Attendance and Payment Policy

Little Lizards Attendance and Payments

It is vital that parents let us know when their children will be attending Little Lizards, whether for day care, holiday club, breakfast or after school club to enable us to organise staffing, purchase food for snacks and organise activities.

Please note:

  • Little Lizards closes for public bank holidays and inset days for staff training; these are always the same days as the school. It is also closed over the Christmas school holidays.
  • Nursery fees are reviewed periodically. One months’ notice will be given before any changes take place.

Payments - Daycare/Breakfast Club/Afterschool Club

Charges will be added to ParentPay in the first week of the month.  Charges will be added to the individual payment items for the session attended.  Charges for daycare will include advance charges for the current month and arrears for extra sessions in the previous month.  Breakfast Club, After School Club and Holiday Club sessions used in the previous month will be added to the relevant payment items on ParentPay. All of these charges are due to be paid 14 days after they are added.  If you'd like pay with Sodexo, Edenred or childcare vouchers, please tell us and you will be notified by email what the charges are.

Where payment is not received in fourteen days, we will:

  1. Write to/email the parent to gently remind them that they may have overlooked payment as the invoice is now overdue.
  2. If we don’t receive payment within seven days of the reminder we will formally write to the parent and ask for payment in full within seven days.
  3. If payment is not received in seven days, a second formal letter or email will be sent asking for payment within 7 days. At this stage their child / children will be unable to attend Little Lizards until payment is received in full - if payment is received within seven days no further action will be taken and the child / children may return.
  4. If payment is still not received, a third and final formal letter will be sent from the TPAT Finance Office requesting immediate payment in full. This will need to be paid within seven days.
  5.  If payment is still not received within the allowed seven days legal action will be taken, which could lead to all court costs being met by the parent.

NB. We understand that family life can often be financially challenging; to accommodate this, if you are having difficulties, we can wait until ‘pay day’ or agree a payment plan.  If any parents are having difficulties in paying their for their childcare, please phone or come in and speak to Mrs Tattersall, the school secretary, and we will always do our best to help and come to an agreement.

Holiday Club

All holiday club sessions that are booked must be paid for in advance to secure a place. If you are late picking up your child from their booked hours, you will be charged in arrears. This late pickup charge must be paid within 14 days. Where this payment is not received the steps above will be followed.

Cancellations

All sessions booked must be paid for. There are no refunds or part payments for holidays, medical appointments or child’s sickness, as we still have to pay for planned staffing and overheads.

Breakfast club/Afterschool club: We ask you to give us 24 hours’ notice of absences in breakfast and after school club. All other non-attendances will be charged for in full.

Daycare only: If for any reason you have to cancel hours we ask for 1 months’ notice in writing.

Holiday Club: There will be no refunds for any reasons and hours cannot be swapped.

Late Pick-ups

Please ensure that all children are picked up from after school club/holiday club by 5.00pm. Anyone picked up after this time will incur a penalty payment of £10, to cover extra staff costs. Children who are not picked up at the end of their booked session will be charged for the following session.

School Lunches (term time only)

School lunches must be paid for in advance. Please pay for your children’s meals in advance using ParentPay. We would appreciate it if you could pay for at least a week’s worth of meals at a time as we are charged a flat fee per transaction, so the smaller the amount you pay at once, the more fees we are charged.   School dinners are currently £2.65

Funding

Funded Nursery Education is available from the term following your child’s third birthday. In some cases you may be eligible for Free Education the term after your child’s second birthday. This entitlement allows parents to access 15 hours funding per a week for 38 weeks of the year. These weeks usually run alongside the term time dates set by the Nursery Funding team. You may also be able to access 30 hours funding if both parents are working. For more information about funding please access the following website www.supportincornwall.org.uk.

We do accept childcare vouchers (Sodexo, Childcare, Edenred vouchers etc…) and understand that not all vouchers can be used in advance. We ask you to speak to a member of staff about this.

Attendance

If your child will not be attending nursery on any days, we ask parents to phone us to let us know as other children may be able to attend and we need to keep a record for funding purposes. If sessions are missed repeatedly for no reason and we are not informed you may be asked to give up these sessions to accommodate for those who want to attend.