Exciting news for Childcare from September 2025!

* Applies to Little Ladybirds and Busy Butterflies only*

Dear Parents/Carers,

As part of our work on developing a set of Core Beliefs and Guiding Principles we have been reviewing certain aspects of our current practice, and believe that in order for us to develop ‘Nurturing Relationships’ with you and your child (our first and most important core belief), we need you to be able to come into nursery to drop off and pick up your precious little people and have time for quality handovers with your family key worker.

So from September 2025, we are very excited to be inviting the parents and carers of Little Ladybirds and Busy Butterflies back into setting during drop off and collection times!

We understand our transition times are extremely busy and can be very chaotic for our younger children, especially with so many coming and leaving all within a very short space of time. By inviting our parents back into setting it will help create a much smoother and calmer transition for our youngest children, but also this gives our parents the chance to see for themselves what their child will be, and has been learning throughout their session in nursery.

From September 2025 we are going to be changing our session times to the following;

This will reduce the number of people arriving and being collected outside the main entrance, by opening the gap between Childcare and Nursery School session times. If you have any questions about the revised session’s times or you are wanting to make any amendments from your current sessions, please contact me. Unfortunately, we are at full capacity each day so cannot amend days.

There is a labelled doorbell for each room, now positioned outside the main entrance, on the left of the door frame. When you arrive to drop your child off or collect at your session time, please press the bell for the correct room and wait outside. A member of the team will come down and invite you in. We ask all parents/carers to stick to your session times as much as possible and please call on the day if you are going to be late or collecting early. We have a new attendance policy which we will be sharing very soon, this states late collection charges will apply for those collecting late on a regular basis.
 

Government Funding
The free Government funding for working parents of children the term after they are 9 months of age is increasing from 15 hours to 30 hours per week from the new academic year, September 2025.

In light of this we will be offering stretched funding from September onwards for children eligible for 30 hours. The maximum hours a child can do each week to stretch their funding across the 50 weeks we are open is 22.75 hours. Please email and let me know if you are wanting to stretch your funding or are looking at the term time option only. I will then be able to work out your total weekly charges for meals and let you know if you are required to top up your sessions over the funded hours. Together we can work out the best and most feasible option for your family.

Closure weeks
We are reducing our closure weeks in the new academic year 2025/2026 from 3 weeks to 2 weeks. This means we will now only be closed 1 week at the end of the summer term (August) and 1 week over Christmas and New Year. Dates will be confirmed in September.

The new academic year will start on Monday 8^th September 2025. Please note Thursday 4^th September and Friday 5^th September will be inset days for Nursery School and Childcare so both will be closed for staff training.

Thank you for your understanding and we can’t wait to see you in nursery very soon!

Kind Regards,

Charly Manley (Childcare Manager) and Nicola Brown (Head Teacher)