Frequently Asked Questions on Early Years Funding
Funding is a complex matter that we have to navigate on behalf of our parents. There are different types of funding and there are various eligibility criteria for most of them. Here, we try to unravel some of those questions and requests that we often receive about this.
Who is entitled to Early Education Funding?
There are four types of early years education funding streams
- Government supported (2yr olds only)
- Universal (15 hours for 3-4yr olds)
- Extended (for 3-4yr olds)
- Expanded (from 9 mths-2yrs)
These can all be claimed via the nursery directly but there are different rules for each type of funding. What we are able to claim will depend on the age of your child and your own individual eligibility.
Government Funding Offers
| Child Age | Offer Type | Offer Hours | Eligibility | From When |
| 2 years |
Government Supported |
15 hours | Families receiving Government support | Now |
| 3-4 years | Universal | 15 hours | All Parents | Now |
| 3-4 years | Extended | 30 hours | Working Families | Now |
| 2 years | Expanded | 15 hours | Working Families | Now |
| 9-23 months | Expanded | 15 hours | Working Families | Now |
| 9 months + | Expanded | 30 hours | Working Families | September 2025 |
It says 15 hours and 30 hours – is that every week?
What often gets overlooked when you start to look at your early education funding entitlement is that whilst we refer to it as ’15 hours’ and ’30 hours’ the government do actually only pay us this for 38 weeks of the year.
As we are an all-year round provider, we then stretch this amount of funding over the 51 weeks we are open. This makes the 15 (570) hours 11.18 hours per week and the 30 (1140) hours 22.35 per week. We do also have some limited offers for 38, 46 and 48 weeks, which will offer different hours each week and are subject to availability and numbers we allow for each of these patterns.
We are also restricted as to how many hours funding we can offer in one day. The maximum is 10 hours. For this reason we have some funded only places offering 10 hours, which means if you choose this pattern you will access 510/1020 hours over the full year, rather than 570/1140 hours.
Where you choose to take all of your funded hours then we can only offer this over a minimum of 2 days for ‘15 hours’ and 3 days for ‘30 hours’. We explain more below about how our fees are calculated around these hours and it’s important that you know it’s not as simple as ‘taking hours off’. This is because, with some of our sessions offers we have included an additional consumables charge, alongside the additional hours, as an ‘all-inclusive’ package. What we therefore do is split your funding into equal portions over the number of days you attend and charge additional hours and services around these. Please see our Schedule of Fees for more details of the sessions we offer and the funding we give in these sessions.
Will I always get 11.18 or 22.35 hours?
In short Not Always. We work under 4 local authorities and they have different term lengths which creates differences in what we can claim for children. Some local authorities do allow us to claim in ‘real-time’ so to speak. Most though, require us to claim in termly blocks.
Depending on which term your child starts their funding with us, or indeed how many terms there are left of that particular type of funding available for us to claim, affects the number of funded hours we have available to pass over. You will notice this on the price lists where there is a Spring and Summer option. Funding moves from 11.18 hours to 10.71, 10.28, 8.86 or even 8.18 hours across these terms, depending on the local authority. However, in September – all children move onto 11.18 or 22.35 for the full academic year ahead.
When can I access my funding?
The answer to this depends on the particular type of funding and the eligibility criteria there is to meet with that and some other factors.
When we talk about ‘eligibility’ this includes both your child’s date of birth and your own circumstances.
Here’s some of what’s involved:
- When your child becomes eligible
- Whether you need to apply for the funding or it is automatic
- If your funding application has been made on time
- Your start date
- When will my child become eligible?.
.
Funding does not start until the term AFTER your child reaches a specific milestone age:
| If your child is born between: | They are eligible for a place from: |
| 1 April and 31 August | 1 September after 9mths, second or third birthday until statutory school age of 5 |
| 1 September and 31 December | 1 January after 9mths, second or third birthday until statutory school age of 5 |
| 1 January and 31 March | 1 April after 9mths, second or third birthday until statutory school age of 5 |
2. Do I need to apply for funding?
All funding types except the Universal 3 & 4 year old ‘15 hours’ funding need to be applied for by parents in one way or another. Again, local authority procedures differ but you can go onto www.childcarechoices.gov.uk or your local authorities Family Information Service and find out more about what you are eligible for and how to apply.
In some rare circumstances you may be eligible for government supported 2 year old funding and Working Families 2 year old funding. The website should advise you on which is better for you to claim and it is not a decision that we are involved in.
Once you have made a successful application you will need to provide your relevant Eligibility Code to the nursery. This may be:
- 2 year old code for government supported families (format varies by LA) – valid for the whole of the period until your child reaches 3 year funding
- Working Families Funding Code or 30 hours code (11-digit number) – which needs updating every 3 months via HMRC
Remember: Just as with your Tax free Childcare you need to re-confirm your own eligibility to access this funding every 3 months. If you do not re-confirm this then you run the risk of dropping into a ‘Grace Period’ which is explained further down. We cannot re-confirm for you – although our local authorities do tell us when you are close to or have gone into a Grace Period and this may cause us to prompt you. However, we do not know your actual renewal dates and so can’t remind you directly. You should have HMRC reminders turned on for this.
3. When should I apply for funding?
You need to have applied for your Funding Code and ideally have received the code, prior to the start of the term in which your child will be eligible for the funding. If you apply after the start of the term the code will not be validated and we cannot accept it.
And because your code has a validity of 3 months only, then you should not apply for this too early. We recommend about 4-6 weeks prior to the start of the eligible term as being a good time to apply.
Once you have given us the code we then need to check its validity with the local authority ourselves. To do this we have to check via their Eligibility Checker. Only once we have done this are we able to offer you the funded hours. For this reason we will need the code prior to the start of the term to which it is to be applied.
Where codes arrive late we cannot usually apply the funding for that term.
4. When can I start?
Early Education funding rules are different in each local authority. However, as a general rule children start funding at the beginning of a term, this is because funding is generally delivered in termly blocks. Each term we have a specific date by which children need to be attending – this is called the ‘headcount date’. If children are not attending by that date we generally cannot claim for them for the rest of the term.
Some local authorities DO allow children to start in the middle of a term and in some circumstances we can accommodate this. However, very often staffing will already have been planned in advance and so it may not always be possible.
We appreciate children do sometimes have to move in an emergency as we do our best to accommodate where we can.
How do I access the funding?
If your child is on universal 3-4 yr ‘15 hours’ funding then there is nothing for you to do. We will make the application and apply the hours to your account.
If you have a funding code then you need to give that to us as soon as you get it. We should already hold on file the other information we require, which includes National Insurance numbers, although if we haven’t got these then it will delay the application. We then check the code validity and advise you accordingly.
Once the invoice is produced for the beginning of the next term, we will apply the funding in line with the amounts shown in our price lists
30 hours Childcare
You can register for both the Tax Free Childcare scheme and the 30 hours on the government website. The eligibility criteria is similar for both and it is all explained on their page. You do not have to take both schemes if you are better off using Tax Credits rather than the Tax Free Scheme they you can just register for the 30 hours. We always recommend that you do your research and work out what is the best way for your family.
Are my hours free?
Whilst the offer has been advertised as free by the government, it is a misleading statement from them and language now is moving towards ‘funded’ and ‘subsidy’ as we have always been allowed to charge for additional elements of the provision that we offer.
The government pays for the education element of the provision during the specific number of funded hours and indeed this part comes at no cost to the parent.
However, the funded hours do not pay for food, consumables, enhanced activities and resources or additional hours. Many of the things that we offer as a company to enhance the learning experience for our children here at Bright Kids are not costed into the governments funding. The legislation does say that parents can be expected to pay for extras. Although we do provide options for parents who choose not to take these enhancements.
When calculating and offering out our sessions to parents, we have three distinct types of offers, with different attendance hours available in each of them. These are described below and can be seen in our Schedule of Fees.
You can therefore choose between:
Flexible 15 or 30
- Fully Flexible offers which include all enhancements and additional hours
Just 15 or 30
- Fully Funded offers which include all enhancements and no additional hours
Nil Cost
- Fully Free offers which can have food and enhancements added should you wish
We have specific numbers of places for each of these offers and these do vary nursery by nursery.
Because we are open all year round most of our places are offered in that way. We do have limited term-time places. Where parents require just term-time then we would recommend going to a local pre-school who are exactly set up to meet their term-time needs.
Why can’t I mix the patterns of attendance shown above?
The simple answer is because our systems can’t cope with that. So, whilst you can mix things up within each of the 3 offers above e.g do 2.5 days rather than 2 or 3 – you can’t do that between offers. This is because we have set up specific delivery models with funded integrated into this. When a parent want a ‘bit of one’ and a ’bit of another’ it just doesn’t work with our funded models – therefore we ask you to choose based on your requirement and not to ask for ‘pick n’ mix’ from everything that we do.
For this reason we generally don’t allow children to split their funding with other providers. However, when a child has additional SEND needs this is possible.
What are the Enhanced Provision charges for?
Where parents chose to access an Enhanced Flexible 15/30 Offer, over and above the basic entitlement funded provision, then there is an additional charge that covers additional services. These services include, but are not limited to, extra hours, breakfasts, snacks, lunches, teas, trips outside the nursery, parties for children, equipment or gifts that the children take home such as for Mother’s or Father’s Day and other such specific activities that the nursery buys in specifically for children. You are not obliged to take up these additional services and you can access your funded only hours at NIL COST over the 38 or 51 weeks as shown on the Schedule of Fees.
Parents often try to ‘break down’ the additional charges or ask for a specific calculation. However, it is not as simple as that because there are many varying factors, including the number of hours that are funded and the number of additional hours being accessed, plus using our ‘mantra’ – we’ll always find the cheapest way for you.
Generally, the more hours that are bought direct then the cheaper these become per hour, hence there is no specific hourly rate as all our calculations work on a sliding scale based on these factors, both for the enhancement charges and the additional hours.
How is the funding shown on my invoice?
Your invoice will show a total figure which consists of the additional hours and enhanced services that are charged for outside of our funded delivery. When attending all year round then we ensure your funded entitlement is accounted for on your invoice as a number of hours on an equal monthly basis. This equates to your ‘free’ entitlement from the government, and the balance relates to the fees for your remaining services as shown in the Schedule of Fees.
So, if you have started your 30 hours funding in September then you have 1140 hours to be allocated. We divide this over the 12 months and allow 95 hours per month against the equalised monthly charges. This helps ensure your invoices remain static throughout the year, fee increases aside.
Where you attend on other patterns then invoices may be produced over a different number of months or on an actual used basis. In all cases your invoice will show the number of hours that has been applied for that month and any remaining charges from the Schedule of Fees.
It is not possible to show every single attendance pattern on the Schedule of Fees, however if you want a individual quote prior to starting, and this fits into our usual sessions times and is not mixing patterns then we can provide this for you in a few days.
What is the Grace Period?
A local authority’s grace period for early years funding allows a child to continue accessing funded hours after a parent is no longer eligible:
- Length
The length of the grace period depends on when the parent receives the ineligible decision:
-
- For example, if a parent receives an ineligible decision between January 1 and February 10, the grace period ends on March 31.
- When it ends
The grace period ends at the end of a term.
- What happens after the grace period
After the grace period ends, the child will no longer be able to access the expanded funding until the term after the parent re-confirms eligibility.
- What to do during the grace period
During the grace period, your child cannot start with a new childcare provider.
Parents are prompted every three months to reconfirm their eligibility. Local authorities audit eligibility codes at six points in the year to identify children who have fallen out of eligibility.
Why do I have to pay when there is a teacher training day?
As stated in our Terms and Conditions which is signed by every parent when you start, we have 2 Training Days each year. These are not ‘days off’ for our team and we spend the time investing in their professional development. We do hope parents see the benefit in that.
In the same way a you don’t get any taxes back if your child’s school closes for the day for training, or any other reason, we don’t return any monies on these days that are closed. Where you attend for Just 15 or 30 or Nil Cost then you can transfer to another day, however you will be charged in full for the Training Day at our usual rates. Where you attend with additional hours then we shift the funded hours into other days.
Our staff teams work really hard and in order to maintain a high-quality nursery then we want to train them to the best of our abilities. They undertake training throughout the year, however due to maintaining staff to child ratios this is mostly in the evenings and occasionally at weekends. We use these full training days to introduce new initiatives and innovative ideas, which can be much better received when staff are at their best – in daytime hours.
The alternative to our not charging for these days is for us to increase daily rates so the time is added onto every other day you might attend.