There are a number of different types of government help with childcare fees, the main ones being the tax-free childcare system, and the government funded childcare hours. Details about both types of help and also details about universal credit and tax credit for childcare can be found on the childcarechoices.gov.uk website.

Tax free childcare is a government initiative intended to help eligible working parents with the cost of childcare. It is aimed at families with children aged 0-11 (or up to 17 if their child has a disability) and can save families up to £2,000 per child per year (or £4,000 for a child with a disability). It’s possible to access tax free childcare alongside the funded hours, and it’s available to all working families, including parents who are self-employed. To be eligible each parent needs to earn at least the equivalent of the national minimum wage for 16 hours per week, but less than £100,000 per year. For every £8 parents put into their tax-free childcare account, the government will add £2. Parents can then use the money in their tax-free childcare accounts to pay childcare providers. Mulberry Bush is registered with the tax-free childcare scheme.

Your child becomes entitled to receive funded hours from the start of the term following when they become nine months old and their third birthday (as relevant). The terms start in September (Autumn), January (Spring) and April (Summer). This means if your child becomes nine months old in November, they will become entitled to working families funding from the start of the Spring term in January. If your child turns three in May, they will become entitled to three and four-yearold funding from the start of the Autumn term in September. However, you need to have applied for the funding before the term starts, i.e. prior to 1st September, 1st January or 1st April as relevant.

All three and four-year-old children are entitled to claim 15 funded hours per week for 38 weeks of the year, amounting to 570 hours per year. In addition, children of working families aged nine months upwards are entitled to 30 funded hours per week for 38 weeks of the year. This means that a combined total of 1140 hours per year are available for children of working families aged 9 months upwards.

As our nurseries are open for 51 weeks a year, only closing for Christmas week, we generally ‘stretch’ the funded hours entitlement throughout the whole year. This means that we offer the funding over 48 weeks of the year (not 38), ensuring fewer weeks of full fees for families. The remaining four weeks of the year, when funding isn’t available, are Christmas week when the nurseries are closed, the first week of January when fees are already reduced, and the last two weeks of August when children leave us to go to school.

During funded weeks at Mulberry Bush, if children are entitled to 15 funded hours per week, they will access 12 funded hours per week, 6 per day, based on a minimum attendance of two days per week. If children are entitled to 30 funded hours per week, they will access 24 funded hours per week, 8 per day, based on a minimum attendance of three days per week. The remaining hours are used to ‘stretch’ the funding for additional weeks where there wouldn’t usually be any funding.

Whether or not the stretched funding is available for the entire year at nursery will depend on when each child becomes entitled to the funding. It will only be possible to stretch over the whole 48 weeks of an academic year (i.e. from September until the following mid-August) if a child has become entitled to funding from the Autumn term. If a child becomes entitled to the funding from January, then the funding will run until the end of July, and if they become entitled to the funding from April then it will run until the middle of July.

Exact details as when an individual child’s funding will be able to be stretched until will be indicated in the MB Funded Hours Schedule which accompanies the MB Parent Agreements signed by parents.

Each Mulberry Bush funded day consists of 6 or 8 funded hours (dependant on whether the entitlement is for 15 hrs or 30 hrs) which are provided completely free of charge, plus additional paid hours per day (3.5 hrs when entitled to 15 hours per week and 1.5 hrs when entitled to 30 hrs per week). Once children who are already attending nursery become eligible for funded hours we will automatically convert some of their days of attendance to include the funded hours. Your invoices will therefore reflect the number of funded hours accessed on each day, at zero cost, and the cost of additional paid hours.

We do not charge any extra for meals, drink or snacks, or for the consumable items which we provide as part of our service, including nappies, wipes, calpol, nurofen, baby milk, suncream etc., notwithstanding that these aren’t covered by the funded hours. We also do not charge extra for access to the additional services we provide over and above the basic funding provided by the government, which relate to our enhanced high quality nursery provision e.g. French sessions, our many visitors (including yoga, animal visits, football skills, mindfulness, theatre shows), baking activities, parties, our Academy programme and our sensory rooms.

We do not charge for these additional items as we want our childcare to be truly inclusive and would never want a child to have a lesser experience at nursery than their peers.

Yes, it is possible to attend nursery for just the funded hours, completely free of charge. These places are available on a non-stretched basis, for 38 weeks of the year. These places are available an academic year at a time, on our quieter days which will be confirmed term by term depending on availability. For 30 hour places, they are accessed on three ten-hour days and for 15 hour places they are available on two shorter days (7.30am until 3pm).

We liaised with Bury Local Authority when deciding our approach to the way in which we offer government funded hours and they confirmed that they are in agreement with the way that we provide these places. If you have any questions please discuss with a member of the management team at your nursery.

For the funding which is only available for working families, eligible parents will need to apply for an eligibility code from childcarechoices.gov.uk. This code will need to be provided to nursery and eligibility will need to be reconfirmed online every three months. Without an eligibility code working families will not be able to access the funded hours. Nursery is not able to obtain codes on parents’ behalf. Codes are not needed for the universal funding available to all three and four-year-old children, nor for the two-year-old funding for children whose families are receiving financial support, which needs to be applied for with the Local Authority.

All parents accessing funded hours at Mulberry Bush will be required to sign a MB Parent Agreement produced by nursery.

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to make individual arrangements as to how the funded hours are claimed by different parents, as we have hundreds of families accessing the funded hours across our nurseries. Should you have any questions or queries at all, please speak to one of the management team based at your nursery.