The Early Years education within Harrow Council will fund part-time Nursery education places for three and four year olds. Eligibility for a funded place depends upon a child’s date of birth. The table below will indicates when a child becomes eligible for a funded place. Your child must be registered by the first week of that term and therefore it is highly advisable to put your child’s name on any waiting list before the child is three years old.

How much funding is given? The table below is an example of funding proposed to be given to the provider who is operating at least 38 weeks per year. Maximum funding is for 15 hours a week delivered by Little Stars Preschool as 3 hours per day five days a week. If you wish your child to attend more than 3 hour sessions or more than 15/hrs a week then Parents must pay for any sessions or services provided which are not covered by the funding. A term can typically be 12-14 weeks long with the current amount of funding varying from £648/per term to £702/per term. For example a 13 week term would typically get an award of £702 per term and a 12 week term would typically get an award of £648 per term as maximum entitlement.

Little Stars Pre School administers this scheme on your behalf to claim the funding from Harrow Early Years once your child has commenced before the headcount dates of the grant application period which is generally mid way through the term and this is done automatically and transparent to you. However your child must be present in the setting to be eligible. Parents are advised that the personal data of children in the setting (i.e data from which eligible children can be identified) is processed and stored on the Families Information Service database and also passed on to the LB Harrow Contact point where it is also stored. This is a requirement stipulated by Early Years in Harrow.

The process of initiating grants for your child, the collection, payment and making sure that grants are processed as quickly as possible when issued, involves an extra administration burden for the Pre-school and cost as well. Little Stars Pre-school will offset any funding mid way thorough the term providing an additional free service to offset against the fee invoices issued which are normally due in two instalments unlike other establishments. This effectively means when grants are processed, the second fee instalment due is offset in the fee invoice itself to ease burden of payment on parents in the second instalment period. In practice the grants processed by Harrow Council are not actually received when fee invoices are sent out but the benefit is passed to you automatically in advance before funding is actually collected mid way through the term.

Funding Scenarios
LIttle Stars Preschool
Sept 2010 - July 2011

If your child is born before 31st Aug 2007 then you will be eligible for funding