Funding
Funding Factsheet
Funding can come from three different sources:
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2 year old funding for low income families
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3 year old funding – universal entitlement
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3 year old funding – extended entitlement
Points for consideration
Children qualify for funding the term after their birthday (second birthday if two year old funding and their third birthday if three year old funding). Cut off dates for the following term are set by the Government and are 31 August, 31 December and 31 March).
All children receive the universal entitlement of 15 hours per week, the term following their third birthday. There is no qualifying criteria.
Funding is for 38 weeks per year and can be used towards breakfast and after school club.
Funding is paid to providers: 14 weeks in the Autumn term, 12 weeks in Spring and 12 weeks in Summer.
Funding can be shared between different providers.
The extended entitlement is for working families and provides an additional 15 hours per week for children the term after their third birthday, taking their total number of funded hours to 30 per week (for 38 weeks a year).
Qualifying families will receive an 11 digit code which needs to be re-confirmed via HMRC every couple of months.
30 hr codes must be received and dated before the cut off dates (shown above) to be eligible for use the following term. The council will not accept a code dated after the cut off date until the following term.
For funded children, we input the claim at the beginning of each term (typically January, April and September) and this cannot be altered until the next funding claim at the beginning of the following term. We are therefore unable to add or deduct hours within a term and so additional hours added would be charged.
Cost Examples
You have a choice of either attending – please delete as appropriate for the following questions:
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Term-time only or
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All year round
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During our ‘core hours’ (9-3) or
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adding breakfast/afterschool club
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Paying for sessions or
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Using funding
If using funding, do you want to:
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Attend the same sessions on a termly basis only. Funding is therefore claimed based on booked sessions only. No ‘stretching’ of hours and therefore unclaimed hours per term are effectively lost.
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Book in sessions on a termly basis and then add holiday club or breakfast/after school on an ad-hoc basis (please note this will be dependent upon availability). Unused hours from funding are ‘stretched’ to cover this additional attendance and any shortfall is invoiced.
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Or, book in all-year round and attend for 51 weeks a year, so that your funding can be ‘stretched’ over the whole year and availability of sessions guaranteed
Then, which hours do you want to attend on a regular basis (please complete the attached form). Once these two questions are answered, you can calculate your child’s funding – please note it is important that we make a claim for the correct number of hours as this cannot be changed mid-term.
Please read through the following examples:
Example 1
Child attends for 12 hours per week, term time only. Parents want to use holiday club for three weeks in the summer. The three unused hours can be ‘stretched’ to cover the holiday club (14 weeks in the Autumn term, 12 weeks in Spring and 12 weeks in summer). So if the child’s third birthday is 27 March, they would have:
3hrs x 12 weeks = 36 hrs to use in the summer holiday club
Example 2
Child attends a full day (8-5.15) on a Mon and Tues, then Wed morning (8-12) which is 22.5 hours per week. They want to attend all year round. Child was three years old on 14 August and therefore are eligible for funding from September.
So, 22.5 hrs = 855 funded hours. They are ‘stretching’ this to cover all year round. 855/51 weeks = 16.75 hrs per week. This would mean they pay for 5.75 hrs per week.
Example 3
Child attends a morning (8-12) on a Mon and a Friday which is 8 hours per week. They want to attend term time only but with some breakfast/after school sessions and holiday club days when required. Child also attends another provider and splits their funding, with 6 hrs being claimed by the other provider per week (38 weeks). Child is on the 2 year funded offer. Child was 2 years old on 2 January.
So the child has 15 hrs per week, less the 6 hrs claimed elsewhere = 9 hrs. They attend pre-school for 8 hrs per week, leaving 1 hour left. They therefore can ‘stretch’ the 1 hour per week (12 weeks in Spring and 12 weeks in Summer) = 24 hrs left in total. Parent can use these for holiday club and breakfast/after school club.
All children accessing funding need to complete and return the Bradford council funding form so that the claim can be processed.
Funding is complicated and I thank you for reading this far! If you’d like to chat it through with me so I can work out the best approach for your circumstances, please do let me know.