🍂Frequently Asked Questions

Tax-Free Childcare is a scheme where the government pays 20 per cent of your childcare costs up to a limit. Tax-Free Childcare has replaced Childcare Vouchers.

You can get up to £2,000 per year per child, or £4,000 if your child has a disability

You set up an account online with the government which you use to pay your childcare provider. For every £8 you put into the account, the government adds another £2. You can get up to £500 every three months per child, or £1,000 if your child has a disability.

You can use Tax-Free Childcare to pay for any kind of approved childcare, including nurseries, childminders and play schemes

Get Tax-Free Childcare - Step by Step: 

Check if you’re eligible for Tax-Free Childcare, how to apply and how to pay your childcare provider.

 Get Tax-Free Childcare: step by step - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 

If you would like to know if you are eligible for free childcare please click the link below which will take you to the Gov website

Check you're eligible for free childcare if you're working - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 

You do not have to apply to receive the universal 15 hours free childcare funding. Instead, your childcare provider will apply on your behalf once you have shown them proof of your child’s age, such as their birth certificate 

The 30 hours free childcare scheme is for working parents and guardians with children aged three or four years old and who earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours per week at the National Minimum or Living Wage, but less than £100,000 a year. 

To apply for 30 hours free childcare, you must set up a childcare account online with the government to confirm your details, such as passport information and/or a recent payslip.

 If you are eligible, you will be given a code which you then give to your provider. You will need to confirm your eligibility and details every three months to keep the code

As long as you (and your partner if you have one) remain eligible, your child can continue to receive the 30 hours of free childcare until they start school reception class or reach compulsory school age 

Yes, you can get Tax-Free Childcare at the same time as 30 hours free childcare if you are eligible for both. 

Although all registered nurseries must accept children with SEND if there are places available, some settings specialise in childcare provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

These settings have highly accessible facilities and additional equipment designed to support children with SEND, as well as staff with extra skills to ensure they can meet the needs of each child in their care

At nursery, children learn through play and are taught early literacy, language and maths skills, as well as developing their creativity and social skills through a variety of activities. Each country in the UK has its own national curriculum which covers different areas of learning.

In England, nurseries follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which has seven areas of learning, including communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development and understanding the world.

Day nurseries are run by a whole range of nursery providers. These providers can be private and not-for-profit, charitable organisations as well as the NHS and the local authority. Day nurseries care for and educate children from birth up to five years old.

They operate all year round and tend to be open from 8am to 5pm, with some open for even longer. They are open from Monday to Friday with a few even offering overnight care to help shift workers.

Day nurseries can vary in size from as small as 20 places to over 200 places and they tend to be split into different rooms according to the age of the children. Some provide breakfast, lunch and tea and some include formula milk up to the age of one.

They offer a whole range of activities for children. These can range from forest school and beach school sessions to yoga and music and movement classes as well as French and Spanish. They all follow an early years curriculum which is different depending on whether the nursery is in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Day nurseries will assign the child a key worker who the parent can liaise with.

Pre-schools are often run by voluntary parent-led committees and charities and care for and educate children from the age of two up to the age of five. They tend to follow school term-times and so are not open in the school holidays. Some pre-schools are only open from 9am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

Some pre-schools operate out of community buildings such as church or village halls and have to set up and pack away their early years resources and equipment every day.

They are very reliant on the free childcare funding scheme for money although parents often pay the pre-school for extra childcare hours on top of their free hours from the government.

Many of them are run by voluntary parent-led committees and ask for parents to get involved, including fundraising for equipment, volunteering and contributing fruit for snacks. Parents may be asked to provide pack lunchboxes as some do not have the facilities to offer a cooked lunch.

Some private nursery schools are attached to an independent school and offer a structured environment where children learn through play.

Many independent nursery schools offer extended hours where parents can drop off early and pick up late to fit in with their working hours.

They can also take advantage of the independent school’s resources and facilities.

Parents can still use the Early Years Free Entitlement Scheme and use their 15 hours of ‘free’ childcare for three and four year olds or 30 hours for working parents and top up if they need to.

Some nursery schools in the UK are run by private providers and these tend to only run in term-time. They are usually just for pre-school children aged three and four-years-old although some take children from two and a half.

Private nursery schools will have a trained teacher or headteacher in charge.

Maintained or state-funded nursery schools were originally set up by the state in deprived areas so all young children would be educated. All maintained nursery schools are required to employ a headteacher and professionally qualified teachers as well as a Special Educational Needs Coordinator as they have to meet the same standards as schools.

They are funded by the local authority and offer childcare to children under the age of five, usually from the age of two or three. 

There are around 385 maintained nursery schools in England, with sixty-four per cent of them located in the 30 per cent most deprived areas in England.

The National Education Union (NEU) says maintained nursery schools ‘give our youngest children the best start in life, including those with special educational needs and disabilities – and ensure access to the highest quality provision for families in the poorest parts of the country’.

A nursery school follows the same terms as schools and is only open during school hours and in term time.

Children’s Centres tend to offer a range of support to families of children under the age of five.

As well as childcare, they can offer parenting courses, ante-natal and post-natal support, stay and play and breastfeeding support.

 Pre-schools are early years settings which offer a more structured environment than day nurseries. providing education for children aged two to five years old. They are usually open during school term times only during school hours (9am-3pm Monday to Friday). 

Wrap around childcare means that a setting will provide childcare outside of its normal hours, for example through breakfast clubs or after school childcare. This can allow parents to drop their children off before work and pick them up on their way home.