Our offer
‘Excellent personalised early childhood education for every child’
Chelwood Nursery School offers places to children aged between 2 and 5 years of age on either a part time or full-time basis. We are a local authority maintained nursery school and places are offered to different age groups using different criteria.
Our two-year-olds are welcomed into our ‘Garden room’ provision, which is a nurture space, carefully designed to support the developmental needs of these very young children. As they develop in confidence, they will gradually explore our wider school learning environment, supported by their ‘key person’.
Our offer to two-year-olds is 15 hours per week, taken as either 5 mornings or 5 afternoons.
The timings for these sessions are:
Mornings: 8:45am – 11:45am
Afternoons: 12:45pm – 3:45pm
In a large setting such as ours, we have found that a daily 3-hour session best meets the developmental needs of two-year-olds and therefore we do not currently offer additional hours to two-year olds.
Funded 2 year old places
Most of our 2 year old places are given to families who are in receipt of free 2 year old funding. This is given to those on lower incomes. It is also sometimes given to children who have an EHCP plan, receive Disability Living Allowance, are looked after by the local authority or who are in other types of care. To find out more about whether you are eligible to receive 2 year old free funding, and how to apply visit our ‘Government funded places‘ page.
Paid 2 year old places
We also offer a number of paid 2 year old places. These are offered in accordance with our admissions policy. The cost of these places is based on our hourly rate, which is currently £12 per hour. Therefore a 15 hour paid place will be £180 per week. For more information about funded places, please visit our ‘Paid places’ page.
Our offer is based around the government’s free 15 and 30 hour funding for three and four-year- olds, with parents able to pay for ‘additional’ hours over and above those free hours provided by the government.
All three and four year olds are entitled to 15 hours free “Universal’ childcare a year. In addition to this working parents are entitled to a further 15 hours “extended’ childcare. For further information about eligibility and to apply visit www.gov.uk/30hours-free-childcare.
How we offer 15 hours free
We offer 15 hours as either 5 mornings (9:00 – 12:00) or 5 afternoons per week (12:30 – 15:30). Our offer is across five days (Monday – Friday) and we are not able to mix mornings and afternoons. If we have space, you can pay for additional hours so your child stays for lunch. See Funding and paid places for more information.
How we offer 30 hours free
Our 30 hours is offered as 9:00 – 15:30 Monday to Thursday and 9:00 – 13:00 on a Friday. Parents are then able to extend their child’s place with ‘paid hours’ charged at the rate set out in our scale of fees (currently £12 per hour).
Children in a full-time place are offered a two-course hot dinner (currently £2.30 per day) as part of their provision. The governments 30-hour funding does not cover the cost of lunches which will need to be paid for separately. We do not allow children to bring their own lunches due to the fact that we have children with severe allergies.
For parents who are not eligible for the governments free 30 hours, but who wish their child to be full time are able to pay for additional hours over and above the free 15 hours provided by the government.
‘Rising threes’ are children who are registered pupils at a school and have not reached the age of three, but will do so before the end of their first term at school. For example, a child starting at school in September, but who’s 3rd birthday is in October.
Children are not eligibly for the governments universal free funding until the term after their 3rd birthday, so rising 3 places are offered on the understanding that families will pay for the first term, before they government funding ‘kicks-in’ the following term.
We only offer at small number of rising 3 places each year, so please make sure to indicate if you are interested in this offer on your application form.
For more information about our fees, visit Funding and paid places.
