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Funding Increase To 15 Hours


Mrsb
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I received a letter this week informing me that my setting is to be part of phase 1 in west sussex, which means that from this sept (09) the 15 hours increase comes into effect.

 

anyone already doing this? i will attend a briefing session at the end of April to find out how it will effect our sessions etc but just wondered if anyone can give me an example of how they run their setting.

 

thanks mrsb :o

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the setting i just left will start in Sept too, but they have known for over a year that is is to change, so we moved to full day in Sept 9am-3pm as that is what parents wanted, and currently have 2.5 hour sessions plus 1 hour lunch club broken down int half hours, from September it will just mean adjusting hours to allow more free care .. they are yet to be to how thy will be paid but think idea is in a minim of 2 hour session and must be taken over 3 days, etc.

 

I do believe though they are changing the way they are making payments to monthly! in arrears :o ... which really could cause settings to be in financial difficulty as wages would be paid before payment for hte month has been made.... causing a lot of issues I believe... not yet found out what happened at recent meetings

 

Inge

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we have been operating three hour sessions since september and really love it - we find that we are no longer rushing to try and include everything the eyst and pdw and ofsted want us to include - which means the sesion is more relaxed .

we start at 8.30 til 11.30 and restart at 12.10.until 3.10 - these times fit in with the local school and therefore parents with older children are able to drop off and pick up their children as well

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We have had the 15 hour funding for nearly 2 years now and obviously the parents love it!

 

Our session was 3 hours any way so it made it a lot easier for us - parents can now use the funding for lunch club too. In practice no one has asked to do any odd combination of hours. We are open 9.15 to 12.15 then lunch club till 1.15 pm and on 2 afternoons we carry on to 2.45pm.

 

We have an enhanced funding rate for those children who do between 12.5 and 15 hours. This difference has reduced since the first year but it is still being paid - it made a huge difference to our finances when it came in.

 

In some areas of the county, 2 year olds are funded too but we are not in a deprived area so don't qualify.

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Hi can I ask how you are registered to offer a lunch club.

 

I am on the comittee of my local nursery and my daughter will do her second year there from september and I am keen for her to do a couple of full days rather than 4 half days.

 

I mentioned to them about maybe offering a lunch club maybe 2 days a week so some parents could choose for their children to stay all day. Although the supervisor seemed fairly keen she said under the conditons of their registration with ofsted they were not allowed to.

 

I don't know the ins and outs of their registration but they are a playgroup. I know a couple of children who go to different playgroups that offer a lunch club so the supervisor asked me to find out from my friends how the playgroups are registered but I've yet to find that out.

 

I hope this post makes sense!

 

Thanks Jen x

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to do a lunch club and allow children to stay all day you have to contact Ofsted for a variation in registration, they will explain what is needed,

we did ours before EYFS , so it may have changed since then, but in effect it changes your registration from sessional to full daycare, with cost implications for registration fees etc.

 

it was very easy to do, we had to write and say how we would meet the welfare requirements for rest/sleep, food etc. They also have to think about staffing and how to cover the period allowing staff a break away from the children. Ours was approved without a visit and changed within 2 weeks of applying.

 

reason for saying it is not possible is that in sessional you have to have a period with no children in your care, we did have lunch club for a while with a 15 min break between sessions, but children had to leave for that period.

 

Best way forward is for someone at the setting to ring Ofsted and ask.

 

Inge

Edited by Inge
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Last year i had to pay £140 for playgroup to be registered as full day care. This year with the changes in registration i only paid £25 on the form it said if you were open for less than 42 weeks then this amount and another criteria that i cannot remember (forms at playgroup) then we would only have to pay £25 bargin.

 

angela

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Hi jennie

 

Yes its like Inge says, we had to re register as a full daycare setting to add the afternoon opening but originally we started doing lunch club as an extension to our 3 hour morning session as you can do up to 4 hours under a sessional registration.

 

You do need to have willing staff though! We don't get a break, just eat our lunch with the children. It means we work for 6 hours plus the setting up time in the morning but we prefer to work 1 long day rather than 2 sessions! Also its good practice for the children who are due to start school in September.

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Brill thanks for your help, will pass this on to the nursery supervisor!

 

The staff might be a problem coz when I suggestd it they said "but we wont get a break then" So I reminded them that I was a childminder and I don't get a break all day!

 

I'll let them know and see what they say, I think a lot of the parents would go for it plus I said to them, no other playgroup in the area does it so it might be a great selling point for them!

 

Thanks for all your help

 

Jennie

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we found that not everyone wanted the extra time, so numbers over the lunch time are reduced.. meaning staff do actually get a break, but on their own not together.

 

In our case we had 3 staff who over the lunch period each had 20 min break.. but not all took it, they usually sat with the children to eat.

 

Or on occasion when we had split shifts the afternoon staff started 20 mins earlier to allow someone to have a break.

 

Inge

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  • 2 months later...

We have also been informed that we are going to receive the 15 hours funding as we're in a disadvantaged area. I'm not anticipating any problems with it so far - other than capacity as we're limited to 16 children at each session and obviously it will mean higher occupancy as parents will want an additional session.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I received a letter this week informing me that my setting is to be part of phase 1 in west sussex, which means that from this sept (09) the 15 hours increase comes into effect.

 

anyone already doing this? i will attend a briefing session at the end of April to find out how it will effect our sessions etc but just wondered if anyone can give me an example of how they run their setting.

 

thanks mrsb :o

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Hi, we started offering 15hrs last september, we offer it in 3hr sesions 9am till 12noon then 12 noon till 3pm, we offer a lunch club , we do this by taking the children into another room who are staying for lunch, the children who are funded don't have to pay for the lunch club if they are "sandwiching" two funded sessions together. If funded children come for more than 15hrs we then charge for the extra sessions and any extra lunches they stay for. We charge non funded children £5.50 for a three hour session and £1.50 for the lunch club.It was a worry to start with but it has worked out brilliantly.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ursh

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