Terms and Conditions

 

Whilst we try to keep our terms and conditions as brief as possible, nonetheless, because we are caring for very young children, we are naturally obligated to many rules, regulations and also a good deal of legislation. We take our responsibilities very seriously and, in that regard, we have to be very clear to our parents and carers about the framework within which we operate. Please take time to read the following pages as it will help us provide and maintain the highest standards of care. The terms and conditions detailed in this document represent the key elements of our booking agreement. Your acceptance of our terms is initiated at the booking and registration stage. Whilst this agreement naturally has legal implications, we always act with fairness and take into account specific circumstances before making decisions. The success of your child’s time here at Little Rockets Nursery is dependent on the partnership between the Nursery and our parents and carers. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you wish to discuss the terms further. We are an Ofsted Registered day nursery and therefore comply with all Ofsted procedures and are Ofsted inspected. Our Ofsted inspection can be found to view online. As we are Ofsted registered we accept the Early Years Education Entitlement 15 hours grant (EYEE) which is available for all children, the term after they turn three years old. We have availability for the 30 hours EYEE funding. For more information regarding availability and how to claim your funding please speak to Management.​

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Fees and Financial

You will be invoiced for your fees on a monthly basis. Fees are to be paid a minimum of one week in advance. Fees received late will incur a charge. If we then do not receive payment within an additional 5 working days we are in our right to refuse entry to the setting and your child may lose their space with us. Any adjustments to your nursery days/sessions for example adding a day, will be added to your monthly invoices in accordance to this change. Extra sessions/days that have been booked in advance will be added onto your next monthly invoice or can be paid in cash on the day. Please try to give as much notice as possible if you require extra sessions so that we can organise staff and food for your child. If once you have booked an extra session you do not take it, it is not refundable or transferable as staffing provisions would have been made to accommodate your child/children. Responsibility for paying fees resides with the parents or legal guardians of the child.

 

Little Rockets accepts the following methods of payment; Cash, Bank transfer, Tax free childcare and childcare vouchers. Fees are usually reviewed annually, but can be amended during the year. Any changes to the fee rates will be notified to you at least 2 weeks in advance. There is no VAT to be paid on any of our charges. We are unable to refund fees for usual set days or sessions that are not taken due to illness, absence or where the nursery is forced to close due to circumstances beyond our control. Extra ad hock hours, sessions and days added to your usual nursery care that are not taken are also non-refundable.

 

There is a minimum booking commitment of two days or two sessions per week. Bookings must be for the same days/sessions each week. It is not in our terms to swap days, however, in exceptional circumstances we can try to accommodate this if it fits in with our ratios and staffing. Additional days can be booked as a chargeable extra and subject to availability. Fees are calculated monthly and you are not charged for days that we are closed e.g. bank holidays and between Christmas and New Year. We do not provide discounts or refunds for absence due to holidays, sickness, appointments etc. Due to the staffing and resource requirements as laid down by Ofsted, children who are collected after the agreed time will incur a late collection charge.  Late charges are added to your invoice. Please also note that children must not arrive at the nursery before the agreed start time.

Any changes in hours will be actioned with a minimum of 4 weeks written notice. This applies for reducing and increasing hours as staffing is met accordingly. With regard to giving final notice, you must give 4 weeks notice in writing.  Please note that there will be no refund of any hours already invoiced. If notice is not given then fees will be charged in lieu of notice.

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Termination and Suspension of Childcare Services

Specific reasons for ending the agreement doesn’t need to be given, although naturally we would wish to understand the reason for the termination. We reserve the right to end the nursery agreement with immediate effect if (1) you have not paid the agreed fees (2) you have breached your obligations under this agreement and you have or cannot put right that breach within a reasonable period of being requested to do so (3) your child’s behaviour is unacceptable or endangers the safety and well-being of any of the other children in the Nursery (4) Unreasonable behaviour of a parent towards our staff and other clients of Little Rockets. (5) Financial, business or commercial reasons compel us to radically change the nature of the Nursery’s operations, including but not limited to permanent closure of the Nursery, change of childcare service, re-registration of child numbers and age groups, changes to the registration and bookings policy. Naturally, we will provide as much notice as possible given any of these events. We may suspend the provision of childcare for any of the above reasons and in addition (1) if your child is suffering from an infectious or contagious disease or illness which may easily be passed onto others at the Nursery. The suspension will continue whilst we try to resolve the problem in conjunction with the parent / carer. (2) where forces beyond our control compel us to either close the Nursery or reduce the available hours, such as an outbreak of disease that involves the intervention of outside agencies such as Environmental Health, severe weather such as snow or ice which significantly impairs safe travel to and from the Nursery, industrial action affecting travel to and from the Nursery, an Ofsted investigation or any other reasonable incident not in our control. In the event that the Nursery is compelled to close in reasonable circumstances beyond our control we are not able to refund fees or organise alternative childcare, nor can we accept any consequential liability sustained by parents / carers due for example to loss of earnings or costs associated with alternative childcare. Dependent on the nature of the closure we may be able to seek compensation through our insurance policy and every effort will be made to minimise the disruption to service and cost to parents or carers. None of the above compromises your statutory rights if the Nursery has been negligent. In adverse weather conditions we will endeavour to remain open and if we have to alter our opening/closing times we will advise those that it affects. We are not able to clear the paths and roads leading to the nursery's so please be aware that you use it at your own risk. If in extreme situations we are not able to open or have to close early we regret we are not able to make any refunds.

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Staffing

Staff are checked on commencement with the Nursery through the Disclosure and Barring Service to ensure there are no safeguarding issues of which we need to be aware. Suitable person checks also include but are not limited to identity verification, qualification checks, personal and employment references, medical checks and where applicable visas or permits to work in the UK. The Nursery observes the Ofsted regulations relating to staff and children ratios.  In practice, our ratios exceed the minimum where possible. Parents/carers may ask staff to baby-sit outside Nursery hours. This is a contract between parent/carer and the member of staff, and the Nursery takes no responsibility. Due to safeguarding staff cannot be friends on social media with parents/carers/relatives/nanny's or child minders of current children at Little Rockets Nursery.

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Health, Safety and Absence

It is understood that the Nursery is under an obligation to report to the appropriate authorities any incident where we consider a child may have been abused, neglected or in some other way harmed either physically or emotionally. This may be done without informing the parent or carer, in accordance with our Safeguarding Children Policy. The Nursery is committed to the identification of and provision for children with Special Educational Needs. We believe that the potential of every child in our care is maximised, irrespective of ability, disability, race, gender and social background and to enable equal access to the curriculum in an environment where every child is valued and respected. Parents and carers must ensure we have all the relevant information regarding special needs to enable us to appropriately care for your child. In fairness to all our staff and to the clients and children that use our facilities we expect reasonable standards of behaviour at all times. We therefore reserve the right to exclude any child whose conduct is, in our opinion, disruptive or in any other way unacceptable to the smooth and efficient running of our Nursery. Naturally every effort will be made to avoid this action and may include special needs assessment or one to one care if funding allows. We ask all parents / carers to appreciate this and to understand that, in the event of having to exclude any child, all fees are non-refundable.

 

We reserve the right to administer basic first aid and treatment when necessary. Parents will be informed of all accidents and will be required to sign an accident form. For accidents of a more serious nature, involving hospital treatment, all attempts will be made by Nursery to contact the parents but failing this, we are hereby authorised to act on behalf of parents to consent to necessary treatment from a suitably qualified medical source. We will administer prescribed medicines if parents complete a ‘Medicine form’; however, the medicine must have been given at home for at least 48hours before attending nursery and parents must take all medicines home at the end of each day unless otherwise agreed. We may require parents to withdraw their child from Nursery, in the event that they require special medical care or attention, which is not available or refused by parents or it is considered that the child is not well enough to attend Nursery. We may also ask parents to withdraw their child from Nursery, if we have reasonable cause to believe that they are or maybe suffering from or have suffered from any contagious disease/infection and there remains a danger that other children at the Nursery may contract such a disease/infection. We accept no responsibility for children contracting contagious diseases/infections whilst at Nursery; however, we will publish infection notices in the Nursery to keep you informed. Parents are requested to inform the Nursery if their child is suffering from any illness or sickness before attending Nursery. Parents are requested to inform the Nursery of any food, medicine, activity or any other circumstances that may cause the child to have an allergic reaction/ allergy. Parents must provide details, in writing, of the severity of the reaction/ allergy and must continue to inform the Nursery of any changes/progress to the condition, in writing, when they become aware. Parents are requested to inform the Nursery of any changes to key information. Little Rockets Nursery cannot undertake the care of sick children and parents will be notified as soon as a child becomes unwell. Collection of the child should be as soon as is reasonably possible by the child’s parent or contact person. If a child has suffered from sickness and or diarrhoea, they must be excluded from nursery for 48 hours from their last bout of sickness/diarrhoea. It is extremely important to be aware how quickly sickness and diarrhoea bugs can be passed onto other children and staff. We urge you to be considerate before returning your child. If you child is poorly and you won’t be bringing them to nursery please can you let us know via phone or Famly messaging so that, where necessary, we can take action to safeguard the other children and nursery team. For example, if your child has Chicken Pox we will inform all parents and staff to be aware their child may have come into contact with the Chicken Pox virus which can be dangerous for early stages of pregnancy. If children fall ill during the day parents will be contacted to arrange to collect them. If the parents are unavailable other authorised contacts will be called. Please note that we kindly ask if you can call us if your child will be dropped off late for their day/session.

We suggest that all personal toys, books or other equipment are left at home. Comforters can be brought into the nursery.  Children should come in normal day clothes. Please avoid ‘designer’ clothes as accidents can happen. At least one change of clothes should be provided, in your labelled nursery bag (more changes and extra shoes if potty training please). Please label your child’s clothes to help avoid items going missing or being misplaced. The Nursery does not accept responsibility for accidental injury or loss of property, although we take very good care of child property whilst in the Nursery. Please also ensure children attend in appropriate footwear and always have appropriate clothing for the outdoors. Nappies, wipes and changing creams are to be supplied by parents. We recommend you bring a supply in and we will let you know when your child is running low. If you do not bring in extra supplies after being told your child has limited amounts left then we will ring you to bring more in if your child requires supplies whilst in our care. 

The Nursery acknowledges its duty of care to uphold the Statutory Guidance issued under section 29 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, the central function of which is to take due regard to our role in assisting the prevention of adults and children in our care from being drawn into terrorism or radicalisation.

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Security and Publicity

As part of the nursery’s fulfilment of the Early Years Foundation Stage we regularly photograph and sometimes video the children taking part in their activities. Imagery is never published without the consent of the parent or carer. Our guidelines are as follows (1) Photographs in the Nursery are only taken with Nursery cameras or authorised devices such as Tablet computers. (2) Staff mobile phones with or without cameras are not allowed in the playrooms or the gardens, they are kept in the office or staff room. Staff only have access to these on their lunch breaks when no children are present in the room they are having their break. (3) Photographs taken of the children are stored for the minimum amount of time until they are uploaded onto Famly and then deleted. (4) Photographs are vetted for suitability before being printed or published. (5) All children are dressed appropriately before pictures are taken. (6) No photographs are taken in sensitive areas such as toilets or nappy changing rooms. (7) Parents are requested not to share any photos used of the child on Famly with people outside of their family or on Social Media sites, especially if the photo contains other children in it.  

If your child is going to be collected by someone other than yourself the Manager will require prior notification and an agreed password. It is the responsibility of parents to keep us informed of any changes in contact numbers. Under no circumstances will the child be allowed to leave Nursery with anyone unknown to Nursery staff unless the parent or carer has previously arranged this. If the parent / carer has made alternative arrangements by telephone, the Nursery will require the name and telephone number of the person permitted to collect the child and proof of identity will be required upon arrival at the Nursery. A list of responsible adults who are authorised to collect the child can be recorded on your child’s nursery registration form.

We observe The Data Protection Act 1998 which is a statutory act of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Act defines what types of data are allowed to be collected, how they should be stored and what can and cannot be done with that information. In particular The Act states that personal data relating to individuals must be stored securely and only used for legitimate purpose. In order to safeguard the children in our care staff we observe and follow the Children’s Act 2006.

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Extra Information

At Little Rockets Nursery we comply with a laid down complaints procedure, a copy of this is displayed in the policies and procedures file and on our website (www.littlerockets.org.uk). If you have any complaints in compliance with Ofsted requirements about the service that we are offering, can you please in the first instance contact your child’s key person or room leader, then the Nursery Manager or Proprietor, and in the final instance, Ofsted.

 

Little Rockets Nursery’s current policies and procedures are on display in the lobby and can be viewed on our website: www.littlerockets.org.uk. We advise all parents/carers to read our Policies and Procedures before signing up with us. If you do have any further questions or queries over any of these please do not hesitate to contact the Nursery Manager. Acceptance of this agreement is implicit when you sign our Application Form and applies to all parties noted on the Application and Registration Form, irrespective of whether the secondary parties have signed the form. We would respectfully request that if parents / carers experience difficulty in fulfilling any of the conditions of this agreement, that they contact the Nursery Manager as soon as possible. We will do our very best to resolve the issue. Thank you.

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