thumperrabbit Posted March 3, 2010 Posted March 3, 2010 Are you going to be extending to 15 hour entitlement? If so, how are your staff feeling about the extra 1/2 hour work?
Rea Posted March 3, 2010 Posted March 3, 2010 Haven discussed it yet although its on my list. Our staff will probably be ok with it, its the church hall that might be more of a problem.
thumperrabbit Posted March 3, 2010 Author Posted March 3, 2010 Rea, are you asking or telling the staff that you are increasing? I think we also may have a problem with the hall as well - there's never not something going on is there!
dublinbay Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 We've been providing 15 hours for a year now. When it came to discussing it with staff my manager simply told us that it was a requirement of funding and we had to do it. We asked staff and parents, by way of a questionnaire, the times they would prefer. In the end the majority found starting at 8.30 and finishing at 11.30 to be the best. We are on a primary school site which has morning registration at 8.45 so parents with school-going children were very happy with this start. None of the staff were against it really.........we were more worried how some of the children would cope....they did and so did we with an extra half hour pay in our pocket. Thumperrabbit do you think you will have some adverse reactions from staff?.....you seem a little worried.
Guest Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 I have to say we have just taken a similar approach, and told the staff rather than asked them. This was due to the fact that we thought if staff were working shifts effectively within a three hour session, it would be detrimental to the children and the working atmosphere. We have told them that their contracts will be amended as required so they know they are protected too, and this part will be done in discussion with them in accordance with procedures. But ultimately we didn't see any other way of doing it.
Cait Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 we too have been doing it over a year now, but it didn't really affect staff hours. We have morning and afternoon sessions, so in practice, what happened was that children just added another session to their 5. If we needed extra staff for ratios I just asked who would like some overtime on their planned hours. In September any extra hours was factored in anyway, for this year, we always increase staff hours as the year goes on anyway, so it was nothing new.
thumperrabbit Posted March 4, 2010 Author Posted March 4, 2010 Thumperrabbit do you think you will have some adverse reactions from staff?.....you seem a little worried. Mmmm........possibily, probably!! Just hoping they will like the idea of an extra 1/2 pay!
Panders Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 We have only every worked on 3 hour sessions! When the fifteen hours comes in, I will add an extra hour to 3 of our four sessions and hopefully that will be that! I'm more concerned that my LA will say I can't do that. Currently, those 3 extra hours make up our one hour lunch club 3 mornings per week. I assume the children will no longer be able to have their lunch with us - can't see LA allowing funding to be used for that.
Inge Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 Our children had lunch as part of the funded session.. we did continuous provision planning to show what they were learning from it... was not a problem.. and we too adjusted hours over the year so any added were not an issue, particularly as it was more income.. Inge
thumperrabbit Posted March 4, 2010 Author Posted March 4, 2010 Panders as of September we can use funding for lunch club too
Panders Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 That's good news!! Our LA were quite strict about us not being able to in the past.
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