How Much Do You Charge?

[Guest]

I would love some feedback on what other settings charge for this sort of session time. we do sessional but will change to sessional and 9-3.00 in sept we will fit this around funding. I have had a quick look around our local area but have got vast differences in prices. One pre-school charges £11 for a full day how do they do this we will not be able to cover our costs. we are not for profit but are a worker run group so don't have many parents that fund-raise much to subsidize running costs.

I would love to know anything about how others operate this way and what the pitfalls are , we cant stick to sessional we have not been busy this year more parents want full days or as near as we can get it .

we are not a private day nursery nor can we charge that sort of fee our premises are small and the facilities are different but we do offer a service that is wanted but I just cant get my head round the logistics.

any help would be much appreciated.

sue

[sam2368]

Hi Sue

We currently charge £8.20 for a 2 1/2 hr session but are going to the flexible hours palavar in september and will be charging £4 per hour. We've always tried to keep in line with NEF.

Sam

[Guest]

thanks Sam we charge £6 per session and £2 for a lunch club which is of course lower than the NEF other groups in our area are pretty much the same I think our parents would run a mile if they had to pay more however it still leaves me with bills to meet . at present our before and after school club is subsidising our preschool as this is full.

but it would be unfair to ask these parents to subsidise any more if you see what I mean. I feel like I am defeated before I start

sue

[Guest]

We charge £6 for the 3 hour session in the private bit of our nursery.

Lunch time is included within the 3 hours.

 

However we set this price 2 years ago and aim to put it up to £7 in September.

 

The area we serve could not afford much more for a session............ and we want to have folks using the service!!

 

We are lucky though as the private provision does take NEF children and is part of wraparound (afterschool care) so all money goes into one pot to cover costs.

[calicojo]

We charge £2.40 per hour so the children who get funding are a big bonus to us, helping to keep down the hourly rate. Funded children who are with us for more than 15 hours also pay £2.40 for their extra hours.

 

When we put our rate up in september we checked other local groups and found we were at the cheaper end of fees so felt much better about it. We are a committee run community group in a village hall (18 places a day) for 2 1/2 year olds to school age and are open 9.15 - 1.15 3 days a week and 9.15 - 2.45 2 days a week.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jo

[sunnyday]

Hi Sue - from September will be £3.75 per hour - this is in line with NEG in our area and will be a 'rise' of 0.25p per hour.

 

What do you charge at the moment?

 

Sunnyday

[Guest]

We charge £8 for a 3 hour session- lunch club hour is £3 extra

[Guest]

we to will be inline with funding which makes it £10.34 for 2 /34 hours

[Inge]

we always charged same as NEG..

this meant we were able to show that the funded periods were not subsidising the non funded hours... which was a condition of receiving the funding.

 

we did a costing exercise to find actual costs to run the setting, we assumed there was no grant and worked out what it would cost to run per hour, by adding in all costs like rent, staffing, holiday pay, Nat insurance, equipment, materials, food, insurance any anything we could think of... it was a worthwhile exercise.. and did show where we needed to set our fees .

 

when we did this we thought parents would opt elsewhere if cheaper, but like you we found parents wanted longer hours and were happy to pay for them. we were in an 'area of deprivation' and still managed to increase the numbers by changing to all day... but if parents are working there are childcare credits etc to claim which do help offset the costs for them..

 

 

Inge

[Alison]

we're £4.50 for 2 1/2 hour session plus £2 lunch club which is an additional 45 mins so £6.50 for 3 1/4 hours

 

at the end of the day theres some big regional differences about what parents can afford but also each setting has different overheads its a valuable excersise doing the costings like inge suggests, our overheads are low as we are a church group and the rent and bills are a nominal amount compared to other settings.

[chicken]

We currently charge £10.80 for 3 hour session, £3.60 for lunch club.

 

This is line with current funding level we receive

[katekit]

We are a school nursery and we are looking at what our options are when the changes to the funding come in in 2010. at the moment we can have full time and part time children - all funded by the LEA. Is there anyone in a school nursery who has sessions funded by the LEA (in the morning) who then charges for children to stay all day - including lunch time?

 

I have read the forums on the 15hrs and have found them very useful, but I don't know how much cost will be incurred by the parents having not had to pay 'fees' for over 11 years!

 

We are starting a 'working party' on Monday which includes staff, SLT and Governors, so I am trying to gather as much information before then as possible.

 

There are also a few things that I don't quite understand (am very tired!) CC - Children's Centre? NEF ? NEG?

 

We are having part time and full time children this next year but are offering the 15hrs (2009 -2010) we then will have to organise the changes for 2010 including how to 'break the news' to the parents!

 

Thanks

Cath

[lynned55]

Hi Cath,

Sorry I cant help with your costings as I am in a committee run pre-school, but I know there are some here who are in maintained nursery am & change to private pm. I'm sure someone will be along soon to help.

I can answer the other queries, CC- yes you are right Childrens Centre, NEF- Nursery Education Funding, NEG- Nursery Education Grant. Both amount to the same thing, funding for 3/4 year olds from your LA.

HTH= Good Luck

[Guest MaryEMac]

Currently we are charging £5.50 a session ( 21/2 hrs) with lunch at £2. From Sept we will be charging £3 per hour. Lunch club will be within the entitlement but the unfunded children will pay£1.50,

 

Mary

[Guest]

thanks for your input everyone we are currently costing this out

as a childminder many moons ago I did an hourly rate and hadn't thought about doing that at pre-school

the regional difference had not occured to me either see how much I need help!

sue