30 hrs funding - how to manage it?

[hopeytg]

Happy New Year to you all, hope you all managed a little bit of time off.

I am struggling on how to manage the new 30 hours. I have been advised by our Early Years Business Manager to change the way I offer sessions - at the moment I offer very flexible hours - basically parents can book in for whatever hours they want and pay for what they use - eg 0930 - 1300 and only pay for those hours although the session starts at 0900.

The advise was to run 0900 - 1300 morning session (4 hrs to include an hour for lunch) and then afternoon session 1300 - 1600 (3 hrs) - then children who only access their 15 hrs have to attend afternoons (our quiet time). If parents want mornings they can use their 15 hrs but will have to pay for the extra hour.

I can cope with this although it does go against my instinct to please everyone I know the business cannot afford to stay as I am. However, my problem arises with the 30 hrs (I don't plan to implement this new system until Sept 17) how do I implement it with 30 hours? - Do I say parents have to collect between 1200 - 1300 if they don't want to pay for that hour (can't see that working for the parents who are working - ie the ones eligible) or do I let them finish at 1500 causing potential issues with parents who access 15 hrs but are required to stay til 1600?

I have put these questions to our advisor but despite numerous emails have not received a reply and I wanted to include a letter outlining the plans with this terms invoices.

Sorry for such a long and complicated post - I am hoping it make sense and someone can possibly share how they plan to manage the new funding.

Many thanks - Helen

[finleysmaid]

I suspect from your post that the most plausible way for you to do this (and make money!) is to offer two 3 hour sessions a day with an hours lunch club (for which parents pay) parents can if they like pick up their children for lunch (but this is unlikely) This way if you charge the correct amount for the lunch hour you can make a small profit potentially. (remembering of course that we all need to put money away for hikes in pensions and wages still) That way if parents want their 30 hours they will probably spend an additional hour with you a day. This is one of the suggested models being produced at the moment and is the way we will operate (although our lunch club is only half an hour) ...we have also added after school provision to give us more income.

[hopeytg]

Thank you FInleysmaid - I just needed a little reassurance that this was ok to do.

[Inge]

We did as suggested, had 2 sessions with a lunch club in between.. the lunch club could be used by either session allowing those who booked all day the first option and then a first come first serve for the other spaces.. We found that it was often a quieter time but we tended to have a mix of morning , afternoon and all day children..