Limiting 30 hours places

[cvdbout]

Hi all,

 

For those of you who are looking to limit the number of 30 hour places you offer, do you have any ideas how you will be deciding who you will be offering them to?

[sunnyday]

Oh there is another thread (or two) with lots of really good ideas for how to deliver this madness :blink: ::1a

[cvdbout]

Oh there is another thread (or two) with lots of really good ideas for how to deliver this madness :blink: ::1a

 

Yes, I've read those but couldn't see anything about this particular issue. I'll have another look though - we know the options we have, but as a sessional pre-school with a 2 year waiting list, no interest in opening another setting, and staff unwilling to work longer hours we are feeling very limited in what we can do while maintaining our standards of care and outstanding rating and reputation.

[finleysmaid]

 

Yes, I've read those but couldn't see anything about this particular issue. I'll have another look though - we know the options we have, but as a sessional pre-school with a 2 year waiting list, no interest in opening another setting, and staff unwilling to work longer hours we are feeling very limited in what we can do while maintaining our standards of care and outstanding rating and reputation.

you don't have to offer...if your waiting list is that long I might take a punt and not do anything for at least a year. See how the rest of us cope and then take time to formulate a strategy that works for you.

What do you offer at the moment?

[redjayne]

We have been involved in one of the pilots this year and this has made me look at how the roll-out will work in our setting from September- we have decided that we will offer a limited amount of 30 hours stretched places per day (we are a 10 hour a day all year round day nursery) , a limited amount of term time only 30 hours places , a limited amount of NEG funded 15 hours and a limited amount of 2 year funded . The way we plan to do this is we firstly reviewed the available spaces and decided on the limits, then rewrote the admissions policy to reflect the new parameters and all parents received a copy. In the policy we have retained our priorities for admissions ie sibling attending, LAC and Social care families, etc . we then added statements that priority for the 30 hours places would be offered to existing families in order of how long they had been with us prior to the meeting the 30 hours criteria and explained that when the places had gone that was it - obviously we would then offer the funded 15 hours to the others and would signpost them to other local resources for the other 15. We felt as a team that we wanted to continue to support our more vulnerable families as well as the working families and this was the fairest way to do it as well as 'supporting' families who have supported us financially over the previous few years. The feedback from families so far has been positive - whether it will be quite so positive nearer the time we will have to see !

Jayne

[cvdbout]

We have been involved in one of the pilots this year and this has made me look at how the roll-out will work in our setting from September- we have decided that we will offer a limited amount of 30 hours stretched places per day (we are a 10 hour a day all year round day nursery) , a limited amount of term time only 30 hours places , a limited amount of NEG funded 15 hours and a limited amount of 2 year funded . The way we plan to do this is we firstly reviewed the available spaces and decided on the limits, then rewrote the admissions policy to reflect the new parameters and all parents received a copy. In the policy we have retained our priorities for admissions ie sibling attending, LAC and Social care families, etc . we then added statements that priority for the 30 hours places would be offered to existing families in order of how long they had been with us prior to the meeting the 30 hours criteria and explained that when the places had gone that was it - obviously we would then offer the funded 15 hours to the others and would signpost them to other local resources for the other 15. We felt as a team that we wanted to continue to support our more vulnerable families as well as the working families and this was the fairest way to do it as well as 'supporting' families who have supported us financially over the previous few years. The feedback from families so far has been positive - whether it will be quite so positive nearer the time we will have to see !

Jayne

 

 

That's really helpful, thank you. As a pre-school we'd rather help those families who are vulnerable but we are also conscious of the families who have supported us for years and have had their names down since their children were weeks/months old (and in one case still in her belly!).

 

 

you don't have to offer...if your waiting list is that long I might take a punt and not do anything for at least a year. See how the rest of us cope and then take time to formulate a strategy that works for you.

What do you offer at the moment?

 

Currently, we are open 32 hours a week however we are reviewing our opening hours to make the most of the hours we are open (3 staff with one child isnt a good use of time). As of September we anticipate being open Monday, Weds and Fri 9-3 with that being available as a 3 hour morning session, 4 hour session with lunch or 6 hour all day session. Tue and Thurs would be 9-4, with lunch being optional to morning and afternoon sessions. We seem to have about 1/3 of our families eligible for 30 hours, our concern is we will lose them if we don't offer something. Reality is though there is truly nowhere for them to go - no childminders are accepting FE rates and places are already limited in the other 2 settings in the village.

Edited February 11, 2017 by cvdbout

[finleysmaid]

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's really helpful, thank you. As a pre-school we'd rather help those families who are vulnerable but we are also conscious of the families who have supported us for years and have had their names down since their children were weeks/months old (and in one case still in her belly!).

 

 

 

Currently, we are open 32 hours a week however we are reviewing our opening hours to make the most of the hours we are open (3 staff with one child isnt a good use of time). As of September we anticipate being open Monday, Weds and Fri 9-3 with that being available as a 3 hour morning session, 4 hour session with lunch or 6 hour all day session. Tue and Thurs would be 9-4, with lunch being optional to morning and afternoon sessions. We seem to have about 1/3 of our families eligible for 30 hours, our concern is we will lose them if we don't offer something. Reality is though there is truly nowhere for them to go - no childminders are accepting FE rates and places are already limited in the other 2 settings in the village.

 

so can you afford to offer 30 hours at the lea rate? ..If you offer lunch although the time can be allocated to EYFF the food cannot, so you have an opportunity to charge for that. Do you need to do the extra 2 hours t/th? If you have no competition then why do you feel you have to offer...are your parents paying already?? ..I think we need to be careful that we don't just offer because we feel guilty!!!

 

 

 

sorry computer doing weird things!!

Edited February 11, 2017 by finleysmaid

[finleysmaid]

- obviously we would then offer the funded 15 hours to the others and would signpost them to other local resources for the other 15.

Jayne

so if someone comes and asks you for a 20 hour place what do you do?

[cvdbout]

 

 

 

 

so can you afford to offer 30 hours at the lea rate? ..If you offer lunch although the time can be allocated to EYFF the food cannot, so you have an opportunity to charge for that. Do you need to do the extra 2 hours t/th? If you have no competition then why do you feel you have to offer...are your parents paying already?? ..I think we need to be careful that we don't just offer because we feel guilty!!!

 

Yes we can - it's an 8p drop from our hourly fee but a 60p increase over our previous FE rate.

 

Demand is there for opening until 4 some days, but not all days - this would be something we review again in the future if demand for that dropped, however staff contracted hours means we'd need to reduce contract hours for some staff if we closed entirely 3-4 on those two days. Again, something we would be monitoring anyway, as we may be able to use that time for something else if the manager felt it would be of benefit.

 

We don't supply lunch, so it's only packed lunches we can offer.

 

Our parents who are eligible are paying already, however our fees are lower than most other places and we do have a strong reputation.

 

It really is deciding, if we do limit 30 hour places, how we go about deciding who to offer them to without discriminating while making sure we're not doing it out of guilt.

[finleysmaid]

ok funding wise you are going to lose 8p per hour per child on your income now....and the funding will not be increased for the next 3 years. However wages and pensions/utilities and rent? will go up. can you work out your budget and find out if you can afford to run sustainably.

If a third of your parents are eligible the advice at the moment is that this will stay about the same (this is a load of bunkham but we can but go on this info we have!) so if you had 15 x 30 hour spaces perhaps these are only offered to 32 hour take up families? this would fill your t/th slots, bring in more income and solve the staffing issues??

My feeling is that for this year you offer to your existing families first. Then maybe follow your admissions policy for the next lot (siblings/proximity?) or just on a first come first served basis?

 

I also am trying to work out what to do...I cannot afford to run with all children doing 30 hours.

The other potential option is to run an after school club on the Tuesday /Thursday slots to increase your numbers and utilise staff...Might that be possible???(art/cookery/music/yoga?? or offer to local school??)

[cvdbout]

ok funding wise you are going to lose 8p per hour per child on your income now....and the funding will not be increased for the next 3 years. However wages and pensions/utilities and rent? will go up. can you work out your budget and find out if you can afford to run sustainably.

If a third of your parents are eligible the advice at the moment is that this will stay about the same (this is a load of bunkham but we can but go on this info we have!) so if you had 15 x 30 hour spaces perhaps these are only offered to 32 hour take up families? this would fill your t/th slots, bring in more income and solve the staffing issues??

My feeling is that for this year you offer to your existing families first. Then maybe follow your admissions policy for the next lot (siblings/proximity?) or just on a first come first served basis?

 

I also am trying to work out what to do...I cannot afford to run with all children doing 30 hours.

The other potential option is to run an after school club on the Tuesday /Thursday slots to increase your numbers and utilise staff...Might that be possible???(art/cookery/music/yoga?? or offer to local school??)

We've run through the numbers, and our accounts last year show us already in an extremely favourable position (huge surplus), and even if all those hours were free entitlement, we'd still be earning more because of the 60p increase in FE funding.

 

All other expenses would never be more than our worst case scenario surplus, and if they were we'd be in huge trouble anyway.

 

We could afford to have all 30 hours places but it does not fit in with our business goals to do so right now - we are a community preschool and believe we not only have to act in our best interests but those of the community too, where financially feasible to do so.

 

We've considered after school care, but our staff won't do it and the committee do not want to rent out our space to another business.

 

The manager and I are looking into our options. Will update if we come to a decision!

[Wildflowers]

Can the 30 hours be offered only to some children, decided by me (criteria clearly stated in the prospectus) provided that they are eligible?

[lsp]

I would think that as long as everything is clearly laid out in your admissions policy and you follow it, so that there can be no comeback, it is up to you. How are you thinking of offering those hours and how will you decide?

[gillpen]

We are offering the 30 hours (limited to 15 spaces). We will have 3 sessions as we have now....am, lunch club and pm. I have double and triple checked with our Early years support team and have been assured that we can carry on with our charge for the lunchtime period as long as this is made clear to parents. The children bring a packed lunch. The funding covers the am and pm session. Of course, parents are quite welcome to come and collect their child, take them home for the half hour lunch period and then bring them back for the afternoon session but I don't imagine many would do that. With the slight increase in our funding allowance, we are just 9p under our fee rate which means less of a loss on funded hours than previously.

[Wildflowers]

How are you thinking of offering those hours and how will you decide?

I'm considering offering it to children who attend five days per week, partly to enable children's school start to be deferred or decelerated, for those parents who want this.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Wildflowers

[lsp]

I'm considering offering it to children who attend five days per week, partly to enable children's school start to be deferred or decelerated, for those parents who want this.

Are these children already doing 30 hours with you, so currently funded for 15 and paying for 15 hours?

[Wildflowers]

Are these children already doing 30 hours with you, so currently funded for 15 and paying for 15 hours?

Yes