Government to consult on how this flexible approach will work in practice

In order to help provide flexible childcare for working parent’s nurseries are being encouraged to extend their opening hours to offer longer funded places for 3 and 4 years olds. It has been suggested that opening at 6am and closing at 8pm will provide flexible childcare for working parents.

The Government will consult as to exactly how this will all work in practice. The maximum funded session will remain at 10hrs a day, this will stay the same to protect children’s wellbeing and to give children a positive experience of early education,

The extension of nurseries opening hours is part of Governments plans to look at exactly how the extension of the 15hrs to 30hrs for three and four years olds will actually work in practice. The government will be asking childcare providers to look at how they can provide a more flexible approach in offering the 30hrs entitlement to working parents.

There has been talk to remove the two and half hour minimum requirement outside the hours of 9am and 3.30pm and increase this to 3hrs between the times of 9am and 3.30pm. At present funded sessions should be no longer that ten hours or less than two and a half hours a day. The DFE are also looking to stretch the funded hours across the year instead of just offering it term time only. The Government will also look into a prompt way of paying childcare providers.

The idea of supporting working parents with flexible childcare is to help those parents who work shift patterns. These parents struggle to find childcare to accommodate early mornings and late evenings, having a more flexible approach would help these working parents.

If for some reason parents are out of work for a short period of time, local authorities will be managing a Grace period for childcare. This would allow parents to keep their childcare place whilst they are out of work. In order for, this to work councils and childcare providers will need to work closely together to make it clear to parents how the Grace period actually works. To help with the checking eligibility the DFE’s eligibility system will be changed so at certain points eg start of term, during the term or quarterly local authorities will be able to see whether the parent is still eligible for the 30hrs.

For nurseries to extend their opening hours this would mean a significant change and cause challenges. An increase in wages, rent, and other bills would mean many nurseries again would be running at a loss if they made these changes. Instead of Government just focusing on childcare and getting parents back into work, they should be concentrating on early education. Children’s early education is fundamental in helping children get the best possible start in life and this should be of top priority for Government.