Nursery World - 15 hours...moving to three sessions

The delivery of the free flexible entitlement as a stand-alone offer raises issues for providers who may be concerned that increased flexibility could directly affect business sustainability, says James Hempsall.

Traditionally, we think about providing two sessions in a day, which could result in vacant time slots (especially at the start and end of a day) and a potential loss of income if three hours are taken instead of the five hours in a half-day session. To overcome this, some providers have created a day that contains three sessions of three hours. These have been identified by Leicester City Council in its good practice guide, 'Extended Flexible Nursery Education Entitlement'.

This new pattern has also appealed to providers in the area who have historically offered three sessions of two-and-a-half hours a day. In these settings, the extended entitlement has enabled them to have a consistent flow of sessions running back to back. Each of these sessions has associated funding or fee income, and many parents purchase additional childcare services. When a provider introduces such a delivery pattern, they find that many parents choose to continue to use Monday to Friday, and a significant proportion may choose to take their nursery education over three or four days.

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