Funded places?!?
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What’s the sustainability fee?
@Emma yeah the cost for hours outside the funding is loads more per hour than their normal hourly rate, maybe they’re trying to put people off using the funded hours with them? 🤷🏽♀️
@Naomi it says “we charge a £15 sustainability fee for each funded session to enable us to provide the nursery day safely and with higher ratios of staff”
Same at my nursery. She goes 2 days a week, normal fee is £71 a day and with funding its an extra £12 for a school hours day plus £11.75 to top it up to a full day. I think a lot of nurseries have to do it as the funding doesn’t come close to covering their usual day rate x
I have heard of nurseries changing a fee to cover funded places - but ours isn’t. Our rates and hour remain the same too - we just pay 15 hours less. Perhaps worth looking into new nursery if it makes a big difference to cost?
When do you sort this out with the nursery? My little boy already goes one day a week x
How it was worked out for us is funding covers 37 weeks of the year out of the 52 so those weeks we pay for and that is spread across the year.
@Incognito that is crazy! My nursery hasn’t mentioned any fees like this but I will check. My LG goes 5 days a week, I was hoping the 15 funded hours would actually make a difference!
Our nursery spread the hours over the year so as it’s a full time place and not term time only, they do 15 x 37 (term time hours) = 570 hours divided by 52 (full time hours) which equals to 10hours a week! So we’re covered for 10hours a week and cover the cost for the remaining hours x
It depends if your nursery offer stretched funding or termly. Also it’s not 30 free hours it’s funded hours. A lot of parents get a bit of a shock. For instance my LG goes two days a week so that’s 20 hours but she will receive 15 hours funding and the other 5 hours are full price. All county’s are different in how they apply the funding. You’ll find the wrap around hours will be at a higher cost as it’s just not feasible otherwise for nurseries to manage the costs. I’m a manager at a nursery so have had my brain fried with funding for a few months now haha xx
My little girl is due to start in sept for 3 afternoons per week. 1-6 so should be funded for the entire time but we are doing not stretched so will pay normal rate for the non term weeks but split at an even cost across the year. Ours is 73 for the afternoon session. Think it works out to about £220 a month. However when she is 2 we will then be charged for the evening meal at £4 per day and then when she is 3 we will be charged £11 on top per day to cover consumables and meals
Funding doesn’t cover a nurseries staffs wages or outgoings. I think it’s shocking when they say free childcare. It’s not free. The staff are underpaid and over worked. A nursery can charge whatever they want to. Personally I would use a childminder as they don’t have as many overheads as a nursery so will be cheaper.
I get funded hours and I don't have to "top up" I only pay for what I have outside of those funded hours. Our Nursey is 8am - 6pm (1/2 day is 5 hours ) so he goes 1 full day and 2 mornings, my funding cover 1.5 days and I pay for the 2nd morning at the normal rate of £35. This is tee time ( it would be more expensive if i used it over the whole year) Meals are also included in that. It's a private day Nursey also, definitely look around at the best places and price policies vary so much surrounding funded hours. It can work out not far off what you'd pay in full sometimes.
I don’t think that’s normal…… but I use a childminder. It’s 15 hours funded so you’d get 15 hours for free and need to pay the rest. So say your child is going 8 until 5 for two days, that’s 18 hours so you’d need to pay 3 hours. I suppose £34 a day is just over £11 an hour … …. Maybe it is normal but they’ve got a crap way of explaining it? 😂