Re:locate magazine, spring 2006

Pre-school education: how to choose it and how to pay for it

Employers who offer practical support when it comes to helping their staff select and meet the cost of early-years education will go a long way towards winning employee hearts and minds, as Anna Lambert reports

Choosing pre-school childcare will always seem a daunting experience. After all, what’s being anticipated is probably the first experience of long-term separation for children and their parents. Whether parents are looking for full day-care because they’re at work, or nursery for just a couple of hours a couple of sessions a week to help their child socialise, it’s key to the practical and emotional well-being of all concerned that appropriate choices are made. The additional pressures faced by relocating parents – namely the need to ensure that their children settle in quickly to the new environment, and the fact that possible pre-existing family childcare support in the form of, say, grandparents, may have been left behind with the move – mean they will require additional, specialised support.

Employers relocating staff can do much to win the loyalty of their employees by providing advice and practical help when it comes to childcare issues. With increasing numbers of families having not one but two parents working and a recent survey by the national childcare charity The Daycare Trust revealing that typical full-time nursery care could cost as much as £21,000 per child per year, money-saving options such as Child Care Vouchers have never looked more attractive. And what’s particularly appealing is that both employees and employers stand to benefit by using them. Within specified limits, vouchers are non-taxable and exempt from National Insurance contributions, and thus they represent a saving for employees who receive them as part of their total employment package. The Childcare Vouchers received are then exchanged, in whole or part, for the childcare services used.

Win-win situation

Lynne Currer is product manager, childcare vouchers for Accor Services – the first company to offer Childcare Vouchers back in 1989, and one with an extensive global history of working in the vouchers-provision market (Accor also produces Luncheon and Eyecare Vouchers). She says, “Our expertise is in the logistics of implementing both paper and electronic Childcare Voucher schemes, a factor that over 1,700 organisations find reassuring. With Childcare Vouchers, it really is a ‘win-win’ situation, as both parties benefit. The employer no longer has to pay NI contributions on the amount employees choose to sacrifice for Childcare Vouchers (saving up to £300 each year per employee taking the maximum allowance of £50 per week in Childcare Vouchers), while an employee can save both tax and National Insurance, saving up to as much as £1,066 a year."

Employee benefits

The Peugeot Citroen Automobile Group is an example of an employer that was quick to recognise the benefits offered by Childcare Vouchers – those used by its employees are provided by Busy Bees, a company whose background is in the provision of childcare itself (it runs a chain of nurseries that carry the same name). The UK-based Peugeot Group employs up to 9,000 people nationwide and wanted to add a benefit to its family-friendly portfolio that would support working parents. A driving factor behind the introduction of Childcare Vouchers was Peugeot's ambition to attract staff not only from within the motor industry but outwith it, too. Rebecca Powell, the Peugeot company solicitor and her husband say they’ve certainly benefited from vouchers: "With both my husband and me now sacrificing part of our salary, the savings we’re making are adding up. We now have more flexibility with our disposable income."

Overseas issues

The rigours of actually paying for childcare aside, getting your child settled into pre-school can seem a considerable ordeal wherever you’re from, but parents relocating to the UK from abroad undoubtedly face additional issues. Says dean of admissions and former principal of early childhood Education at ACS International Schools Elizabeth Allis: “Parents settling in the UK from overseas with small children are faced with a number of important decisions about how they want to educate and care for their youngsters in a new country. Along with determining which schools offer early childhood programmes that will best prepare their children for lifelong learning, these parents are feeling the added pressure of not always understanding the local educational and childcare norms. In these cases, parents should consider turning to international schools, whose staff have experience working with children and families from around the globe. At ACS, we’ve found that when a new child comes to our early childhood programme after their family’s move to the UK, they are often reserved and tentative; still adjusting to the sights and sounds of a new country. Within weeks of participating in our variety of group-focused activities with other children, the child acts as a full member of the group, is more comfortable with the language, and generally seem to pick up right where they left off before the move.”

Anamari Costa-Tate, teacher at the TASIS Frog Hollow nursery, agrees: “We find there are varying degrees of cultural differences for children from overseas and their parents. The way they communicate and their expectations may vary widely. Some of the parents come from countries in which children start reading at an earlier age and are less aware of the importance and benefits of play.