be able to pay the staff a little more especially for the work they do in their own time.

 

Would like to hear other views regarding pricing sessions.

[Inge]

Last year overflowing.. this year numbers down.. all swings and roundabouts really.. we are used to it ...jsut asking for vartiation to full day.. which will give us more sessions filled even if there are no more children.. current parents want the sessions and to pay.

 

as to pricing we did a costing exercise to see how much parents would have to pay if there was no grant/funding. we felt it needed so that we could show that the funded children were not subsidising the non funded ones... actually interesting exercise.. so now we charge same as grant... at least we know the grant does not subsidise places, and staff get the extra money for training, and a bit for out of hours work..

 

Inge

[Guest]

We charge the same as the grant although rounded down to the nearest 50 pence to make calculating easier. However our grant per session is only £7.12 so your fees come in similar to ours for this year. We decided to make the two very close to prevent subsidising a thing of the past.

[lynned55]

We charge the roughly same for our non funded as the grant. However we are open for 3 hours per session and our non funded pay £9 per session (will increase to £9.25 in sept) & charge funded children £11.50 (will be 1.60) for the additional 30 minutes. our funding is £8.51 per 2.5 hours. It never ceases to amaze me how much the funding fluctuates from LA to LA - it's so unfair isnt it? All LA's get the same from CG so some of them must be doing very nicely thank you!!

[Lyanne]

We only have 8 pre-schoolers but seem to be having daily requests for places for our younger group. That said we have already had one mum on the phone insisting we had never responded to her request for a place and has so taken a place elsewhere. That is so untrue and I have the emails to prove it, but hey if it's only one so what. Last year we had one mum claim she never even applied for a place - not sure how we got her address details etc then!

 

We phone to offer spaces and I phoned one child's parents this week to have dad telling me they'd never applied to us either! ...Only he phoned back 5 minutes later having remembered they did apply. To be fair, English isn't thier first language & mum had put me onto dad to talk to, but it looks like mum signed the form.

 

We're full. We do have 2 spaces left, but haven't contacted any under 3's yet and there are about 20 on the waiting list who are 2 before September. But other years we've been looking at the register, wondering which sessions we'll have to cut as there aren't enough children to make it financially viable to run them all. We're open 2 sessions a day, 5 days a week, 20 children a session.