Continuing to pay for private nursery when may not be needed

Spendless

DD has been in private nursery 3 full days a week whilst I studied. My course has now come to an end. Daughter gets nursery funding for being 3 and we pay the remainder. DD nursery usually splits the nursery grant over the 4 months, but due to my course finishing and the eldest being off school in summer I asked to take if over 3 months. It runs out end of July. Initially what I was going to do was either take DD out at end of July or reduce to 1 day only up until our holidays at the end of August. On our return DD will be starting at school nursery, though I do not yet know the start date and won't find out till beg of July.

In the meantime I have seen a job I wish to apply for which is 3 x 3 hours a week. It is on the other side of town so if I were to get the job I would need care around her school nursery times depending on start/finish times which I don't yet know. If I were to get the job depending on times I would either need a childminder or could do a combination of private nursery sessions AM and school nursery PM, or see if relatives could help out (which may not be possible) DD has got morning nursery at schooland since this is always oversubscribed, swapping her to afternoons would not be a problem. The job application doesn't have to be until end of june and then you will hear if it is being taken any further by 1st week in July.

The thing is the private nursery needs a months notice to change her sessions. What do I do, give a months notice to nursery to change her to 1 day a week in August for a few weeks and give her finish date, and then if I got the job, withdraw the notice if she needs to stop there and ask to change her sessions. Wait until the first week in July when I will know both whether I have been invited to interview and daughters school nursery date and if I haven't got interview give notice then and accept it means paying for an additional weeks nursery fees? What if I got interview and didn't get job, wait till then to give notice to private nursery paying full fees in meantime, which will be expensive.

Stopping permanently at private nursery isn't an option, as 3 year old has absolute heart set on going to the nursery at the school her brother attends.

Don't know what to do. . Help please

donna-j_2

I don't imagine it will be as easy as withdrawing the notice. From the other side, I'm waiting for more sessions to come up at the nursery I've chosen for Thomas, so if someone gave notice then the place would be snapped up quick-smart. I'd be unimpressed if I was offered a place and it was taken away because someone had changed their mind.

Probably best to discuss it with the nursery and see what availability is like.

Spendless

Yes I appreciate that. Which is why I'm reluctant to do it until I know for certain what is happening.

The only thing I can think of is continue with the 3 full days till 1st week of July then give notice, but that would mean only 1-2 weeks when I would have liked 1 day only and I don't think nursery would be happy with that, though I suppose I could say 1 day till she went to school nursery (though I don't actually know start date, I roughly know the criteria the school applies and have worked out it will be late sept/early oct when she starts). It would mean paying for 3 days that she wouldn't use, whilst we are away to hold the place. I did really want the summer holiday to be the 'break' between her finishing private nursery and starting school nursery.

OR

In event get an interview continue to pay and send her for 3 full days and hope I've heard by 20th July and in event I didn't get job I could give a months notice to take me up to start of our hols. I won't get the funding but 3 weeks of nursery fees wouldn't take me over the limit of how many busybee vouchers. OR if I got job give a months notice at that point to change sessions depending on hours of work and accept that August is going to cost a fortune.

Just I may end up with DD at nursery 3 full days a week whilst DS is off and I have no idea whether or not I'll need it

ruthyjo

This all sounds really complicated. I've been in contortions over child care arrangements before and my initial reaction would be it's not worth getting so het up over whether you pay for a couple of days of nursery care you don't really need or not - the important thing is that you know quality care that you are happy with is there for your daughter if you need it.

I think you could reduce the uncertainty a lot if you:-

contact your potential employers and ask what exactly the hours for the job would be. You've posted that's it's only for nine hours a week. If they want quality applicants to work that little time they shouldn't mind telling you what the working conditions would be.

Approach the school nursery where your daughter will be going in Spetember and ask them what your daughter's start date will be. If you already have a relationship with them from your son going explain the situation and see if your little girl can be given an earlier start date. When my second son started in reception and the first week was mornings only the teacher who'd had his older brother the previous year rang me at home and said she knew my work commitments would make a part time start difficult and she would be happy to have him full time immediately. With a bit of luck your school nursery could exercise similar discretion.

Look into your daughter's nursery place being compressed into a couple of full days. The government require flexibility in how parents are allowed to use their nursery vouchers. There's no reason why your daughter should have to go every morning - she should be able to do a mixture to suit you. Perhaps they offer a lunch club or extended care that mean she could be in the nursery all the time you worked?

Spendless

ruthyjo wrote:

contact your potential employers and ask what exactly the hours for the job would be. You've posted that's it's only for nine hours a week. If they want quality applicants to work that little time they shouldn't mind telling you what the working conditions would be.

Approach the school nursery where your daughter will be going in Spetember and ask them what your daughter's start date will be.

Look into your daughter's nursery place being compressed into a couple of full days. The government require flexibility in how parents are allowed to use their nursery vouchers. There's no reason why your daughter should have to go every morning - she should be able to do a mixture to suit you. Perhaps they offer a lunch club or extended care that mean she could be in the nursery all the time you worked?

The job is for a charity. The work is at the local branch but the ad was placed by their HO. There are no opening times outside their office. There was no phone number given for their HO.

I have practically had to squeeze blood out of the school to discover if daughter had AM or PM sessions :mad: and only found out a couple of days ago. It is doubtful that they even know the dates for nursery children to start at this stage and will only let all parents know at the same time 1st week in July.

Here state (school) nurseries only offer 5 mornings or 5 afternoon sessions. You can't put days together, nor will they share any funding with the private nurseries. Anyone who wants more than the 2.5 hours nursery session per day they offer has to take their child to a private nursery instead. They don't offer anything else.

ETA- well I tried ringing but they couldn't help with any definate days/hours just a 'to meet demands of business, will be discussed with right candiate at interview".

AARRGGHH!! I definately can't do flexible if that is what they are asking. I'm wondering about even applying considering the headache the 'what if' 'what if' scenario it is giving me. I will be really upset if I got it and find it's not workable around childcare.

TraciJ2

spendless, from expirence of being a nursery manager, i would rather my parents had spoken to me about their worries over subjects like this, then leave it to chance or the last minute.
Have a chat with the Manager, they would be able to help you with what you would need to know. If you decide to give notice, then the nursery would be prepared in advance, and if you dont give notice the nursery place is still there for you. In some circumstances, i was able to reduce the notice period - PLEASE DONT THINK THAT EVERY NURSERY WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT, but some parents have built up some kind of credit on their fees which paid for the shorter notice period.

good luck for the job !!

ruthyjo

Surely if your nursery haven't decided which children will start and when they should have no problems in making your daughter one of the first - I would put this to them.

My daughter goes to an LEA nursery school. When she started last September she had to do five morning or five afternoons. She is consequently in the nursery every morning, plus in their extended day care three days a week for which I pay the additional cost. After xmas they had to change their policy and allow parents to specify which five sessions they required for their children. Many parents switched their sessions round e.g. to do a mix of mornings and afternoons or to do a couple of full days. We were also allowed to divide the vouchers across two or more providers for the first time. The reason the nursery changed policy was because the LEA acknowledged that they were breaching the government policy on parental choice and required all their nurseries to change their arrangements.

If your LEA is being unnecessarily restrictive on how they admit children to their nursery classes I think you have the opportunity of challenging this. Ask them to explain how their restrictions match with government requirements for parental choice.

I'd also question the right of the nursery to take your childcare vouchers for the whole of the Autumn term if your daughter can't start until October. She's effectively missing out on a month of her entitlement to preschool education. If the LEA nursery can't provide it is there any way you can spend vouchers for that month elsewhere (for example at your current day nursery). I know all sorts of objections get raised to administering this, but I would take as robust an attitude as possible - you're the consumer with the vouchers to spend after all.

Of course until you know if you have got the job you won't really know whether a battle with the nursery is worthwhile. I wouldn't give up on pursuing the information with them. It seems totally unreasonable that they should expect people to apply for a job not knowing what hours it will entail, particularly as you would think the only people likely to want a job for nine hours a week only would be people with childcare or similar responsibilities. Could turn out that the flexibility thing goes a bit in your favour i.e. they are prepared to agree the hours that suuit the candidate if they get the right person.

I'm also editing this to add that thinking about it again a lot of nurseries have extra capacity over the summer. Perhaps if they know that children with a regular place are going to be away over the summer they'll sell you an adhoc place for the days it turns out you need. This is a possibility I would discuss with the nursery as it could be a way of knowing childcare will be there if you need it but not having to pay for it if you don't.

Spendless

The school nursery has x amount of (spaces)children AM and same amount PM. They open the week after term begins as the nursery staff help settle the now reception children in and then take so many at a time. Not sure of numbers but lets say it is 6, they do this by taking the 3 eldest off the list and the 3 youngest, they start together. On the next take in day of which there are 2 per week they will take the next 3 eldest and 3 youngest and so on. My daughter with an end of March birthday is likely to be the last in cos of this. When my son attended his early March birthday made him 2nd to last in. The school will follow this criteria but won't look at whose birthday falls where yet and thus us only finding out early July.

Not completely sure what you mean about vouchers. Daughter gets nursery grant but it is 'invisible money' IYSWIM. It is administered by private nursery.I just know how much her grant is worth each month and knock that amount off of her monthly nursery fees. We pay the remainder by busybee vouchers. When it comes to sending the children to school nursery, they just go you don't see or have to do anything with any vouchers.

I live in an area of the town where there is a lack of school nurseries. Out of the 4 local schools, which make up the feeder to the local secondary, only 2 have attached nurseries and of them only my kids school has it on the school premises, the other is over a mile away from their school building. It is rare for children to get early entry into the nursery for this reason, as the nursery is always oversubscribed, having sessions for couple of days or mixture of AM and PM is just not possible, if you want a state nursery your choices are to take 5 x AM OR 5 x PM, otherwise you have to go to private nursery.

The manager of DD private nursery was telling me of the LA reluctance to share the funding. Whether this will change I don't know, but due to lack of state nurseries in my area I really can't see it happening here.

I have now re-read the application form and it says if you don't know by 3rd July assume unsuccessful. Now I could send in letter reducing daughters nursery hours and finish date on 30 June and keep my fingers crossed that nothing turns up in post offering an interview on the sat or Mon OR I could say we will continue to pay for DD 3 days a week right up until our hols. The amount this would be would still be within the amount that you can have busybee vouchers for

ruthyjo

The school nursery will still process the same funding paperwork as a private nursery or playgroup. I refer to the payment for these as nursery vouchers because when I was a playgroup treasurer that was the jargon the LEA used - I could say grant if that's better.

When the guarantee of the five two and a half hour sessions during termtime was introduced part of the idea was that there would be flexibility about how parents spent them so they could mix and match educational childcare around the individual family's needs.

Lots of nurseries, both LEA and privately operated, do their best to obstruct this, but that doesn't mean you have to put up with it. Your daughter should be getting 38 weeks of funded sessions per year. If her nursery delay her start until October she will not get her entitlement of sessions (assuming here that the nursery isn't going to open in some school holidays to make up the 38 weeks), but I'm pretty sure the nursery will still claim her full grant from the LEA.

The nursery may well have a system of staggered intake, but I still think if you want to get round this you'd be much better making a fuss now rather than after they've given everyone a start date. It'll probably be easier for them to bend their system for you than deal with you any other way.

There is a lack of local nurseries where I live too. I drive my daughter 4 miles to hers. It is the only LEA nursery in a rural pyramid that includes 14 first schools, 2 middle schools and a high school. However just because a nursery is popular shouldn't mean it can treat parents badly and it's only by parents accepting the nursery dictating terms that they can get away with behaving against the spirit of recent legislation.

If you really want the job and the nursery place and want them to fit round each other I think you need to be more proactive in making things work for yourself. If you don't want to make trouble at the LEA nursery you really need to talk to the nursery manager of the private nursery. She might, for instance, tell you she has no waiting list for pre-school places in which case you could withdraw your daughter and know she could be re-enrolled if necessary. or, as I suggested before, discuss the availability of ad hoc sessions.

If you do hang on to the nursery place there is no guarantee it's going to fit with the nine hours of employment anyway. Would you actually be in a less strong position to get what you need from the nursery if you withdraw your daughter and then ask for her to be readmitted? (I.e. do they give priority to children wanting to change sessions over those on the waiting list to come into the nursery?)

Spendless

ruthyjo wrote:

If you do hang on to the nursery place there is no guarantee it's going to fit with the nine hours of employment anyway. Would you actually be in a less strong position to get what you need from the nursery if you withdraw your daughter and then ask for her to be readmitted? (I.e. do they give priority to children wanting to change sessions over those on the waiting list to come into the nursery?)

I could very easily swap to PM rather than AM as there are bound to be people who have not got their preferred choice. saying I don't want the place though, it would get snapped up and I might not get it back. I know people this happened to when son was there.

In the meantime I have tried the local office rather than the HO, the job is for 10.5 hours a week not 9. there was a crease in paper so I never spotted the .5:o , and they said the job could be flexible around their office hours and if need be could be made 5 x 2ish hours. Still not workable around the school nursery hours due to being over side of town 15-20 minute drive away but at least it gives me something to work on.

ruthyjo

That's really good news and makes the job that bit more worth giving your best shot. Flexibility working in your favour is the best thing you could hope for. If you're successful you might even be able to try for longer hours, but term time only working!

Re hanging on to the nursery place:- I meant the private one rather than the school one - is there any benefit keeping it now when you're probably going to want different sessions when you start work?

I think you should definitely hang on to your LEA nursery place. My daughter's had a much more education focused year in the LEA nursery than my sons did in a day nursery in their pre school years and, as you said, your daughter's looking forward to it.

Perhaps you could look into the childminder option. If there are childminders with places available and you're only working a few hours a day it might be cheaper to have a childminder for those few hours rather than commit to a full private nursery session. Someone with a child in the nursery would be ideal. Why don't you ask around?