Our admissions policy
Statement of Intent
It is our intention at South Nutfield Pre School to ensure that we are as accessible to children and families within our local community.
Our Aims
We warmly welcome all members of our local community and ensure that access to the Pre School is offered through fair and honest procedures. We have an open-door policy to ensure that communication is a two-way process between our families and the Pre School.
To achieve this, we operate the following:
· We promote the Pre School in a variety of ways and in places that are accessible to all members of our community. Our details can be found via the Surrey Family Information Service, local Social Network groups, word of mouth, our own website and local family magazines. We can also be found via a link on the Nutfield Church Primary School website, where many of our children will transition to in their Reception Year.
· We ensure that all information about South Nutfield Pre School is accessible in written form and through spoken communication where appropriate. For families where English is an additional language or in need of additional support because of a disability, the Pre School will ensure information is shared to meet the individual needs of those families.
Our waiting list for places is primarily on application date order, however in addition to this we will consider the following:
· FEET (funding for eligible 2-year-olds)
· Looked After Children
· Children who will be transitioning to Reception in the following September after enrolment.
· Families in crisis due to health-related issues.
· Children with SEND requirements (a risk assessment will be required make sure that South Nutfield Pre School is a suitable setting for any child with SEND needs)
All children are very welcome at South Nutfield Pre School regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity or Special Educational Needs or Disability. Parents can register their child at any age, but up to the age when they will transition into their Reception Year. Children can start at South Nutfield Pre School in the term they turn 2.5 years of age, dependent on the availability of space and the readiness of the individual child. Children can remain at South Nutfield Pre School until the term before their 5th birthday.
Our core sessions are 3hrs in total, but we offer a wider range of hours to suite many parent or carers requirements. The Pre School is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and is term time only. The additional options for attendance are 4.5hr sessions or up two 6hr sessions per week. Our minimum requirement for children to attend is 2 different sessions per week. We recommend that children transitioning to school benefit from attending at least one 6-hour session per week alongside other sessions. Parents can increase sessions at the start of each term if we have availability.
As far as possible, South Nutfield Pre School will inform parents when availability of a child’s place is ready by the half term prior to the place being available.
Parent/Carers are invited to attend taster sessions with their child prior to taking up their place.
Home visits are offered to all our new children before their first session. This is the start of our building a relationship with your child and their Key Person. We see this as an invaluable opportunity but is not compulsory.
Following the home visit, children will start by attending shorter settling sessions until the Pre School, parents and the child feel happy to attend their allocated sessional hours.
All families are entitled to 15 hours of Early education the term after a child turns 3. Each term, parents are requested to complete a funding declaration form. Additional hours can be taken with hours in addition to the 15 being invoiced for every half term. For children not eligible for the Early Education Funding, a half termly invoice will be issued for the hours your child attends. Holiday and days off sick are still payable.
South Nutfield Pre School have a system in place for non or late payment of fees and are as follows:
If payment of fees is not received within 14 days from the invoices being provided, a 1st reminder e-mail will be sent to the designated parent/carer. which will detail when the fee payment was due, and the total fee amount overdue.
Under the terms and conditions pre-school reserve the right to charge a £20 admin fee on top of late fees after the 14 days have expired.
If payment is still not received within a further 7 days from the 1st reminder and the parent / carer has not discussed payment of the outstanding amount, the child whose fees remain outstanding may be refused entry to pre-school until such fees are settled in full. This may result in you forfeiting your child’s place at pre-school and the opening will go to another child on our waiting list.
If the fees due remains outstanding for a further 14 days, a recorded delivery letter will be sent to the designated parent/carer advising that legal action will be taken, and collection of the fees will be pursued through the small claims court procedure or by other litigation.
Application to the small claims court is a last resort which will only be undertaken when all other approaches have been tried, when the Management Committee is confident such action does not contravene other stated aims and policies of the Pre-School, and when they have carefully considered the effect of such action on the child.
If any family is having difficulty making payments, then we will look at these as individual cases and negotiate a payment plan to settle the invoices outstanding.
If a child is to leave our setting or to reduce the number of sessions attended, parents must give at least four weeks' term time notice of the leaving date or reduction of hours in writing. Fees will be payable (or funding claimed by us), until that date.