Funding Weeks

[titchy]

hi all, I understand the neg funding only covers 38 weeks a yr so my question to you is what dates do you close that is if you do close and choose not to charge for the extra 2 wks instead. I'm in a bit of a dilema because my staff obviously want me to stay open so they don't loose pay etc but I have a strong feeling that my parents won't want to pay for the extra 2 weeks that it doesn't cover. What does everyone do?

Also is the funding yr in line with the school yr?

[calicojo]

You need to charge for any extra weeks the funding doesn't cover but the parents are not obliged to send their children in for the extra time if they don't want to pay.....It just seemed easier for us to try to open only the 38 weeks.

 

However... the funding terms of 14 / 11/13 weeks don't always tally with school terms. Next year I can see a problem as the spring term is, I think 13 weeks long and the summer term is 11 weeks as Easter will be very late. i could quite happily start a week late in January and finish early for Easter but how will I make up the extra 2 weeks?

 

Jo

[Inge]

We had opening time the same as the school ones which is the 38 weeks PLUS the 5 inset days . We were asked every year for our opening dates by LEA , so long as we had correct amount of days each term they did not worry about when we opened or closed. Need to ask your LEA there policy for his one..

 

The five extra days we did not receive funding for but still paid the staff and had our own training/ meetings/ cleaning days as we wanted them during the year. These were not in line with the school ones as local schools seldom had the same ones .

 

This meant the funding covered the whole time we were open, so not an issue..

 

We did have a couple of years a while ago when we had 2/3 weeks without funding ( before they paid 38wks ) which usually fell in the summer term so we gave the parents an option to either pay for the time or finish on xxx date..

 

Parent mostly opted to pay and only a few left at the earlier date. We made it very clear that we needed paying in full the 3 weeks so we did not have any leave without paying which was our biggest worry. and no payment child would not be accepted..

 

We arranged an instalment payment method for the weeks before so they could all pay a set amount each week / month so there was not one big bill to pay all at once..

 

We were in area of deprivation and parent found the instalment payments very useful... we did invite all children and parents to the end of term 'Party in the Park' , which we did every year.. so they all got to say goodbye to us and had one last play together which was always on a non funded day and parents joined us.. Staff were not responsible for the children and we always had a really good time.

 

Inge

[louby loo]

we're are in a relatively affluent area... however we have notice parents feeling the pinch.

We finish earlier, and a lot of our parents go holiday before the schools finish.

Staff would like us to stay open (for the wages) But I think we all need a break too!!!!

[diesel10]

Hi

 

We open for 38 weeks inline with LEA term times. We don't take inset days, so finish on the 16th july this year, while my kids don't finish until the 22nd.

 

My LEA funds until 31 march. So I have to remember to do 11 weeks for spring term and 13 weeks for summer even though we work 12 and 12. If that makes sense.

[Guest]

We open no more than 38 weeks a year in total but our LA has in the past let us claim for the weeks open each term even it didn't fall into the funding weeks as calicojo noted them to be. Until now we have never had funding withheld under this method so long as we never claimed for more than 38 weeks in any given financial year. This year a new person is administrating the paperwork so I'm waiting to see what happens, but I will argue that the standard breakdown doesn't suit term time only settings as Easter moves each year. (Did any of that make sense - it didn't to me and I know what I'm talking about - long day - sorry)

[Inge]

We too had funding end on 31st of a year and start on 1st April.. this often meant that a few days or longer in the time before Easter was actually funded from the following term...

 

a real nightmare when claiming funding and accepting new children who could have 2 days before the Easter break funded!

 

Inge