Nursery education grant ?

[Ruthierhyme]

Do your Parents / Carers know what the current rate of funding is for their child for each session they attend ?

No.. no one has never asked about it

committee do

we still don't know what it will be from April ourselves yet! Just promised a review!!

However is there a minimum number of sessions that she has to do. I looked on the direct gov website and it says something about having to do a minimum of 3 sessions to get the funding from 2010.

I am also now considering trying to get her into our local pre-school for an additional 2 sessions as I believe the NEG will allow her to attend 2 different settings.

[Heidi]

Originally Posted by Adley

However is there a minimum number of sessions that she has to do. I looked on the direct gov website and it says something about having to do a minimum of 3 sessions to get the funding from 2010.

I am also now considering trying to get her into our local pre-school for an additional 2 sessions as I believe the NEG will allow her to attend 2 different settings.

I'm not sure that's right. I know they changed the stipulation as a local setting is only able to rent their premises for 3 sessions a week anf have children claiming 1, 2 or 3.

We also have children who attend our setting and claim for only one or two sessions and do not attend other sessions. Sometimes this is a parent's choice or if their child becomes eligible for the summer term - there are no spaces left until children leave for school. In this case, they are offered (if they so wish) more sessions in the September.

The wording was changed from 'eligible to 5 sessions a week' to 'eligible up to 5 sessions' a week to combat any mis-understanding. A few years ago some parents thought they were entitled to 5 sessions a week - but settings have to be viable and you can't turn other children away just in case a child already attending is turning 3 and eligble for funding the next term.

We don't tell parents how much the funding is worth, as we don't charge any extra, and I think they are just pleased when their child becomes eligible for government funding.

[Ruthierhyme]

Originally Posted by Adley

However is there a minimum number of sessions that she has to do. I looked on the direct gov website and it says something about having to do a minimum of 3 sessions to get the funding from 2010.

I am also now considering trying to get her into our local pre-school for an additional 2 sessions as I believe the NEG will allow her to attend 2 different settings.

Heidi many thanks for your reply. The member's forum account has been deleted for spamming - from wikipedia but this post curiously, is an interesting one - the direct.gov.uk page mentioned.

[Heidi]

Originally Posted by Ruthierhyme

Heidi many thanks for your reply. The member's forum account has been deleted for spamming - from wikipedia but this post curiously, is an interesting one - the direct.gov.uk page mentioned.

Hello Ruth,
I have just read the article link and it is the same information I have. I have just taken a form out of my file to check the wording, and I am correct about what you are entitled to, the forms say:

'The child is entitled to a maximum number of 12.5 hours (15 hrs at pilot providers)'

When funding first came out parents thought they could demand 5 sessions a week.
Early years saw that often voluntary settings suffered and could not offer this as some were only allowed to have a maximum of 12 children per setting or the village hall was booked on other days for things such as indoor bowls. To allow them to provide the entitlement (and obviously the government want to encourage child care/edcuation, not decrease it) they evaluated and changed it.

Another thing I noticed about two ago was that for say a child who attended for 5 sessions for a 12 week term got the full entitlement, but now you have to claim in days +hours, and they knock off the bank holidays/training days.
This may seem fair, but if a child attends 7 sessions (including afternoons) and there is a bank holiday, the funding department knock off 2 sessions for the bank holiday - in effect they are only paying for 3 sessions that week, leaving the parent to pay the remaining 2 sessions. Although parents always pay for the two sessions normally, they are peeved that they still have to pay extra in those weeks. They (and us) think why should they claim that day back? A parent and setting could claim, well actually the two extra sessions are the Monday, so my child should still be entitled to their 5 sessions.
Another way for the government to save money and another good reason to change the wording from 'entitled to 5' to 'entitled up to 5'.

As from Setember 2010 funding will be increased from 12.5 hours to 15 hours for all providers.

Children can currently split their payments between PVI settings, and from September 2010, hours can be split between LEA provisions and voluntary/private & independent settings.

Some authorities/counties are already delivering a single formula payment, others who opted to delay it by a year must enforce it in April, 2011.

Goodness knows what will happen, seeing as there is no money in the kitty for these promises.

[Heidi]

Originally Posted by Ruthierhyme

Heidi many thanks for your reply. The member's forum account has been deleted for spamming - from wikipedia but this post curiously, is an interesting one - the direct.gov.uk page mentioned.

You may find this interesting: You can see how every county has gone about reform (single formula) to do with early years funding.

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmat...survey/survey/