Funded nursery for 1 year olds? | The childcare Budget 2023 and what it means for you

The chancellor has announced the Spring 2023 Budget, and in it there were quite a few proposals made for childcare. Let's take a look at these and how they might affect you as a parent, carer, teacher, childminder or anyone else interested in early education.
#EYFS #EarlyYears #Teaching #budget2023 #2023budget
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[@ulamienkowska]

Parents should be financially supported for taking care of their children up to the age of 3.

[@cathrynjones3019]

Amen to this. Absolutely baffling to me that the importance of babies and toddlers spending most of their time with their primary caregiver is so disregarded.

[@aerialwriter3921]

The children haven't been thought of, not by the government, and this 1:5 ratio is quite intimidating.

[@jacquiross5290]

This is likely to be a disaster for nurseries! Parents think that their "free place" means that the nursery is being paid the hourly rate by the local authority. In reality the funded place is only worth about 60% of the normal fees, and we are no longer allowed to add a "top up" charge to cover the deficit. In our setting, this means that we only apply the funding to the core teaching hours of 9-12 in the morning and 1-4 in the afternoon. All hours attended beyond those hours are charged at the full rate, and also include food costs, namely breakfast, lunch and tea. We cannot afford to not include the food costs to the hours, and there is no option for children to bring in their own food any more. Add to this the rise in minimum wage coming in in April, so staffing costs will be increasing, even with the increase in ratio numbers. Nursery work is ridiculously poorly paid anyway, especially when you realise how qualified staff are expected to be (quite rightly), and it is getting increasingly difficult to find high quality and highly qualified staff. Students often leave when they realise that the job is more than just sitting and watching children play, and then find out that they can earn more working in the local supermarket or cleaning offices. Until nurseries and their staff are valued as they should be by the public in general, and the government, then this ridiculous funding plan will just cause more nurseries to close, and the places simply will not be available.

[@LittleLearnersVideos]

Hi Jacqui, thank you so much for sharing. I'm hearing the same thing from other nurseries and staff are really worried. I think I need to do a follow up video talking about these concerns because unless people work on childcare, these proposals sound 'good'.

[@jacquiross5290]

@@LittleLearnersVideos Absolutely...our parents think it's wonderful, and on paper it is wonderful. The government just needs to realise that the funding hours need to actually cover the nursery fees; if this was so, it would be marvelous for those parents who either need or want to work. :)

[@h_taylor]

I am concerned that school staff and childminders are just having something else put on their plate with no compensation.