30 Hours "Free"

[eyfs1966]

Why oh why isn't there a politician brave enough to put the needs of the child first and the needs of working parents second............far too radical a thought!!

[bubblejack]

A parent asked me today for the 30hours free funding!!!

[sunnyday]

A parent asked me today for the 30hours free funding!!!

[Panders]

 

A parent asked me today for the 30hours free funding!!!

Dont you just love a well informed parent!

[hali]

Really??? :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:

[bubblejack]

Yes apparently her friend said to her " congratulations you have 30 hours free funding now" ??????????

[Panders]

Isnt it wonderful the way some of the public think the Government works instantaneously with these things.

[Fredbear]

Why don't we just whip them out of the womb and board them all. When is this nonsense going to end.:(:(:(

[Guest]

Looks like it could be sooner than we thought

 

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1151357/government-plans-to-fast-track-30-hour-childcare-pledge

[Guest]

Oh God I can feel the noose getting tighter ! :wub:

[hopeytg]

I had an ex parent come in today for a visit and she congratulated s on the extended funding hours, I then explained why it was not good news and she was shocked and said she felt awful for thinking it was a good thing, amazing how many people think ot's a good thing. On the up side we had an amazing rise in funding ....... a whole 4p per hr.... whoopee do!! That takes us up to £3.42 an hour.

[Panders]

Let's face it - the general press seems to be able to make it sound as though we are all money grabbing nurseries who over charge to look after children and are basically profiteering - not many mainstream newspapers are on our side and appear to understand that sub £4 per hour is just not enough to sustain the best quality in childcare without a lot of goodwill/low paid staff/providers willing to go beyond their duty.

 

We wont and can't offer 30 hours at my pre-school so that's that, we will continue to offer the same, not many of my parents both work and, indeed, many don't want to - but very much want to look after their own families for the majority of their under 5 years.

[lynned55]

We were discussing this at a committee meeting the other evening and a parent said " Isn't it a sad world where they've taken away my child benefit but will pay me ( 30 hours childcare) to leave my child"

[Mouseketeer]

Maybe they should forget the childcare funding and just pay people not to have children in the first place

[bubblejack]

This parent obviously was not happy with my explanation and now wants to know if she needs to increase her working hours to qualify. I do understand that some parents need to work to pay the bills but to increase working hours just to qualify concerns me.

[ladybirds1991]

We are a local pre school in Elstow and we used to take children from 2.5 upto 5yrs of age or 4 if they moved onto school. we open 9am to 3pm everyday except Thursday where we are unable to use the hall we run from however if we could then we would open then as well. We received the 2yr old funding at the beginning of the year and we have coped with these younger children by getting in equipment more suited for their age range and making sure our staff adjust some of their practice for this age range. We currently have a lot of our parents doing over their 15 funded hours which they obviously pay for so the introduction of the additional funded hours would be of great benefit to both our parents and ourselves.

[lynned55]

ladybirds1991- your set up sounds very similar to ours and we too currently have most of our parents doing over their 15 funded hours- however there the similarities between us stop. These unfunded hours that they pay for are currently 90 pence per hour more than we get for a funded hour- so additional funded hours will not benefit us at all. You are lucky that your funding is enough to cover your overheads.

[Wildflowers]

We wouldn't survive on funding only because we spend most of our session off the premises, so our group has to be small. Yet I pay rent, insurance and staff for a larger number of children.

The 30 hours funding is a great worry. Fundraising is something I just don't have time to organise and as it in a sense would be part of marketing, I need to be involved in it if it happened. Yesterday I spent hours weeding myself after hours working on assessments. I don't want to ask parents to do chores for our setting, to save me time and money, and it can create resentment among them if some help out and others don't.

Our setting is private because it would be too time-consuming to be committee-run or to run a charity, with all that is involved. Parents choose to have their child with us and pay something, but wouldn't afford if no funding was available.

[Mouseketeer]

I'm thinking maybe it's time to make an hourly charge for consumables used, if you can do it for snack why not not paint, paper, toilet roll, tissues etc...to bring in a more realistic hourly rate if the government/county don't see fit to pay us one, 15 hrs of not enough funding to cover costs is bad enough but will be twice as bad if/when getting 30hrs of not enough funding to cover costs.....even supposing you can offer more, best start changing registrations to sleepovers and weekends

[lsp]

I'm thinking maybe it's time to make an hourly charge for consumables used, if you can do it for snack why not not paint, paper, toilet roll, tissues etc...to bring in a more realistic hourly rate if the government/county don't see fit to pay us one, 15 hrs of not enough funding to cover costs is bad enough but will be twice as bad if/when getting 30hrs of not enough funding to cover costs.....even supposing you can offer more, best start changing registrations to sleepovers and weekends

Good idea - but we are not allowed to charge for snack.

We are a small PVI registered charity group and our numbers do drop very low some years. In the good old days we used to send out a 'shopping list' which asked parents to donate certain items e.g. toilet rolls, tissues, wipes, fruit, cheese. Not everyone did but it helped to keep our running costs down a little bit. LA bought in various contracts, think the latest one is called Local Agreement, which says that we are not allowed to charge for anything that relates to the children accessing those 15 early years governement funded hours. I think we have to be very, very clear that its a voluntary contribution or donation. We stopped asking for donations rather than run the risk of losing the funding. Our fees are less than we get for the funding - at the moment, although we are catching up quickly! :huh:

[Wildflowers]

[...] we are not allowed to charge for snack.

 

Are you sure? Charging for meals is allowed in our LA agreement.

[lsp]

Sorry Wildflowers - just had a look. This is what it says in our Local Agreement:

'Funded places are entirely free of charge without condition and parent/carers are aware that any

additional goods or services are not a condition of receiving the entitlement'.

You are right, we can charge. I think we dont because we were under the impression from LA briefing session (few years ago) that it had be a voluntary contribution which could not be enforced. We have enough grief getting fees that are due so decided to provide free of charge.

Something else to add to my list for next week to look into! <_< :rolleyes:

[Wildflowers]

lsp, this is the relevant paragraph regarding your right to charge for meals:

 

"The Provider must ensure its published information is clear about fees for any additional hours the parent may wish to have and/or charges for additional services e.g. meals, non Early Years Education services (such as ballet/languages/swimming etc., which must be delivered outside of the Early Years Education times)."

[Mouseketeer]

whilst googling admission policies the other day i found one that was charging a fee to put name on waiting list then a registration fee, £100 together, I didn't think we could do that, said setting was taking funded children

[lynned55]

Mousekeeter, when my daughter was looking for a nursery place for her baby last year, at least two of them wanted a fee just to go on waiting list and ALL wanted a registration fee. I think this is common practise amongst daycare nurseries- certainly around here anyway. We used to charge a deposit but it became such a hassle charging some (un funded) and not others (funded) not to say downright unfair that we stopped.

[Mouseketeer]

I was really surprised, they were settings in my own county and this is on our agreement:

 

3.1 Free early education is a free, part time place for each eligible child and must

be completely free at the point of delivery. Providers must not therefore impose

conditions on parents to which they must agree in order to take up their free

hours (i.e. parents must not be obligated to purchase additional hours, pay

lunch time charges or pay registration or administration fees in order to secure

their free hours).

I guess there is nothing saying you can't for un-funded children, but the policies I read didn't say anything about not charging funded children the same.

[MegaMum]

We don't impose any additional fees as we arent allowed to, however, we tell parents we provide a healthy snack for 30p a day which is optional. Since introducing this about 3 years ago, we have had 3 parents choose to provide their own snack, but they soon change their mind as their children want what the rest of the children are having.

[Fredbear]

We are about to charge for snack from September 2015 to 20p per session. We just couldn't continue to provide this service anymore with our current funding rate/ fee rate.. We will wait to see if anyone objects.

What really annoys me is that schools receive fresh fruit for reception/ foundation, but pre-schools/ nurseries are not apparently entitled.

Not blaming schools of course, just doesn't seem fair when we have the same aged children.

[Jester]

We are about to charge for snack from September 2015 to 20p per session. We just couldn't continue to provide this service anymore with our current funding rate/ fee rate.. We will wait to see if anyone objects.

What really annoys me is that schools receive fresh fruit for reception/ foundation, but pre-schools/ nurseries are not apparently entitled.

Not blaming schools of course, just doesn't seem fair when we have the same aged children.

Yes this has always annoyed me too Fredbear. Our preschool got the benefit of the fresh fruit as it was part of the school.

[sunnyday]

We don't impose any additional fees as we arent allowed to, however, we tell parents we provide a healthy snack for 30p a day which is optional. Since introducing this about 3 years ago, we have had 3 parents choose to provide their own snack, but they soon change their mind as their children want what the rest of the children are having.

 

 

We are about to charge for snack from September 2015 to 20p per session. We just couldn't continue to provide this service anymore with our current funding rate/ fee rate.. We will wait to see if anyone objects.

What really annoys me is that schools receive fresh fruit for reception/ foundation, but pre-schools/ nurseries are not apparently entitled.

Not blaming schools of course, just doesn't seem fair when we have the same aged children.

 

What a great idea - I think i might have to look into that :1b

 

We did have our funding increased this year - no don't get too excited it was by 1p per hour - I am so fed up with system I know that all of my parents could and would pay 'top up' if I was allowed to charge it - so frustrating......

 

I don't fund raise - that feels 'wrong' to me as I am a sole trader.......but might have to change that too