Funded Childcare

Early Years Government Funded Childcare is money provided by central government to ensure that all eligible children have access to an early years education. This eligibility was updated in stages up to September 2025 dependent on the age of your child.

ALL children over 9 months are entitled to 15 hours of government funded education per year (September to August). They become eligible the term AFTER they turn 9 months.

Turn 9 months Jan–Mar → funding from April
Turn 9 months Apr–Aug → funding from September
Turn 9 months Sep–Dec → funding from January

From September 2025:
Working parents of children over 9 months to four years will be entitled to 30 hours childcare per week.

You can apply for 30 hours of free childcare from when your child is 23 weeks old.

Check the deadlines for applying.

To be able to claim, you and any partner must each expect to earn (on average) at least £183.00 a week (which is around 16 hours at minimum wage). You will need a valid HMRC Childcare Code. Eligibility is checked through the Government Childcare Service and must be reconfirmed every 3 months.

30 hours government funded childcare is not available if you, or your partner, earn over £100,000 per year.

The Best Start in Life website has extensive information about funded childcare.  This handy calculator will show you how much you could get towards approved childcare.

Yes, parents can choose to split funding between multiple providers, but no more than two sites in a single day. Parents must decide which provider claims for what amount of hours and the parent has to decide which provider claims for the extended hours in a split arrangement.

Like schools, term time funding covers 38 weeks of the year, broken into 3 terms: Autumn, Spring, & Summer. The number of funded weeks varies per term. You can use the hours from January, April or September which ever one follows your child’s second birthday.

Receiving 15 hours of funding – the maths

Number of weeks per year 51 (52 weeks minus 1 week closure for Christmas & New Year)
Total number of hours = 570 (38 weeks of term time x 15 hours funding)
Stretched over 51 weeks (570 divided by 51) = 11.18 hours per week

Receiving 30 hours of funding – the maths

Number of weeks per year 51 (52 weeks minus 1 week closure for Christmas & New Year)
Total number of hours = 1140 (38 weeks of term time x 30 hours funding)
Stretched over 51 weeks (1140 divided by 51) = 22.35 hours per week

To receive the standard 570 hours, we will give you a declaration form to complete, and will submit this on your behalf to the local authority. To receive the additional 570 hours visit www.beststartinlife.gov.uk to register and apply.  You will be given a code to submit to nursery for us to validate. This code is reconfirmed every 3 months, and remains the same unless your situation changes.

Keep in mind that funded hours only covers the supervision of your child and basic equipment.

Government funding does not cover things like healthy snacks, our award winning, delicious, home-cooked meals and all the incredible educational activities we provide such as:

• Forest School
• Intergenerational Program
• Children’s Wellbeing Program
• Ground-breaking bespoke curriculum
• Maths Champions program
• Educational trips out in our minibuses
• Our enabling environments
• Annual Pre-School Graduation
• Annual whole-nursery Christmas event
• Parent stay-and-play sessions
• Musical Instruments

You will be asked to voluntarily contribute towards these enrichments. This amount is broken down, and clearly shown on your invoice. Everything will be explained before you start. This amount is subject to annual price increases.

Our current prices are:

Breakfast £2
Mid-morning snack £1
Lunch £5
Light Tea £3.50
Resources £4.50

When entitlement becomes the full 30 hours, you may wish to increase your child’s nursery sessions. This is obviously a popular decision, but we don’t always have extra session spaces at very short notice. We strongly suggest you book your extra sessions well in advance of needing them, to secure a place and avoid disappointment.