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EYEE - top up


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Posted

I run a lovely rural pre school with mostly 3 year olds at the moment. The committee have just decided that we need to start charging a top up for those parents using the EYEE grant to bring each child's fees to the same level (fees are £5.50 ph but we get £3.60 for funded so adding £1.90 top up). I obviously have some upset parents saying that they can't afford the top up. What to do?????

 

Thanks in advance for help

Posted (edited)

We are not allowed to charge any top-up fees on top of the FREE entitlement. You really need to check with your local authority. We can charge anything for any additional hours but not the 15 funded hours.

Edited by lsp
  • Like 2
Posted

You could ask for voluntary contributions from your parents, but really you can't "chase" them for it, it does have to be voluntary - I am surprised really that your committee are unaware that they cannot charge anything to do with the 15 hours.

 

You could open for extra hours which you can charge for, some of our local pre-schools open half an hour extra first thing in the morning and charge for that but it mustn't be a condition of the children attending that they must do that half an hour.

  • Like 2
Posted

NO ONE is allowed to make a charge for the 15 hours. It doesnt matter what LA you are in this is part of the national scheme. The fifteen hours have to be free at point of delivery. Of course the fact that it is slowly bankrupting us all is irrelevant!

 

Our fees are 0.90p more than our funding and a few years ago we decided to open for an additional 30 minutes each day and charge for that. We do have some funded parents who only do four days and dont pay anything extra but the majority do pay. To be honest its the one thing that keeps us going. If all our children were to do just the funded hours we would probably close within a year.

  • Like 2
Posted

Quite agree Lynedd55, the fact we cannot top up is exactly what will put most of us out of business, what with all the increasing costs.

Maybe this is where we should lobby our MPs. If the govenment wont raise our funding then we must be allowed to do so ourselves or the flagship 15 free hours childcare will become 0 free hours - as we wont be around to supply it!

  • Like 3
Posted

I run a lovely rural pre school with mostly 3 year olds at the moment. The committee have just decided that we need to start charging a top up for those parents using the EYEE grant to bring each child's fees to the same level (fees are £5.50 ph but we get £3.60 for funded so adding £1.90 top up). I obviously have some upset parents saying that they can't afford the top up. What to do?????

 

Thanks in advance for help

I think your question has been answered - so I just wanted to say hi and welcome to the forum :1b

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