Attendance
Good attendance plays a fundamental role in supporting children’s educational achievement, well-being, and safety, click here to read our Attendance Policy.
Term Dates 2025-2026
Funded childcare for 9 months-23 months
From September 2024, up to 15 hours of childcare and early education will be available for eligible working families in England with a child aged between 9 and 23 months old. Working parents are eligible if they earn equal to a minimum of 16 hours at the National Minimum or Living Wage and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. Working parents can apply direct at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.
Funded childcare for 2 year olds
If you receive some additional forms of government support or you are working and on low income you can apply direct with the county council for 15 hours of funded early education and childcare for your 2-year-old. From April 2024 working parents are eligible if they earn from 16 hours a week at the National Minimum Wage and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year. Working parents can apply direct at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.
Funded childcare for 3 and 4 year olds
From the term after your child’s third birthday, they can have up to 15 hours a week at a local nursery or with a childminder funded by the government.
30 hours funded childcare
Eligible working families can get an additional 15 hours funded childcare on top of the 15 hours universal funded childcare.
Help paying for childcare
Your child will receive their funding from the beginning of the term AFTER they become eligible.
Our Terms
- Autumn Term 1 September – 31 December
- Spring Term 1 January – 31 March
- Summer Term 1 April – 31 August
You have three choices about how you use the hours; the first option is to use them during term time only for 38 weeks, either paying full on holiday weeks or keeping your child with you during the twelve holiday weeks.
The second option, we call ‘Spreading’ – a lot of parents use our service week in -week out, so we spread the hours so you get 38 weeks at 30 hours that is 1140 per year. We divide that by the number of weeks we are open, 50, giving you 22.8 hours. We treat this as a weekly voucher against your weekly fees so you have less to pay each week, and we run this for the whole year.
OR third option, also spreading, we spread the 38 weeks of funding over 44 weeks with six weeks of absence over the summer. With the 44-week option, you get 12.95 (if you’re entitled to 15 hours) or 25.91 (if you’re entitled to 30 hours ).
We believe that spreading works better, its good for consistency and also easier for parents because its weekly – but its about what works best for you, those with older siblings are off work with their older children in school holidays take the 30 and pay if childcare is needed during the holiday weeks.
Here are some options for how you could use your 30 hours at nursery:
GRANT TERM TIME ATTENDANCE ONLY – ways to use 30 hours term time only
- 3 FULL DAYS 7.30AM-5.30PM
- 4 DAYS – 7.5 Hours
SPREADING 50 WEEKS PER YEAR – ways to spread the hours over the year
3 DAYS – 7.5 Hours
SPREADING 44 WEEKS PER YEAR – ways to spread your hours over the year
2 days of 10 hours and one session of 5 hours
5 sessions of 5 hours per day
We are closed on bank holidays
ADDITIONAL HOURS TO BE CHARGED AT £7.80 per hour from 6th January 2025
For more information about this and other government funding schemes follow the link below:
https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/
From September 2025, working parents of children under the age of five will be entitled to 30 hours free childcare per week.
The scheme is expanding so that working parents of all children over the age of nine months are also entitled to free 30 hours of childcare.
Key things to remember when you are planning :
- the funding is for 38 weeks,
- you can use at more than one setting,
- you must use it or you lose it, you cannot ‘build it up’,
- you will need an eligibility code that we will use on your behalf to make your claim.