Funded places..
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Thread: Funded places..

  1. #1
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    Default Funded places..

    This is all v new to me and im in the process of sorting one of my minded children out with it who has been with me a long time but is now going funded.

    I have this current child 12 hours per week every week but have been told it only covers 38 weeks of the year..does the parent pay the rest of it?

    I have had another enquiry for the 15 hours too but can only do the same 12 hours..again how does it work for the remaining time?

    I have asked the council about ti but am very confused as she says to spread it over the year if I want but wil get paid less? Its already less than id charge and this term we have to wait 11 weeks for the money so not great?!

    How do others find it?

    Thanks

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    You can take the total funded amount allowed for the year (LA should be able to tell you that amount) and divide by the number of weeks you want to do (minus your closed-for-holidays-weeks). I did this, drove me crazy trying to do the maths!
    Yes, if parents want more than just the funded hours they pay you as usual.

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    Children get up to 570 hours year. This is usually spread out as 15 hours over 38 weeks, but can be stretched (our LA allowed it, so I assume others do.)
    You could spread the 570 hours as 12 hours over 47.5 weeks.

    You have 2 options. Offer your family 12 hours over 47.5 weeks (so you claim the full amount), or only claim 12 hours a week over 38 weeks. You don't have to claim the full 15 hours. For my funded children I claim between 6 and 15 hours a week.

    Personally, if the rate the LA pays you is less than your hourly rate I would go for the second option. You could claim 12 hours a week from the LA for term time only, then you would charge the family your full fee in the holidays. You would limit your losses that way. Also, you should be able to charge separately for meals, although you do have to give the parents the option of providing a packed lunch themselves.

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    Not all counties allow the hours to be spread over the year,you need to. Check with your local early years team. I'd ask the local nursery they will know how it works.

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    I had a child who took 15 hrs funding a week. For the last 4 weeks of the summer term she used 10 hrs a week, and then had 4, 5 hr sessions over the summer holidays. I checked with my LA and they said that as long as child received their full quota of paid for funded hours, then it was up to me and mum how and when they were used! I was happy to do this as it meant LO stayed in touch over the long summer hols and we didn't have problems resettling!

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    Quote Originally Posted by moggy View Post
    You can take the total funded amount allowed for the year (LA should be able to tell you that amount) and divide by the number of weeks you want to do (minus your closed-for-holidays-weeks). I did this, drove me crazy trying to do the maths!
    Yes, if parents want more than just the funded hours they pay you as usual.
    Agreed.

    I looked at doing this (which I think the LA refers to as an "extended offer" or something like that) and consulted with parents. The responses I got (i.e. my funded clients went into a frenzy over the possibilities of what they took to be "free childcare, anytime, on demand") suggested I'd be opening a huge can of worms, so I never tried.

    I do offer parents to replace any funded hours they miss due to holiday/illness, as I'm otherwise supposed to pay it back to the LA. This a real bugbear, as the LA places no such expectation upon nurseries or schools: they don't chase CMs for it as such, but I know a couple who got pulled up on it when they underwent a random audit.

    This sort of works for me. Most of my funded children come in the afternoons, after preschool and split the funding between me and preschool. If they do come in the hols, they're often here full day and may come with a fee-paying sibling, so it helps fill the holiday void when my TTOs are away.

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    Aaaah ok im still a little confused.

    So basically mum does 12 hours a week which I have asked about and can spread across the year..i think this way though I can only be paid 11 hours a week so mum will have to top up the hour is this right?

    Also 'if' we take holiday I take it we don't get paid? I have some booked in Sept but other than that mum doesn't know and usually leaves it till last min..i am not happy not getting paid as I charge half so how does this work?
    Thanks

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    I haven't had a funded child for about 2 years now but the last time I did it my LA paid me per school term. I got paid a higher amount than my hourly rate as this is term time only. My parent used to pay me for a meal instead of sending packed lunch. I was told by my PACEY rep that I couldn't charge for a meal as the higher rate of pay should cover this. I have never seen anything in black and white that states this and was always led to think the higher rate was because it was term to term.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jelly Baby View Post
    Aaaah ok im still a little confused.

    So basically mum does 12 hours a week which I have asked about and can spread across the year..i think this way though I can only be paid 11 hours a week so mum will have to top up the hour is this right?

    Also 'if' we take holiday I take it we don't get paid? I have some booked in Sept but other than that mum doesn't know and usually leaves it till last min..i am not happy not getting paid as I charge half so how does this work?
    Thanks
    As usual, it will depend on your LA.

    IIUC most will not pay for weeks your setting is closed (ie. on holiday) TBH, why should they? We'd all be up in arms if they were throwing public money at any other service provider when they weren't doing the job.

    Under my LA, if I'm closed for a funded week (ie. term-time) they let me provided funded care on an alternative week which would normally be non-funded (eg. school holiday week). They make it clear this is 'discretionary', but have yet to refuse it. If you were doing a "stretched offer" - ie. across the whole year - then it probably wouldn't matter so long as you didn't take unusually large amounts of holiday for yourself.

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    Charge your normal rate and then take off x amount of hours per week. If they are using 12 remove the cost of 12 and when you get towards the end of the year and there is only 10 hours left take off the ten hours
    Debbie

 

 

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