Fee Policy and Funding Entitlement

Fees, invoicing and government funding entitlement for 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds

We aim to provide a caring, nurturing and stimulating setting for all children and their families regardless of social standing. We aim to make our services available to all and ensure regardless of fees, all children are given equal opportunities.

• Registration fee £80 – You will receive a welcome bag on your first settling in session containing need to know information, a Rabbit Patch t-shirt for your child and some treats for yourself!
• Full time rate is discounted by 5%
• Sibling discount is at 10% and will be applied to the younger sibling’s invoice
• Any additional sessions will be paid for upon request/booking
• One month notice period and for any changes to nursery sessions prior to a session change or a child leaving the nursery
• Fees are invoiced in advance on the 1st day of every month and are to be paid by the 7^thof the month.
• Fees are calculated by taking the weekly figure payable X 51 weeks a year, divided into 12 equal payments. If you attend on a termly basis, your weekly payable figure will be X 38 weeks a year, divided by 12 equal payments.
• Late payment charges of £15.00, will be issued if fees are not settled by the 7th of the month. Any extra sessions used in the month can be paid by cash or cheque or card in advance.

If you have any issues when paying your child’s fees, please speak to a member of the management team.

Monthly invoices are issued by a system called Blossom, parents and carers are required to create a login to access their invoices.

Basic T’s and C’s and need to know

• We accept childcare vouchers and Tax-Free childcare
• We accept payment via BACS, cash, cheque, or card payment on site
• Rabbit Patch is open for 51 weeks of the year. We are closed between Christmas and New Year, from 1pm on the 24th of December- to the first working day of the new year.
• Any extra admin time required by parents to create documents in relation to nursery invoices will be charged.

*We close for bank holidays, but these are still chargeable

We do not offer refunds for sickness, holidays or bank holidays.

Fees and what’s included

Full-time (8am-6pm) five days a week, weekly rate (incl 5% discount)                                                                 £432.25

Daily rate (8am-6pm)                                           £91.00

Mornings (8am-1pm)                                            £54.00

Afternoons (1pm-6pm)                                         £51.00

¾ Day (9am-3pm)                                                 £73.00

7:30 drop off/6:30 pick up                                     £7.00

Additional hours                                                   £14.00

Late payment fee                                               £15.00

Late pick up fee                                                  £8.00

Government funding for 2-year-olds

Government funding is now available for all eligible children aged 2 years, following the term after their 2^nd birthday.

Parents can access the funding between 9am-3pm daily and will be charged a sustainability fee. This is going to be £8.00 per 5 hour session.

If your child is all year round, 51 weeks, the funded hours entitlement reduces to 11 hours per week.

Please note, we no longer offer term time sessions, other than for anyone already on this pattern.

Government funding for 3- and 4-year-olds

All settings who provide care all year round (51 weeks or more) are permitted to offer ‘stretched funded hours’ to parents. This means if you are awarded 30 hours extended funding, we can offer up to maximum of 22 hours a week, each week of the year over a number of days, or sessions a child attends nursery. If you receive 15 hours funding, this will become 11 hours across the week, per week for 51 weeks.

As government funding is solely intended to cover the costs of care only, at £4.56 per hour, per child, this does not cover the additional costs such as snacks, meals, nappies, wipes, additional services, or extras that the nursery provides, such as access to our Forest school or educational visits to the setting. The nursery is authorised to charge for these as a voluntary consumable charge.

Consumables will be charged at a rate of £11.00 per 5-hour session. For example, if a child does 1 fully funded day, you will be charged £22.00 consumables for the day.

Any additional hours, outside of the funded hours will be charged at our hourly rate.

We are required by West Sussex local authority to ensure parents and carers complete a provider declaration form to access funded hours. These must be completed before the funded hours are claimed. This form will determine for us, whether your child is entitled to additional funding such as EYPP, deprivation, DAF and inclusion funding.

We will send these forms out, to be completed on site at the start of each term. Forms will be retained for funding auditing purposes.