Terms and Conditions (Nurseries) Registration, Bookings, Notice Periods and Fees 1. To register your child at the nursery, you must complete a registration form. All information provided must be complete and accurate and any changes need to be communicated promptly. We reserve the right to terminate the contract if information provided is inaccurate and impacts our ability to provide effective care and education. 2. A non-refundable deposit of £100 is payable to secure a place. This will be credited against your first month’s fees. If the place is no longer required, or not taken up, the deposit will not be refunded. 3. No deposit is required for siblings, if your first child is still attending the nursery. If you are registering multiple siblings at the same time, only one £100 deposit is required to secure their places. No deposit is required if your child is attending the nursery for fully funded sessions only. 4. On booking a place at our nurseries, we require a minimum of 3 sessions a week (mornings or afternoons count as one session, and full days count as two sessions) for children over 2, and a minimum of 2 full days a week for children under 2. 5. In the event of siblings attending the nursery at the same time, a sibling discount will be applied. Where two siblings attend the nursery a 15% sibling discount will be deducted from the eldest child’s fee. If more than two siblings attend the nursery a 25% sibling discount will be deducted from the eldest child’s fee, and 15% sibling discount from the second eldest’s fee. The remaining siblings pay full fees. Please note, sibling discount is deducted after the deduction of funded entitlement hours. 6. Sibling discount cannot be applied to ad hoc sessions and cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount or offer. Sibling discounts cannot be applied to fully funded places. 7. Refer to our Fees and Funding document on our website, https://www.acornearlyyears.org.uk/fees-and-funding, for details of what is included in our fees for additional non-funded hours, and voluntary contributions for fully funded places. Fees are reviewed annually in April, but we reserve the right to adjust the fees to reflect unexpected increases in the costs of providing our services. We will give you no less than six weeks’ prior notice in writing of any fee increase. 8. All fees are charged monthly, in advance, and must be paid by tax free childcare, bank transfer, direct debit through Famly Pay or voucher by or on the first day of the month to which they relate. We are unable to accept cash or cheques. Please reach out to our nursery managers if you have any questions regarding voucher acceptance and eligibility. 9. We do accept Child Care Grant (CCG) payments from universities to cover your nursery fees but you are still responsible for ensuring the monthly fee is settled if the Child Care Grant does not cover your full invoice or is withdrawn. 10. Late payments are subject to a surcharge of 5% of the amount outstanding. Your child may be excluded from the nursery if your fees remain outstanding more than 14 days beyond the 1st of the month. 11. A charge for late collection will be made if your child is not collected before the end of their session time, at the rate of £5 for every 5-minute period. 12. Fees are payable during periods where your child is absent from the nursery, including sickness and holidays. Days cannot be swapped or changed except in exceptional circumstances. 13. The nursery is open all year round, Monday to Friday, apart from 15 closure days which are NOT charged. These comprise four training days, eight bank holidays plus an additional three days at Christmas. The 15 closure days equate to three weeks, which is why annualised fees are charged over 49 weeks, divided by 12 months. 14. Fees are payable for any additional bank holidays above the 8 standard bank holidays. 15. Invoices will be calculated on an annualised basis, except term-time only bookings, which are only available in exceptional cases. 16. If your child starts, leaves or makes changes mid-month, then that month’s invoice will be calculated on an actuals basis, ie: the number of chargeable days/sessions in that month. 17. Extra sessions are charged at the normal session rate, and payment is required at the time of booking. Early Years Funding Entitlement hours cannot be used in relation to payment for extra sessions. A week’s notice is required to cancel additional booked sessions, failing to do so will result in full payment being due. 18. If you wish to change your booking pattern, this is subject to availability and reducing sessions needs a minimum of six weeks’ notice. Requests to reduce sessions (for example, from full-time to part-time) may result in your child being placed on the part-time waiting list and full-time places that are given up may not be made available subsequently. 19. Please note there are separate waiting lists for full and part time places. 20. Four weeks’ written notice is required if you wish to cancel your space. Fees are still payable throughout the notice period. Once a place at the nursery has been confirmed, the notice period applies, and fees are payable if there is any delay in taking up the place. 21. Attendance may not begin until your first month‘s fees are paid. 22. For children who receive funded hours, we are required to monitor attendance. If attendance drops below a threshold set by the local authority we have an obligation to inform the local authority, who may decide to temporarily withdraw funding. In this scenario, sessions will be charged at the full nursery rates. 23. For children attending our Sharnbrook nursery we are unable to making changes to their booking pattern in the middle of a funding term, except at the manager’s discretion. Any changes to booking patterns in the middle of a funding term may impact your funding entitlement. Safety & Wellbeing 24. If your child becomes unwell whilst in our care, we will contact you, or the emergency contact, detailed on the registration form. If senior staff feel the child is not well enough to remain at nursery, you may be asked to arrange collection of your child. 25. If your child is unwell, we ask that you contact the nursery to inform them of their absence. The nursery must be informed if your child is suffering from any contagious disease to ensure we can effectively communicate to all parents/carers any communicable diseases in the nursery. For the benefit of other children and staff, we ask that your child remain at home until they have returned to full health. A copy of our infectious disease policy is available on the ‘Parent Zone’ on our website or from the nursery. 26. We will only allow you or your emergency contacts, that have been recorded in your registration form, to collect your child from our nursery setting. 27. We will work with you to cater for specific dietary and medical requirements of your child. You must notify the nursery in writing if there are changes to a special diet or medical condition so that we can ensure all paperwork is updated. 28. We place the highest importance on the safety and wellbeing of every child in our care. We are committed to making all reasonable efforts to meet each child’s unique needs, including collaborating with external agencies as required. Should we determine that, despite these efforts, we are unable to meet a child’s needs, we reserve the right to terminate the contract and withdraw the child’s place with immediate effect. 29. Any information communicated or advised to you by a medical professional must be shared with the nursery to ensure your child’s safety and health is suitable catered for. 30. We have a duty of care to ensure that any significant concerns about the children in our care are reported to the local Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and, where appropriate, Ofsted. We may note any incident or observation of a child where we deem the child may have been, or may be in the future, at risk of harm or neglect. In exceptional cases this may be done without speaking to a you until we have sought external advice. 31. In exceptional circumstances there may be an event that triggers the closure of the nursery that is out of our control. Such events include, without limitation, ‘acts of God’, fire, war, acts of terrorism, strikes or other industrial action, infectious diseases, and epidemics, and Acorn will not issue refunds for such forced closures. 32. Acorn will not tolerate, under any circumstances, behaviour towards staff which is deemed to be threatening, abusive or violent. Any such behaviour may result in termination of your child’s nursery place, or a refusal to allow the person back on the premises in the future. 33. We may suspend the provision of childcare if your child’s behaviour at the nursery endangers the safety and wellbeing of the other children or staff at the nursery. The suspension shall continue whilst we try and address these problems with you. 34. Acorn cannot take responsibility or liability for any services provided by our staff outside of our provision (such as babysitting). If you use any of our employees to provide services to you, you acknowledge and agree that this contract is kept entirely between yourselves and the individual, and in no way involves Acorn. General We expect all parents/carers to read and adhere to our policies and procedures regarding illness and absence, medication, dietary requirements, safeguarding children, security, behaviour, equal opportunities, complaints, among others. All relevant policies can be accessed at the setting or found on the ‘Parent Zone’ of our website: https://www.acornearlyyears.org.uk/Pages/Category/parent-zone Acorn reserves the right to terminate your child’s place providing at least four weeks’ notice in writing, or immediately in the event of a breach of these T&Cs which (if remediable) has not been remedied within 14 days. Acorn reserves the right to change any element of these T&Cs without notice where such a change arises from regulatory or legal requirements, or by providing reasonable notice for non-regulatory or statutory amendments. Acorn does not accept responsibility for accidental injury or loss or damage of property. The nursery is not responsible for any items left by you at the nursery, including without limitation, pushchairs, prams, car seats or clothing. Details of our insurance cover, as required by law, are displayed at our nurseries, and available on request. Our Privacy Notice can be found at: https://www.acornearlyyears.org.uk/Pages/Category/parent-zone These terms and conditions form the entire agreement between us and replace all previous agreements, assurances, warranties, representations, and understandings, whether written or oral, relating to this subject matter.