Consultations On Draft Code Of Practice On Provision Of Free Entitleme

[Panders]

Has anyone yet been on the DCSF site and had a look? Consultations started on the 7th Oct and go on until January.

[sunnyday]

I'm ashamed to say - I haven't yet - have you - what do you make of it?

 

Hopefully you can tell me all about it and I won't need to look for myself - here's hoping!

[Guest]

I started to look and am ashamed to say I lost all track of what I was reading. I feel I might have something to comment on but I can't make head nor tail of the document so far.

[Inge]

Draft consultation is the link for anyone interested...

 

not looked further, may tomorrow..

 

Inge

[HappyMaz]

I started to look and am ashamed to say I lost all track of what I was reading.

Well I couldn't even work out how to get to the consultation document! Sometimes I think I'm very dim indeed! Something to do another day, I fear!

 

Maz

[Panders]

Ahh! I'm not the only one then. I thought I was going slightly mad. Maybe there is no long winded document, could we just be being asked what our views on what the document should contain?

[Inge]

had a look now and it does seem to be missing something...good strategy that consult on a document we cannot see ... or is hard to find

 

Has anyone tried the document downloads to see what they contain as they may be in there.. not got Word on this PC to try it out and it says it is a word document.

 

Inge

[SueJ]

Found some of the more salient points in document three which I have lifted and put here (hope that's ok)

 

No session longer than 10 hours

No session shorter than 2.5 hours

Not before 8am or after 6pm

The full 15 hours over no fewer than 3 days (equating to no more than 12.5 hours in 2 days, or 10 hours in a single day)

A maximum 2 providers

 

They are entitled to 570 hours of free provision in a year over no fewer than 38 weeks and can take up as much or as little as they wish.

They will have a choice of provider, though they may not always be offered the full entitlement at the times they want at their provider of choice.

They can request access to their entitlement in a particular pattern, and that the local authority should consider this in securing the local flexible offer.

 

These delivery patterns now form the Core Offer, which consists of two distinct models which LAs should deliver as a minimum [in addition to two others on which we are consulting]:

 

3 hours a day over 5 days of the week

5 hours a day over 3 days of the week

6 hours + 6 hours +3 hours over three days of the week [pending consultation]

9 hours + 3 hours + 3 hours over three days of the week [pending consultation]

 

Local authorities should work to ensure that increasing flexibility does not impact on the manageability of the entitlement for providers. Local authorities should support providers to establish Parental Contracts (see section 6.22) with parents, which set out the hours and patterns of access to the free entitlement that the parent and provider have agreed to for a defined period (e.g. termly).

 

Link to all docs is here - there is also burble about stretching the offer over more than 38 weeks of less than 15 hours is accessed each week .......... (it's been a long day and I can't face that bit)

 

 

Link to consultation docs

[sunnyday]

Sue - you are a complete star!

 

Wonder what the 'no more than two providers' is all about......

 

I currently have two little boys who attend my pre-school, another pre-school and a childminder.......is that an unusual situation do you think?

[SueJ]

I think that there is some realisation that lots of settings is not necessarily the v. best thing for young children. If children attend multiple settings it is usually just 2 but I have had an instance where one poor child was doing 5 mornings - 2 with me and 1 other morning at 3 different settings - not exactly ideal!

[sunnyday]

Crikey - no that's awful - how confusing for the poor thing

[mundia]

If you go to the link that Inge provided and scroll down to document 3, that gives the draft code of practice. Its quite weighty but good to plough through and have your say.

[Inge]

think the no more than 2 providers is how funding will be allocated, (it is already allocated like this in our area) so they could still choose to send a child more than 2 settings by paying for the third one...

 

rest sounds very familiar already from what I remember of the conditions given by our LEA

 

Inge