Paddywhack Posted August 23 Share Posted August 23 My 5 year old was upset this morning when he realised a truth about the world that we all had to face some point. Mr Blobby isn’t real, it’s a man in a costume. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Free Childcare... My son starts at a nursery next week (only 9 hours) and I've done all the sign ups on government gateway etc and provided the nursery the code. I've not really had any correspondence regarding payment or anything so it that it, all paid, the end? I feel like I'm going to get a bill from the nursery. Or do I do that and then claim it back? The Government website doesn't seem to give any kind of details about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeVilla82 Posted September 3 VT Supporter Share Posted September 3 55 minutes ago, Wainy316 said: Free Childcare... My son starts at a nursery next week (only 9 hours) and I've done all the sign ups on government gateway etc and provided the nursery the code. I've not really had any correspondence regarding payment or anything so it that it, all paid, the end? I feel like I'm going to get a bill from the nursery. Or do I do that and then claim it back? The Government website doesn't seem to give any kind of details about this. Nursery will deduct the Government funding from any charges that you're due to pay, and send you a bill for the balance. Beware that the Government funding very rarely covers the full amount - most nurseries will charge additional amounts for consumables, activities, food etc to make up the balance. So you may well get a bill, albeit a lot smaller than if the "free" hours weren't applied 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Nursery will send you an invoice and you'll just assume it's right because **** trying to work it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted September 3 VT Supporter Share Posted September 3 (edited) 2 hours ago, Wainy316 said: Free Childcare... My son starts at a nursery next week (only 9 hours) and I've done all the sign ups on government gateway etc and provided the nursery the code. I've not really had any correspondence regarding payment or anything so it that it, all paid, the end? I feel like I'm going to get a bill from the nursery. Or do I do that and then claim it back? The Government website doesn't seem to give any kind of details about this. Nursery invoice you. You pay money into your childcare account on the government gateway where it will add on the government top up. And then you pay the invoice to the nursery from there (there's a section to set up a payment). How nurseries apply the free funding seems like a complete lottery. Ours gave us a breakdown and it makes sense, but there's lots of little caveats that means the free hours don't work our as beneficial as you think. For 9 hours a week you'll probably be fine. But for longer it's a **** minefield. As an example, we'll be getting 30 free hours a week from January. Our son is in nursery for 40 hours a week. Great, a 75% reduction! Nope. It will work out as less than 50% reduction. Which don't get me wrong, is still great. But it's not as much of a discount as you might think it will be A girl who works from me had to move her daughter to a different nursery, because in the one she was in the 30 hours a week meant her bill only went down from £1300 a month to £1100 a month Edited September 3 by Stevo985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Yeah, they're not really free hours; for the nursery my son goes to, if you are eligible for the 15 hours you go onto a different (higher) rate for the hours outside the 'free' ones, compared to the hourly rate for a non funded day. As @GeorgeVilla82 says, it's because the rate the nursery get from the government is nowhere near enough to actually cover costs, so they have to make it up another way or they'd go out of business. All the literature from our nursery about it carefully refers to funded hours rather than free hours. It still works out as a good reduction over the year though for us, so can't really complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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