From September 2025 the Government are offering up to 30 hours funding per week (1140 hours per year) to all eligible children over the age of 9 months. This is known as ‘Working Family Funding”. The provision of this funding is subject to nursery availability. Parents do not have to take all of the 30 hours, the offer is up to 30 hours a week. Parents of children who are not eligible for this ‘extended’ funding will qualify for the ‘universal’ funding from the term after their 3rd birthday. To check whether you are eligible please visit www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

Upon joining Little Me Nursery, we ask that if you are looking to claim funding at the setting, that you complete a Parental Statement of Undertaking (PSOU) – a form required by Leicestershire County Council – which states that you are eligible to claim and details what funding you would like to claim. This form will be sent to you via email, along with Little Me’s Funding Contract (FEEE) when you register with us.

The PSOU form details that Little Me Nursery offers funding from 9am – 4.30pm (7.5 hours) or 8.30am – 5pm (8.5 hours), and these hours can be claimed fully funded during term time. Both forms need to be completed and returned prior to any funding claims being made.

As funding does not cover hours outside of these times, if your child is at nursery before their funding starts, or after it finishes, we will then charge either a half hourly rate of £3.50 or hourly rate of £6.85 accordingly. These additional hours will be calculated and added to your next invoice.

The funding we receive from the local authority does not include the costs of providing and cooking meals, so we ask parents if they could contribute to the cost of providing a snack, lunch, and tea for their children. This is charged at £15.00 per day on funded days. As this is optional, should parents not wish to pay for meals then we request they speak to a senior member of staff as soon as possible to discuss alternatives.

To ensure that we continue to provide a first-class service to our children and their parents, we also have a daily consumables charge. This is £3.00 and covers the cost of:

• The children’s individual Learning Journeys and production and costs relating to these.
• Staff training and qualifications over and above the mandatory requirements.
• Consumables such as wipes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, emergency medicines such as Calpol and Piriton.
• Appropriate spare clothes, shoes and wellington boots for emergencies.
• Attendance to Christmas parties, any nursery celebrations such as Diwali, Halloween, Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and all resources and gifts related to these events.
• Ingredients and resources for cooking activities.
• Equipment and resources used in gardening activities throughout the year.

Funding is provided for 38 weeks of the year in line with local school terms. As Little Me Nursery is a full daycare setting and open 47 weeks of the year, the remaining nine weeks where funding is not provided will be charged at the daily rate of £65. This rate includes all meals and is inclusive of the consumables charge. The nine ‘non-funded’ weeks are usually in line with school half terms, Easter holidays and the summer holidays.

Parents can split their hours over more than one provider, but cannot access more than 15 or 30 hours in total. Please ensure you notify Little Me Nursery if you attend another setting and how many hours you claim there.

To continue to receive the Working Parent Entitlement, parents will need to re-confirm with HMRC that they are still eligible every 3 months and it is the parents/carers responsibility to do this and failure to do so could leave parents liable to pay any fees for the hours their child is at Little Me Nursery.

Please see the example invoice below, which details how funding is provided free of charge and how meals, consumables and extra non-funded hours are charged.