...so you offer half days.............. flexibility and all that!

[Guest Nuby]

....does this negatively impact your occupancy? I cant decide whether to offer half days or not...we will be full day care and as a new nursery I am more inclined to go with full days than half days OR would you advise that as a new business all things go in order to get our numbers up?

[Mouseketeer]

We have mornings or all day, only offering all day will impact on how children can access their 15 hrs funding, this is turn could put people of using you, I didn't even realise there were settings offering only all day, they'd probably be the best ones to advise you of forms/against. Good luck

Edited July 24, 2014 by Mouseketeer

[Carol]

We offer am sessions, pm sessions or all day sessions. This has helped keep numbers good and parents say its suits their children or their work patterns.

[Cait]

We have full session flexibility in that children can come for full days, come for mornings only, mornings and lunch, lunch and afternoons or just afternoons. We operate with 2.5 hr sessions, so the 15 hr entitlement is 6 sessions a week. This encourages parents to come to us as they appear to get more than they would at a 5 session entitlement over 3hrs.

Many families come to us because they like the flexibility of the sessions, so I would do that again if I was setting up another preschool.

[laura]

We are far too flexible! We offer any start or finish time from 7.30 to 6!! it has worked very well for us as we have over 200 children, parents like the flexibility and not having to pay for hours their child doesn't attend. My staff are booked in over half hour slots during the day, and if we are overstaffed I use that time for learning journey time.

I think other nurseries tend to offer mornings 8-1; 9-1 and afternoons 12-6 or 1-6 and some offer 9-12 or 12-3 for funded sessions.

[Stargrower]

I would definitely go with flexibility. If we only offered full days we would not be open.

We stipulate a minimum of three hour sessions for all ages (0-5) but other than that we are totally flexible. The only thing we say no to is a few hours across the middle of the day (e.g.11-2) as this would use a whole day and we probably wouldn't be able to fill before and after.

[woodlands1997]

We do as Laura does they can have any hours between 8-6, but they can only have their funded hours between 9:30-3:30 x

[Inge]

as part of our funding agreement was that we had to be flexible with our hours/ sessions.. we could not only offer all day.. so maybe check that side too before deciding.

Flexibility does bring in more children.. with funding at 15 hours and only offering all day you restrict the number of parents who will look at the provision

we had sessions like cait.. but also allowed 3 hour sessions so some left mid lunch break and others arrived ..

[tish501]

I offer total flexibility....which has meant being full for the past 8 years...with 2 other settings nearby...1 term time onlly,the other closes at 4pm.We are open 8-6pm 51 weeks .So keeps me very busy.I also think our Funding agreement mentions it...goes under Parent partnership.Hope that helps.