finleysmaid Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 I suspect that in the near future we may need to offer some full time places, we currently do just sessional care as it is what we have always offered. If you do a mix of sessional and full day can you tell me what i might have to change/how you do your planning /whether there is anything extra i need to provide etc (it would only be for +3's/+4's)...having a slight panic that it might change the group too much and also that several of my sen children might want full days and we might have issues with supporting this(no funding for sen at present even though i am supporting 1-1) help!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 what are you calling full time? we do morning session 9.30 - 12.30, afternoon 12.30 - 3.30 or these can be combined to all day 9.30-3.30. On top of this we offer an early start 8.30-9.30 and late afternoon from 3.30 -5.30. NEF funding takes place during 9.30 -3.30 and any extra hours before or after are charged per hour separately so there is no conflict between sessional and full time care. Hope this helps, we added the extra hours two years ago and it had no impact at all on how we ran other than extra staffing, insurance etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 thanks max 321 currently we run 8.30-11.30 luch club 11.30-1200 and afternoon session 12.00 till 3 . I dont want to lose the income i get from lunch club but we are thinking full day as 8.30-3 but lunch club would have to be paid for(or opt out)...but my borough did suggest we can choose when to offer free entitlement, my feeling is that this might be an issue when the review kicks in ...but that's just a guess!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 We used to run a lunch club too with a 2 1/2 hour session either side of it, by stretching to two 3 hour sessions we increased income from both funded and unfunded children for the extra 1/2 hour so no monies lost, in fact we ended up with more as we were not always full for lunch club. Only the children staying 9.30 - 3.30 have lunch with us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 but surely the problem with this is that you could take less if children only access 2 and a half days? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 sorry finlaysmaid, I've got my stupid head on, so not sure what you mean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diesel10 Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Hi Have you found out yet whether in its worth doing ie a change in insurance costs and increase OFSTED fees. We have changed our sessions to included an optional lunch club, but some only access the free entitlement so we haven't gained much from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 sorry finlaysmaid, I've got my stupid head on, so not sure what you mean sorry max321 i think it's me not explaining myself very well. at present a child who accesses our service can have five x3 hour sessions (either am's or pm's not mixed)and we have an optional luch club at £5 per day (quite high price but seems to be popular) so an average child can bring me in an extra income of about £1000 over the year. If we go to full days then i will have to offer the posibility of five sessions together (so 2 and a half days) and i am concerned that this has to be free...so we may lose the income from lunch club(and children may have to start at 9.00 rather than 8.30). The benefit to going to full day care is that i know i can fill all my places next year if i do this, and it means less children for each keycarer but it put us in competition with other settings in the area and i guess it is just quite different from what we offer now, it seems like a big leap at the moment! diesel no not gone any further down this line yet (although i know i won't have to pay ofsted more) haven't checked out the insurance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 Thinking aloud really.... If you keep the 8.30 start you could give the option of paying for the lunch time, or collecting the half hour and return after for rest of day.. we did this for a while and they were happy to pay for the middle bit.. it also allowed us to have children start early and join at lunch or stay at end of session for lunch... took a bit of recording but it worked well.. those who were there all day had first lunch places and we filled with other children around them, we did monthly bookings so anyone who changed to full days always had the lunch bookings first and rest were booked on first come basis.. later we just went for the 2 x 3 hr sessions.. most took them over 5 days.. those who opted for full days often paid for an extra session somewhere in the week.. which is where we gained income.. You could also do an 8.30 start and pay for that half hour as an extra.. some may like that as it is easier than trying to get the children all into schools etc at the same time.. it may actually generate more money.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 thanks inge ...this is the way i'm thinking too (we also have an added 9.am and 12.30 slot for the younger children so that they do 2 and a half hours) so the coming and goings are already part of the group!...i have a member of staff who comes in late so the late starters <3's are in her ratio as it were. We were discouraged from going for back to back sessions when the 3 hours came in which is why it's a little complicated. Do you think it changed your practise much offering full days as well as sessional? how did you deal with adult led activities...change or repeat? is there anything else you would suggest we need to consider? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 It is a while since I did it, but we found that it did not change our dynamics too much, we had to change routine a little as we used to have a short group activity at beginning of each session, so we changed it to beginning of morning and end of afternoon.. adult led we kept the same all day... the children that had done it either repeated if they chose or we found they would often wait until later knowing it was available for a long time.. we could add an extra if we flet it was needed .. all went by the children really.. we had to ensure we had a sleep place too.. the children often became tired and wanted a quiet are during the day... more so than we expected.. and we had one who always had a nap at sometime during the day.. it was easy to sort out, a quiet corner with cushions, or we had some gym mats we used.. and friendships... we found some children were a bit lost at first with all day as they 'lost' their regular friends who went home at end of one session and it took time for them to settle into new friendships later in the day.. once in a routine they actually looked forward to the change during the day but to begin with they were a bit lost , until used to it. Did find that once we started more wanted to stay as their friends did... we did generate more income by doing it. Our insurance did not cost any more as we were already paying for all day having 2 sessions a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 the change to 2 x 3hour sessions made life a lot easier for us too Inge, the recording at lunchtime was nightmare. we had children leaving and arriving at 12, 12.30 and 1.00, total chaos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 thank you all, always good to talk these things through Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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