Nursery Education Grants

Feisty_Fairy

Hi there peeps!

My Littleun is in full time nursery at the mo and will be starting in a pre-school nursery this september. I am confued as i have been told that if we are entitled to a nursery education grant then we would be entitled to upto 5 sessions per week free, but only from the 1st term after the child is 3.

So, does this mean that my son (3 end of July) will be entitled to free nursery sessions straight away in september?? And then until he goes into primary school??

Apologies for having a bit of a thick moment!

Thanks in advance!

Regards

Feisty!

flea72

it depends on how much the sessions cost at your nursery, whether you have to pay any money towards it - the funding equates to £1580 a year, i think that breaks down into about £7.50 per session is funded

your child would get funding from september

hth Flea

Spendless

Feisty_Fairy wrote:

Hi there peeps!

My Littleun is in full time nursery at the mo and will be starting in a pre-school nursery this september. I am confued as i have been told that if we are entitled to a nursery education grant then we would be entitled to upto 5 sessions per week free, but only from the 1st term after the child is 3.

So, does this mean that my son (3 end of July) will be entitled to free nursery sessions straight away in september?? And then until he goes into primary school??

Apologies for having a bit of a thick moment!

Thanks in advance!

Regards

Feisty!

Yep he'll get it from Sept. whether you'll have to pay anymore will be dependant on how long his sessions are for.
If it's for more than 2.5 hours per session, you'll pay the difference.
My little girl is 3 tomorrow and we get the funding from May and are paying the difference in childcare vouchers. Will be making a huge difference to us :j

rach1973

Not alot more I can say but ask when the cut off date for vouchers/Grant is.

My Son (currently at Pre-School 3 times a week) is 3 on April 14th the Term starts again on 18th April, but the cut off date for the grant for the Summer Term is 31st March.

We have missed out by 2 weeks and he won't get the funding until he starts back after September (then it'll be 5 times a week)

I hope this makes sense, I thought I'd mention it as you said your Son is 3 at the end of July and the same may apply to you due to the summer holidays.

Spendless

rach1973 wrote:

Not alot more I can say but ask when the cut off date for vouchers/Grant is.

My Son (currently at Pre-School 3 times a week) is 3 on April 14th the Term starts again on 18th April, but the cut off date for the grant for the Summer Term is 31st March.

We have missed out by 2 weeks and he won't get the funding until he starts back after September (then it'll be 5 times a week)

I hope this makes sense, I thought I'd mention it as you said your Son is 3 at the end of July and the same may apply to you due to the summer holidays.

The cut off dates are 1st Sept-31st Dec funding beg of Jan
1st jan-31st march funding beg of May (our nursery, I suppose it might start after easter elsewhere)
1st April - 31st Aug- funding beg of Sept.

Personally I think it's hugely unfair on the April born babies who miss out and are not the youngest of the class either, 4 months worth (sep-Dec) get funding in Jan but only 3 months worth (Jan-march) get the next lot of available funding. April babies have to wait till Sept.

Born 12 hours later my daughter wouldn't have got the funding either, I'm very grateful she turned up when she did.

jules372

Hi, I'm new to all this, and I have a 3 year old that I want to start in daycare of some kind. I've been waiting for him to be fully toilet-trained, so he can start pre-school, but I just read the posting about the cut off being March 31st. My question really is, do I have to send him to a pre-school for free care, or can I send him privately and still get it paid for. My concern is if I send him to a school, I then have to worry about daycare in the holidays as I work part-time and my wages would not cover having to pay privately. I hope you understand this and someone can clarify this situation!!!!!!

Spendless

jules372 wrote:

Hi, I'm new to all this, and I have a 3 year old that I want to start in daycare of some kind. I've been waiting for him to be fully toilet-trained, so he can start pre-school, but I just read the posting about the cut off being March 31st. My question really is, do I have to send him to a pre-school for free care, or can I send him privately and still get it paid for. My concern is if I send him to a school, I then have to worry about daycare in the holidays as I work part-time and my wages would not cover having to pay privately. I hope you understand this and someone can clarify this situation!!!!!!

Do you mean a private nursery? If so then yes, this is what my daughter attends 3 full days a week and she gets the funding there. The funding covers x amount of weeks a year, upto 12.5 hours a week, so my daughter would need to attend at least 2.5 days a week to get the full 12.5 hours funding (2.5 hours AM and 2.5 hours PM each day). There is a headcount day soon (don't know date), so the nursery applies for funding for that child. If you're interested ring round a few local nurseries for more info.
HTH

BTW- mine didn't have to be toilet trained to attend either the nursery or the pre-school she used to go to.

Feisty_Fairy

Hi all

Thanks for your replies so far, the sessions are £7.75 each and he will be going to 5 afternoons, gonna be hard for me at first, cos got to collect him from his private nursery and take him to the new one each day in my lunch hour!

Ah well the joys of having kids eh! lol BLESS EM!!

Regards

Feisty!

alice's_mum

Have just spent all day in work discussing this very subject (work in a school with a nursery). And I double checked whether a kiddy could start after easter 24th April when his birthday was 20th APril. And the position with our Local Authority, is the term after their 3rd birthday. So this kid is in, he'll be 3yrs and 4 days. So there doesn't seem to be a cut off used here. It might be worth checking with your Local Authority Early Years department. As although the grants have cut offs as listed above, these are not necessarily relevant to children getting the grant.

Sultana

alice's_mum wrote:

Have just spent all day in work discussing this very subject (work in a school with a nursery). And I double checked whether a kiddy could start after easter 24th April when his birthday was 20th APril. And the position with our Local Authority, is the term after their 3rd birthday. So this kid is in, he'll be 3yrs and 4 days. So there doesn't seem to be a cut off used here. It might be worth checking with your Local Authority Early Years department. As although the grants have cut offs as listed above, these are not necessarily relevant to children getting the grant.

I used to admister Nursery Grant for my childen's playgroup and while there is nothing to stop your Local Authority admitting children on 24th April they are not legally entitled to funding. Sometimes the LEA manages to channel extra into more deprived areas, this may be what is happenning here. Legally for a child born in April the 'term after the 3rd birthday' means the following September. The actual start date of the Summer term is irrelevant.

It used (30 years ago) to affect school admissions. Children born April-August would start school in the September following their 5th birthday and only got 2 years in the Infants to their measurable disadvantage.

alice's_mum

and while there is nothing to stop your Local Authority admitting children on 24th April they are not legally entitled to funding. Sometimes the LEA manages to channel extra into more deprived areas, this may be what is happenning here. Legally for a child born in April the 'term after the 3rd birthday' means the following September. The actual start date of the Summer term is irrelevant.

This is nothing to do with channeling funding to a deprived area (far from it) it is our LA's Policy that ALL children get their grant the term after they are 3. So if easter was earlier this year then the kiddy I mention wouldn't have got in. But with Easter being when it is he's in that is THEIR policy and it has been for the past 2 years to my knowledge.