Fees
Fees are payable monthly in advance, by standing order or Tax-Free Childcare payments. Extra sessions are payable in advance by bank transfer. If fees are not paid on or before the 1st of each month, the account could be subject to a £100.00 late payment charge.
Fees are reviewed annually in April but may be revised with one month’s 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 closures in April (2 days) and August ( 1 month) will not be chargeable. This will be reflected in your invoice.
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 funding 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.
Staff
All our staff are checked for criminal offences under the Disclosure and Barring Service prior to appointment and registered on the update service portal.
Parental Agreement
Parents, Carers and Visitors will:
· Work together with staff for the benefit of the children.
· Set a good example in their own speech and behaviour towards all members of staff at First Steps Childcare.
First Steps will not tolerate Parents, Carers and Visitors:
· Acting aggressively, using inappropriate language, displaying temper or acting in a threatening manner towards, staff, children or parents on the premises or over the telephone.
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 equipped 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.
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- Thursday 8.30am-5.30pm, Friday 8.30-4. 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.
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.
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.
Children’s Welfare
It is the responsibility of the parents/carers to provide the following items for your child. For children we require: clearly labelled bottles, and a sufficient change of nappies. Failure to
provide nappies may result in you being charged for ones provided by the nursery. If necessary, clearly labelled barrier/nappy rash cream should be provided and a permission slip signed to enable ‘First Steps’ to apply it as per parent wishes.
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 its 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 provide information to authorised persons stated on booking forms unless we have been given permission from the ‘main’ parent/carer and that person is in possession of the correct password.
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.
Notice
A terms notice e.g. notice given in April to leave or decrease sessions in September, notice give in September to leave or decrease sessions in December and notice given in January to leave or decrease sessions in March. This has to be given in writing.
Breakfast session
Breakfast will only be offered between 8.00am to 9.00am in the morning.
The nursery cannot tolerate parents, carers and visitors or siblings exhibiting the following:
• Disruptive behaviour which interferes or threatens to interfere within the operation of the nursery grounds, including outings or events.
• Using loud/or offensive language, swearing, cursing, using profane language or displaying temper.
• Threatening to do actual bodily harm to a member of nursery staff, visitor, fellow parent/carer, or student regardless of whether or not the behaviour constitutes a criminal offence.
• Damaging or destroying nursery property.
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) parents 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 based on our opening hours and the number of weeks in each term. 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 are not included in funded hours. There is an additional charge for these hours.
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. This equates to £1.37 per hour (4-hour session) or £1.22 for a full day.
· 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 marquees
· Out of hours parents evenings
· Wet Suits/ waterproof clothing so 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 and Highly qualified staff
· Transition documents sent recorded delivery
· 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
· Safer Recruitment training
· Inclusive communication
If your child is entitled to (15 hours) universal funding which is 11.87 funded hours per week 3 ARS’ will apply, if your child is entitled to (30 hours) extended funding which is 23.75 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 but is closed during the month of August. The funding is therefore a stretched offer and we work out the funding each term based on the weeks in each term that the setting is open.
The current government funding offer covers a child's right to high quality childcare that is set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage. What it does not cover are all the above that at First Steps we believe enhance and provide the opportunities and development to promote and expand your children's learning, education and experiences.
Under the new guidance recently set out by the government and DFE, it stipulates parents are to be given the opportunity make voluntary payments. Should any parent wish to opt out of the ARS payments then your child will not have the opportunity to access all the above services.
To opt out of these charges, First Steps requires a terms written notice. Opting out of the ARS means that you opt out of all the things detailed in the ARS outlined above. You can not chose to opt into some of the charges and not others.
As a consequence of opting out of ARS charges all the above will apply:
Breakfast would need to be given to your child before they attend the session
Sun cream which is waterproof and will last for the duration of the session would need to be applied to your child. If we feel it should be reapplied during your child's session then you would need to come into the setting to reapply to ensure the safety of your child.
A snack in a sealed container, prepared as per the Early Years Guidance, and in line with any Safer Food Better Business guidelines would need to be provided. If you child attends all day then two snacks would need to be provided which would need to be fruit, vegetable sticks, cracker, breadsticks in line with the First Steps menu. This would need to be clearly labelled with any allergies.
Cow's milk and tap water would provided. Dairy Free alternative would need to be brought in at the beginning of each week unopened for the week. Any contents unused will be sent home at the end of the week and a new carton would be required.
To ensure strict health food safety reasons. Please remember that due to space restrictions we cannot store any snack in refrigerated conditions. Except ( DF milk alternative), no chocolate or salty snacks i.e crisps are not permitted. First steps is a no nut setting. Should a child join the setting with any new allergies or intolerances you will be informed.
You will be charged the hourly rate for any settling in sessions.
Wet wipes would need to be provided
Should you wish to opt out of the lunch session it is recommended that you remove your child from the setting from 12.15-12.45 to provide them with a substantial meal so that they can enjoy the afternoon session.
If you chose to opt out of tea then we ask that you collect your child at 4.00pm to provide a meal outside the setting.
A waterproof suit should be provided
A suitable book bag or alternative should be provided
Any extra services outside those listen in the Early Years Foundation Stage will not be available to your child
If your child receives Pupil Premium then please contact the setting to discuss
The online tapestry journal will be unavailable - focus weeks, next steps and reports will be delivered as hard copies.
We value each one of our families and appreciate your support with these enforced changes. Should you wish your child to continue to received the quality of services, and food First Steps provide then you do not need to do anything and ARS charges will be added to your invoice if you are in receipt of the universal or extended funding. Children who are paying for their sessions without using funding have the ARS fees included in their normal session rate.
Date when fees are to be paid.
On the 1st day of each calendar month.
Payment options
Standing order (standing order forms can be found in the prospectus).
Setting bank details
HSBC
Name: First Steps Childcare Ltd
Sort code: 40-41-22
a/c no: 31420836
Non-payment of fees procedure:
Invoices are sent out at the end of each month for the next month; payment should be made within the first week of receipt. Failure to pay by the end of the month a letter will be issued reminding parents that fees should be paid in advance. The letter will suggest that if the parents are experiencing any difficulties with payment, they should come in to the setting and meet with the accounts manager [Samantha Ware] to try to arrange a payment plan (explaining that this is only for the debt, all other fees need to be paid on time. Minutes of the meeting will be noted, and a letter sent to parents stating timeline for the debt recovery). If parents miss a payment, First Steps reserves the right to reduce the sessions until debt is cleared or the place withdrawn, a second letter will be sent to parents and another meeting requested).
If parents do not keep to the payment plan, the child will then only be permitted to attend EYE funded hours, then with a month notice the place will be withdrawn.
Recovery of outstanding debt, the setting will send a letter stating that they are proceeding to recover the outstanding debt through the small claims court. Each month the fees are not paid a £100.00 late payment charge will be added.
Rates
Changes to fee rates apply from the month following your child’s birthday.
EYE apply in the term following your child’s second or third birthday.
From April 1st 2025 First Steps hourly rates will be-
Under 2’s £10.95
2 year olds- £8.33
3 years old + £8.05