Resources & Information

Funding & Consumables

Funding

All children qualify for free education from the term following their 3rd birthday. Once your child is eligible, we will give you a form to complete each term in order to make your child’s claim for up to 15 hours funding per week during term time only, for a maximum of 38 weeks per year. The maximum number of hours each child is allowed to claim is 570 hours per year.

Each child’s eligibility of 15 hours per week (570 hours per year) can be shared between Twiggs Lane Preschool and one other nursery/pre-school/childminder during the same day, however, you can have up to four providers in total. Their details must be detailed on the funding form.

Once we have received the funding form, we will collate all the hours and liaise with any other providers before sending our claim to the local education authority.

With effect from September 2017. Some children could also qualify for an extended entitlement of an additional 15 hours. Parents should check their individual qualification criteria by visiting the web site: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/

Please be aware that this is also limited to 570 hours per year and not transferrable with the universal hour entitlement mentioned above. 

Your child will be eligible for 3 Year funding as follows

Child’s 3^rd Birthday falls between:

1^st April – 31^st August – Eligible from 1^st September (Autumn term)

1^st September – 31^st December – Eligible from 1^st January (Spring term)

1^st January – 31^st March – Eligible from 1^st April (summer term)

2 Year Funding

Twiggs Lane Pre-school is registered to accept funded two-year-old children. If you meet the requirements to receive two-year-old funding for your child and have been successful in your application, you will be given a unique reference number to enable us to submit a funding form for your child.  Further information is available should you require it at:

https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Consumables Charge

The Government Early Years Education funding (15 universal hours and 15 additional hours) rates sadly do not cover the cost of providing this service.  As a setting and this is true for all settings have been left to subsidize the difference between funding and the actual cost to deliver it.  This is highlighted by the Department of Education (DfE) who state that ‘Government funding is intended to deliver 15 or 30 hours a week of free, high quality, flexible childcare. It is not intended to cover the costs of snacks, other consumables, additional hours or additional services’.

Despite having high quality staff and receiving the highest funding rate available in Hampshire the funding rate hasn’t kept up with the high increase in minimum wages over the same period.  Historically, as a not for profit, charity run preschool we have not imposed a consumable charge for families in receipt of Government funding. However, as we are now facing increasingly rising costs to deliver our service (energy bills, food, etc), and government funding has not kept up with inflation we find that in order to continue to provide this service we will need to make a consumable charge to those in receipt of government funding.

To remain sustainable, we will now need to charge 70p per funded hour. This will be reviewed periodically. This charge will cover snacks, arts and crafts, special celebrations, cooking, gardening, suncream, music and movement; this list is not exhaustive. Any children in receipt of 2-year-old funding or Early Years Pupil Premium will be exempt from this charge