Fees For Different Age Groups

[thumperrabbit]

Just wondered how many settings have different fees depending on the age of the child?

 

We have always had the same fees no matter what the age group, however it has been put to us that we are using the funding to make up the short fall, which to be fair is probably true.

I am worried though that parents won't be able to pay the true cost of sending their child to playgroup.

[dottyp]

Hi thumperrabbit

 

We are a village hall committee based pre-school. We charge our 2yr olds £11.35 for a 3 hr session with 3+ being funded.

Government funding is £11.34 so near enough the same. However we have not put our fees up for the past two years so

next sept we will have to go up as so many staff have become qualified in the past 18 months which has had an impact of wages.

 

dottyp

[Guest]

We are full day care and charge more for under 2's, it's a ratio thing!

[thumperrabbit]

Thanks for your replies.

 

At the moment 2 year old fees are £6.50 and 3 yr old funding is £8.65 for our 2.5hour session.

With the single formula changes our funding is going down to £7.40 for 2.5hour session.

 

We review our fees each summer ready for September, but feel the most we could go up in one go is £1 - or do you think we could charge more??

[Guest]

We charge £9.75 for 2.5 hours for our under 3s and get £7.50ish funding for 3+ (will rise to £8.45 under EYSFF). I said in a recent thread that we justify the difference due to the staffing ratio requirements.

 

IME if you are going to bring in increases, little and often is best. We've kept prices static in the past and then been hit with unavoidable costs (e.g. increase in holiday pay entitlement) and struggled to cover the costs. So now we have regular annual increases as it's easier to put it up by 50p - £1.00 per session than try and increase it by £2.00 +.

 

With regard to how much you can increase by, have you carried out a benchmarking exercise in your area? We always try and stay with 50p of our nearest setting to keep within what the local market will stand.

 

RR

Edited November 13, 2009 by Guest

[thumperrabbit]

Thank you for your reply Readerrabbit.

 

It is interesting to see the difference you charge for your 2 year olds - this is what I'm trying to find out

 

We do put our fees up each year, usually 50p, but had a couple of years where they weren't (before school nurseries) and because of that we are still playing catch up.

We are in the middle of our 2 closest settings cost wise, but seeing as funding is going down in our area, I think we will all be doing a hefty rise this year.

Edited November 14, 2009 by thumperrabbit