Terms and Conditions
Fees
Fees are payable monthly in advance, by standing order or Tax Free Childcare payments. Extra sessions are payable in advance by bank transfer. Fees not paid on or before the 1st of each month, the account could be subject to a £100.00 late payment charge. To secure nursery place an administration fee of £100.00 for the first child, £75.00 for the second child and £50.00 for additional children after the second child, is payable upon registration. Once the sessions are confirmed and secured 50% will be refunded within your 1st invoice. Unless your child is only claiming EYE hours. If you decide to decrease or terminate your child’s attendance, we require one terms notice e.g. notice given in April to leave or decrease sessions in September, notice given September to leave or decrease sessions in December and notice given in January to leave or decrease sessions in March. This must be given in writing. Setting opening times Monday-Thursday 8.30am-5.30pm, Fridays 8.30-4pm (Limited places from 8-8.30am –5.30-6.00pm). Children will not be admitted before 8.30am and must be collected by 5.30pm unless prior arrangements have been agreed. We do not allow any swapping of sessions, but we do provide extra sessions on an ad-hoc basis if we have availability within the room. Failure to collect your child on time will incur a charge of £10.00 per 15min. Please ensure you have read the fees policy.yment charge.
Fees are reviewed annually in April but may be revised with one months written notice.
Full fees are payable for all booked sessions even if these should fall on bank holidays or inset days over the Christmas period when the nursery is closed, the dates of closure will be displayed on the notice board, newsletters and our website. The additional closure dates in April (2 days) and August (1 month) will not be chargeable.
Enrolment
Parents/guardians wishing to secure a place for their child can do so by completing our booking form on our website.
It is the responsibility of the parent /carer to supply and update the information required of the parent/carer to supply and update the information required on the booking form. First Steps cannot be held responsible for any incidents resulting from inaccurate or incomplete details supplied on the form. This includes a change of job, change of email address, moving house, new mobile phone or landline phone numbers.
In the term following your child turning 9 months old you may be entitled to working parent Early Years Funding, this fundig is the parents responsibility to apply for and inform the setting with the eligibility code and your National Insurance number. Following your child’s third birthday, they will be entitled to Early Years Funding, to access this funding the entitlements team require a copy of your child’s birth certificate or passport. It is therefore a condition of registration that that you email us a clear copy.
Advanced bookings
To secure nursery place an administration fee of £100.00 for the first child, £75.00 for the second child and £50.00 for additional children after the second child, is payable upon registration. Once the sessions are confirmed and secured 50% will be refunded within your 1st invoice. Unless your child is only claiming EYE hours. If you decide to decrease or terminate your child’s attendance, we require one terms notice e.g. notice given in April to leave or decrease sessions in September, notice given September to leave or decrease sessions in December and notice given in January to leave or decrease sessions in March. This must be given in writing. Setting opening times Monday-Friday 8.30am-5.30pm. (Limited places from 8-8.30am –5.30-6.00pm). Children will not be admitted before 8.30am and must be collected by 5.30pm unless prior arrangements have been agreed. We do not allow any swapping of sessions, but we do provide extra sessions on an ad-hoc basis if we have availability within the room. Failure to collect your child on time will incur a charge of £10.00 per 15min. Please ensure you have read the fees policy.
Payments
Payments must be paid on the 1st of each month; if this is not recieved then a £100.00 charge will be automatically added by the system to your account.
Payment Details
Online Banking
Payment must be made to: First Steps Childcare LTD
Sort Code: 40-41-22
Account Number: 31420836
Ref: Childs Name
We accept, cash, cheques (please make cheques payable to First Steps Childcare LTD) and card payments via the office.
Early Years Entitlement
The term after a child’s third birthday (and also working parents of 9 months olds + need to apply for this funding via the childcare choices website) they are entitled to 570 hours of funded per year annum. Early years funding is only paid for 38 weeks of the year; however First Steps is a setting that is open all year and uses the stretched offer, therefore all invoices will be shown over 52 weeks this is to comply with the entitlement that is split evenly throughout the year. (i.e. no discount for holidays). To claim the EYE funding the following information is needed:
– birth certificate, passport (on registration, a copy needs to be sent to EYE funding team) eligibility code and National Insurance EYE funding parent declaration form - completed every term by parents these will be issued by First Steps. It is the parents’/carers responsibility to provide this documentation, if child’s legal documentation is not produced then parents/carers will be charged the settings normal fees as they will be unable to claim EYE funding. Funded hours are between 8.30-5.30, therefore 8.00-8.30 and 5.30-6.00 will be charged at an hourly rate. All fees charged relate to hours or addition charges identified overleaf that are not funded by the EYE funding.
Please see below a list of all the services and resources that we charge for and our reasons for them.
Allowable consumables that are chargeable include.
Food – these charges will be itemised to the sessions your child attends e.g. morning without lunch as from April 1st 2025
As a setting we have a 5 star award from environmental health and wish to continue to keep this standard, as such we feel that we need to provide all snacks, lunch and tea in house. If parents were to bring in snacks from home, we could not be responsible for the quality of the food and drink, we do not have the facility to store items brought in from outside at required temperatures.
After having a number of parents request for breakfast to be provided in the mornings we have decided to offer this service between the hours of 8am-9am this will include a selection of fresh fruits, yoghurts, cereals and toast.
Within our setting we also have children and staff with food intolerances, allergies and preferences, none of these will be able to be monitored and guaranteed if children bring in foods from home.
The setting provides oat /soya /almond milk which cannot be claimed for under the free milk for schools’ schemes and other additional required foods i.e. vegetarian, vegan options
Food cost for under 2,s Food costs for over 2’s
£3.20 to include £7.50 to include
Breakfast .50p Breakfast £1.50
Snack 20p x 2 Snack .50p x2
Lunch 1.50 Lunch £3.00
Tea 80p Tea £2.00
If your child’s session includes lunch this is invoiced regardless of your child attending as the food is budgeted for the number of children attending on each day.
Requested ARS charges [£5.50] below provides a breakdown of how these are required to continue to offer many and more of the facilities listed below to all children in our care:
Glastonbury spring water to ensure the children have access to cool water throughout the day.
Celebrating and enjoying foods around the world, to ensure cultural diversity as part of our diversity ethos, pancake day, mother’s/ fathers day and inhouse children’s cookery activities etc
Stay and play sessions
Hand dryers, PPE equipment, and personal hygiene resources
Offering Parents Christmas lunch!
Sun cream/ sun hats/UV protective marques
In the summer months logistically applying 40 different creams [brought in from home] on to 40 different children washing hands between each one and observing times scales for the application of the cream would prove to be time prohibitive
Wet Suits/ waterproof clothing
For the children to enjoy the outdoors even in the wet weather.
Book bags
To support the preschool children to be school ready, and to replace books that are lost or broken while on loan.
Home visits
Cost of additional insurance
Staff Training
To support children with speech and language
Jake and Tizzy ‘resources’
Early talk boost
Autism training
Safer sleep training
Female Genital Mutilation
Safeguarding
Inclusion, equality and Diversity
Children’s Mental Health
Food hygiene level 2/Food Allergy Awareness
Manual Handling
Child Sexual Exploration
Online Safety
Paediatric First Aid
Leadership & Management
Safet Recruitment training
Inclusive communication
If your child is entitled to (15 hours) universal funding which is 10.96 funded hours per week 3 ARS’ will apply, if your child is entitled to (30 hours) extended funding which is 21.92 hours funded per week, 5 ARS’ will apply. This is due to the hours which are covered by funding and how many sessions they equate to per week.
30 hours childcare
Parent of three- and four-year-old will need to meet the government criteria in order to be eligible for 30 hours entitlement. This can be found at www.gov.uk/childcare-calculator once you have confirmed your eligibility, please provide the setting with the eleven-digit eligibility code in order for us to access your funding when you receive your 11 digit code you will need to bring this into First Steps, and fill out a consent form for all of the information required for HMRC. This means a total of 1,140 hours will be spread over a maximum of 52 weeks which includes five inset days. As First Steps is open throughout the year, the funded hours for the whole year would be spread over 52 weeks which equals to 21.92 funded hours per week.
Communication
First Steps Childcare regulary communicate with parents/carers via email, it is therefore complusary that at least one parent or carer has an active email address that is checked regulary. First Step childcare will not be held responsible for any updates or messages that have been missed due to unread emails.
Dress
We recommend that you dress your child to take into account the wide and varied activities of the day. Please clearly label your child's clothing. We regret that ‘First Steps’ and its staff or other children cannot be held responsible for the loss or damage to your child's belongings however caused. We also ask for parents to ensure their child is wearing or equip with outside clothing for the seasons e.g. spare shorts and t-shirts for the summer due to water play and winter coats, gloves, hats and scarfs for the Autumn and Winter seasons.
Illness and Exclusion
For the welfare and health of the other children who attend the setting we request that you do not send your child if they are ill or may have an infectious disease. ‘First Steps’ reserves the right not to accept any child(ren) it considers unfit to attend the setting. Fees are still payable in full.
If your child is on medication which must be administered whilst attending the setting you must complete a medical consent form giving instructions on times and dosage for each course. Written consent must also be given for the application of creams and lotions. We can only act ‘in loco parentis’ in your absence. For further information please see our medical guidelines policies.
Special Circumstances
First Steps reserves the right to refuse admission, cancel sessions and alter opening times without notice should events occur beyond its control. In these circumstances fees are non-returnable for up to a maximum of five consecutive days.
Staff
All staff members are checked for criminal offences under the Disclosure and Barring Service prior to appointment and are part of the Update Service.
Parental Agreement
Parents, Carers and visitors will:
Work together with staff for the benefit of the child/ren
Set a good example using appropiate respectful speech and behaviour towards all members of staff at First Steps Childcare.
First Steps will not tolerate parents, carer and visitors who acted aggressively, using inappropiate manner towards, staff, children, or parents on the premises or over the telephone.
Children’s Welfare
It is the responsibility of the parents/carers to provide the following items for your child: A bag with spare changes of clothing should your child have an accident or dirty their clothing during messy play activities, sufficient change of nappies (if required. Failure to provide nappies may result in you being charged for ones provided by the nursery). If necessary, a clearly labelled barrier/nappy rash cream should be provided.
Parents and carers should be aware that the nursery has a duty to take reasonable action to ensure the welfare and safety of the children in it’s care. In cases where the staff have a cause to be concerned that a child in their care may be subject to ill treatment, neglect or other forms of abuse, a senior member of staff will follow the Child Protection/Safeguarding Children policy and may inform social services of their concerns.
We will only release children to parents/guardians or have been informed of an alternate carer collecting their child. The alternate carer must have possession of the correct password stated on your child's booking form before we can let your child leave our care. We are also unable to provide information to unauthorised persons not stated on enrolment forms, unless we have been given permission from the ‘main’ parent/carer.
Out of Hours Care
First Steps understands that staff outside normal working hours may undertake childcare for clients of ‘First Steps ’ if this involves transport of the child ‘First Steps’ would bring to your attention that this is a purely private arrangement and ‘First Steps’ will not accept responsibility for the child out of hours and away from the setting.
Holidays
Children that are not receiving Early Years Funding are entitled to two weeks holiday a year, at half fees. For absence above this level fees are charged in full.
I can confirm that I accept the terms and conditions of the setting and have read the fees policy.