Early Years Care & Education

About Us

We, as a Company, are dedicated to providing the highest quality care & education for your child. We are passionate about ensuring the children in our care receive the best possible learning & life experiences. We understand that for children to thrive, they need to feel happy, valued & secure.

We help our children to develop a sense of self-worth & a caring attitude towards others, to explore & develop new skills within safe & secure boundaries. We aim to develop happy, confident & independent individuals for whom learning is fun.

Our nurseries provide a stimulating environment where children are encouraged to reach their full potential through our imaginative & fun indoor & outdoor areas, designed to cover all children’s needs – socially, emotionally, physically & educationally. This combines with our valued, approachable & receptive staff team to ensure that you can put your faith in our setting.

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Opening Times
Fees
Early Years Care & Education
Early Years Care & Education
Early Years Care & Education
Early Years Care & Education
Our Practices & Priorities

The Right Choice For You


Our nurseries provide a stimulating environment where children are encouraged to reach their full potential through our imaginative & fun indoor & outdoor areas, designed to cover all children’s needs – socially, emotionally, physically & educationally. This combines with our valued, approachable & receptive staff team to ensure that you can put your faith in our setting.

We know that selecting a childcare provider is one of the hardest & most important decisions for a parent to make so don’t just take my word for it – if you’ve not already had an opportunity to visit us, please feel free to arrange an appointment for yourself & your child to view our facilities – we hope to see you soon.

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Your child’s safety is our top priority

A password system is operated in the circumstance of someone new picking up your child from nursery. Your child will not be released into the care of an unknown person without identification or prior arrangements so please make sure that we are fully informed.

Registered with Ofsted

Early Years Care & Education Ltd. is registered with Ofsted, in line with The Children’s Act 1989. We provide a full day care service for children aged 6 weeks to 5 years. In order to maintain high-quality childcare provision, we operate an ongoing system of self-evaluation and are subject to regular Ofsted inspections.

Equal Opportunities 

We actively promote our Equal Opportunities policy, ensuring that staff, children & parents are not discriminated against on the grounds of religion, race, sex, language or disability. Everyone is treated as an individual to ensure that all needs & requirements are met to the best of our ability.

Qualified & Experienced Staff

To ensure a high standard of childcare we employ a range of appropriately qualified staff who, we ensure, keep their training regularly updated. Great care is taken to ensure that the team works together to create a happy atmosphere for your child. Many of the staff you will meet have worked with us for many years, and are committed to the best outcomes for your children. The relevant checks are carried out on all our staff & each member has an initial trial period to ensure their capabilities meet our high standards. We believe in encouraging positive behaviour in both the children & the staff, & staff are expected to be role models for the children.

Policies & Procedures

We hold written policies & procedures on the day-to-day running of the nursery, which the manager and staff follow to ensure that the standards are maintained.

Locations

Opening Hours

All our branches are open from Monday to Friday, 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM, 52 weeks a year, and all offer government-funded, free entitlement sessions to 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. We are not open on the Christmas & New Year bank holidays. We will try our best to accommodate any unusual hours or sessions required, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Early Years Care facilities at Oak Valley Day Nursery
Payments, Contracts & Discounts

Fees

We have a simple fee structure with no hidden costs, and there is no difference in price for different age groups or any specific hours during the day.

Hourly rateLunchTea
£7.25£3.00£1.50
  • A minimum of 6hrs is required per session, beyond that, time can be added in 30min segments.
  • All baby consumables (i.e. nappies, wipes & creams) will be provided by the setting for children in the Baby Room at no extra cost. If nappies are still required once the child is in Toddler or Pre-School Rooms, they must be provided from home.
  • Fees are charged monthly, in advance, & payment is required on or before the 1st of the month, as per the terms of the Childcare Agreement (p.13.). You can choose to pay by BACS (no charge), childcare vouchers (£1 charge), tax-free childcare (£1 charge). No cash or cheque payments will be accepted.
  • Full payment will be required for all 8 Bank Holidays & any periods of sickness.
  • A premium rate will be charged for any hours &/or sessions required in addition to regular contracted pattern of attendance.
  • See also ‘Terms & Conditions’ for additional charges.
  • We offer all year round contracts (52 weeks), term-time contracts (39 weeks full price/full attendance, 13 weeks half price/half attendance – in line with school terms) & free early learning (FEL) funded term-time only (38 weeks).
  • We will try our best to accommodate any unusual hours or sessions required, please don’t hesitate to ask.
  • 5% discount available for full-time places (50hrs or more per week)
  • One-week holiday pro rata may be taken free of charge in any one holiday year (a holiday year is the 12 months following your child’s start date) i.e. if your child attends 2 sessions each week, they will be entitled to 2 free sessions in any one year. A minimum of four weeks written notice is required to have this deduction made.

Our invoices are sent electronically & will automatically be sent to the email address provided as your child’s ‘1st contact’. All account queries should be directed to [email protected] rather than the setting’s usual email address.

From September 2024 15hrs funding per week for 38 weeks of the year to extend to eligible working families of 9-23mth olds
From September 2025 All eligible children to access an extended offer of up to 30hrs funding per week for 38 weeks of the year (9mths+)

Free Early Learning (FEL) is a Government funded scheme that offers 570hrs per year of early education to all 3 & 4-year olds & eligible 2-year olds. Eligible 3 & 4-year olds are able to double their entitlement to 1,140hrs per year under the Extended Free Entitlement (EFE).

Both the FEL for 2-year olds & the EFE are based on definite eligibility criteria. Parents need to confirm their eligibility & we can only provide a place once that eligibility has been confirmed.

FEL for 3 & 4-year olds is a universal entitlement & children qualify to receive FEL the April, September or January following their third birthday. The free entitlement equates to 15hrs per week for 38 weeks of the year.

Parents may choose for their child to take up fewer hours than they’re entitled to if they wish. Our settings deliver funding between 9am & 4.30pm. A child can claim FEL &/or EFE at no more than 2 providers in any one day & can only claim up to a total of 15 or 30hrs depending on eligibility. If parents wish their children to attend outside of 9am-4.30pm they’re charged at our hourly rate.

Your child can access the FEL/EFE hours only, attending 38wks per year only, or you can stretch across all 52wks accessing a lesser amount each week. If your child accesses the FEL/EFE hours only you will simply be charged for lunch at £3 per session.

If your child is signed up to attend 38wks only but you wish them to attend an ad hoc additional session during non-funded week, these can be requested &, subject to availability, will be charged at our premium rate of 50p above our hourly rate.

You will be required to complete an Early Years Care & Education Ltd. ‘Parent/Carer Agreement to Access Free Early Learning (FEL) Entitlement & Extended Free Entitlement (EFE)’ pack.

Please be aware that the Local Authority strongly advise that holidays are taken outside of funded time & that, if a child exceeds the limit they set, funding will be retracted & parents will be legally required to refund the setting.

In line with submitting funding claims to the Local Authority, you commit to the number of hours we claim on your behalf for a minimum of a term at a time. This does not affect your right to request alterations to your hours of attendance.

a healthy vitamin-rich diet

Our Meals

We are aware that diet is a concern for many parents so we provide a menu that boasts an extremely high fresh fruit and vegetable content. Well balanced, nutritious and varied meals are served within our meat-free framework, encouraging children to become more adventurous with their food. Our meat-free menu has been carefully planned to take into account varying diets. Our meals are healthy & nutritionally balanced with basic foods that children enjoy.

Babies will be provided with blended or mashed foods depending on their stage of development. Parents will need to provide formula milk if required by their individual routine. Children are provided with a mid-morning & a mid-afternoon snack which includes a variety of bread-based items, fresh fruit & vegetables, accompanied by a drink of milk or water.

For children staying all day at nursery a cooked lunch can be provided as well as a light tea. We believe that this is a time where children can enjoy a nutritious meal as well as promoting social skills. Fresh fruit & vegetables are delivered each week to ensure your child/ren are provided with a healthy vitamin rich diet throughout their stay at nursery.

Sample Menu

Lunch (£3.00)

Creamy garlic mushroom pasta & peas

Vegetable casserole with Yorkshire pudding

Cottage pie with carrots

Jacket potato with baked beans or cheese

Rainbow vegetable risotto

Sample Menu

Tea (£1.50)

Pitta bread & hummus with vegetable sticks

Assorted sandwiches & vegetable sticks

Baked beans on toast

Tuna pasta salad

Cheese & tomato pizza with vegetable sticks

Early Years Care & Education
Recording your child’s development

‘eyLog’ – Your Child’s Online Learning Journey

As a Company, we use eyLog to record development observations on the children in our care & this is why you will see the staff using tablets. Although it may not always look that way, the nursery day is carefully planned to give a balance of adult-led & child-led activities. We try to adapt the planned activities to individual children in order to reflect their particular skills, interests & development needs. This means that the staff constantly need to notice what each child is doing, to record this & to think about what it means & what the next steps in their learning & development should/could be. The staff record their observations in what is known as a ‘Learning Journey’ which is a collection of different documents prepared by the staff to provide a picture of a child’s development under the various areas of learning.

While there is a statutory need to record & monitor progress, we also need to ensure that this process doesn’t get in the way of interacting & playing with the children. The eyLog system allows staff to capture a photo, video clip or voice recording, as well as written notes, using a tablet & assign this to one or more children. These observations from staff members are then uploaded to a secure web-based learning journey to which you as a parent also may have access to. This allows both a rich body of evidence to support our partnership with parents, to help us plan for individual children’s development & of course a wonderful keepsake for you to share with your child.

No data is stored permanently either on the tablets or on the nursery computer. As soon as an observation has been recorded & uploaded to the eyLog server, it is automatically deleted from the tablet. All data is held in encrypted form & is accessed subject to a secure login & password. The only people who can access a child’s learning journey are the relevant nursery staff (manager, room leaders, key persons) & you, the child’s parents.
The application not only permits a richer learning journey than its paper equivalent, but also offers a more secure way to record & share these learning journeys, & comes at a minimal cost of only 50p per month which will automatically be added to your invoice. It also means that you have the option of using/printing any of the photos we share with you.

Once your child commences their attendance with us, you’ll receive an email to the address you’ve provided on the ‘Child Information’ form for your child’s ‘1st contact’ (you can request to add a 2nd, to also receive notifications, please speak the Nursery Manager). You’ll receive an email containing an activation link; once you follow the steps to activate your account, you will then be able to log in & access observations as & when they’re captured.

By signing up for a place with us you are giving consent for your child to be photographed/videoed for record-keeping purposes, & for the use of internal nursery displays, staff training purposes etc. There may be group photographs/videos that incorporate images of your child & other children/teachers, & these may be incorporated into those other featured children’s learning journeys, as well as your own child’s. To protect & respect privacy, you must not use/upload/share the photographs, videos & audio recordings involving other children on public websites (such as social media websites), & must not utilise information from my child’s learning journey for purposes other than understanding the development of my child. Your child’s observations, learning journey, reports & other documents created through eyLog will be stored on eyLog’s systems & you must log in using only the personal log-in provided to you.

Interested in your child attending one of our award-winning nurseries?

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