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, although there are different rules for each type of funding and you may need to apply for elibigibility first. What we are able to claim will depend on the age of your child and your own individual eligibility which can be checked at www.beststartinlife.gov.uk.
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 | Now |
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 when looking across a full year. However, we do have to claim this in terms and so the actual weekly number may sometimes appear differently on your paperwork. Our Schedule of Fees and the following FAQ explains this further. We do also have some limited offers for 38 and 46 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, which means where we offer funded only hours on a Just 15 or Just 30 pattern, without purchasing any extra hours, you will access 510/1020 hours over the full year, rather than 570/1140 hours. As an alternative, there are other patterns that you can attend all funded hours to access the full 570/1140 hours, these are shown in the Schedule of fees for your site.
We offer all our funding between the hours of 8am-6pm which is our core 10 hour day in most settings (this is 7.30am-5.30pm in Bell Green). To access your full entitlement in this pattern, this would mean a minimum of 2 days for ‘15 hours’ and 3 days for ‘30 hours’ with extra hours to be paid for. We explain more below about how our fees are calculated around these funded hours below. This is because, with some of our session offers we have allowed for food, consumable and activity charges, 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 at your site.
Will I always get 11.18 or 22.35 hours?
In short Not Always. We work under 4 local authorities and they do all have slightly different term lengths which creates differences in what we can claim for children, and therefore what we can provide for your child. Some local authorities do allow us to claim in ‘real-time’ which matches these exact numbers. 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, depends on the number of funded hours we have available to provide to you. 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 Government supported 2yr funding and 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.beststartinlife.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 at the same time. The website should advise you on how you can claim the government supported and if you then obtain a working families code we can process that.
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 you will not be able to use funded hours.
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 and 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 or you have been given a code for your 2yr old as being government supported, then there is nothing for you to do. We will make the application and apply the hours to your account.
If you have applied for a 30 hours 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 and sign-in 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 Universal 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 (570/1140) 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 a choice of 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 and a discounted rate on hours and enhancements over our standard prices
Just 15 or 30
- Fully Funded offers which include all enhancements and no additional hours, with a smaller discount on the enhancements
Nil Cost
- This is the same as Just 15 or 30 but with the option for you to opt-out of food and/or consumables and activities should you wish
We have specific numbers of places for all of our patterns of attendance 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?
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 wants 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 and because we feel it is not in the best interest for a child’s emotional security, we generally don’t allow children to split their funding with other providers. However, when a child has additional SEND needs this is possible and we will consider this on a case by case basis.
What are the Additional/Enhanced charges for?
As mentioned above the government funding is provided to cover the basic education entitlement for children. It is not intended to cover all of the rich and unique experiences that Bright Kids provides nor to cover the cost of foods, consumables and enhanced activities that we undertake, which fall outside of EYFS requirements. 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 able to opt-out of these services and you can access your funded only hours as descried above or in more detail on your sites Schedule of Fees.
We have been asked by the government to break-down our additional charges into the categories for hours, food, consumables and activities and you can see this individual pricing in your Schedule of Fees. However, we then recognise that that where children attend more hours over the week there are internal savings that can be made in administration and processing time. We therefore apply discounts to various elements of our additional services charges. All of which can be found in the Schedule of Fees.
Generally, the more hours that are bought direct then the cheaper these become per hour, hence there is a range of hourly rates as all our calculations work on a sliding scale based on these factors, for all the enhancement charges and the additional hours.
How is the funding shown on my invoice?
Where you have chosen an All-In package with additional hours your invoice will show a total figure of hours bought and the cost of those. The invoice will also show your funded hours at no cost. Where you have opted in for all 3 other additional services then these will be shown at a zero cost on your invoice, as they have been provided at no cost to you where you have bought extra hours. Where you have opted out of one or two additional services then these will be shown as separate prices on your invoice.
Likewise, where there are no extra hours bought it will show either your additional services individually if you have have opted out of one or two of them or where you have opted in for all three this will be shown at a discounted All-In rate on one line all together. There are no additional hours to charge and your funding will be shown at zero cost as well.
So as an example, 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 this shows as 95 hours per month at zero cost on the invoice. For convenience, your invoices will be equalised 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 an 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 as 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 may be charged in full for the Training Day at our usual rates if this is part of your usual hours. 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 costs and hourly rates so the cost would be added on one way or another to ensure we are able to carry out these whole team development days.
