Our Nursery
Our Lady of Lourdes Nursery is part of our main school and provides a secure and stimulating environment for all children to learn, play and flourish.
Above: Children exploring in our sandpit and willow dome, all part of our contained and safe outdoor area.
The children have supervised access to our extensive outside grassed and paved area where they love to explore their outside world and learn about their environment. It is carefully organised to enable children to develop and demonstrate characteristics of effective learning.
Practitioners support children in playing and exploring, active learning and developing creativity and critical thinking.
We value resources that promote possibility-thinking and offer limitless opportunities for play and learning. Children learn by leading their own, and by taking part in, play that is guided by adults. The child and adult engage in ‘sustained shared thinking’.
Children in our nursery have music sessions with our specialist teacher, as well as activity sessions with our PE specialists.
We gladly welcome children with special needs and government funding is available for children of 3 years and older and eligible 2 year olds.
Fees
| Our Fees are as follows: | Cost |
|---|---|
| Breakfast Club | £5 |
|
Preschool Session (am or pm) |
£16.50 |
| Lunch club | £4.00 |
| After school club | £10.00 |
PAYMENT
Details of payment required for unfunded sessions, lunch clubs and breakfast and after school clubs are available on School Money at the start of every half term.
We ask that you pay half-termly, our fees for each term can be made in two installments.
Late payment of instalments may result in your child losing their place at pre-school. All fees must be cleared by the end of every half term. Please read our payment policy.
Funding
All children are entitled to 15 hours universal funding (5 sessions) from the term AFTER their 3rd birthday. Before this time, sessions are chargeable.
Breakfast club, after school club and lunch club are not included in the funding.
If you think you are entitled to 30 hour extended funding, please go to childcarechoices.gov.uk. You will find a link to the Government’s childcare calculator, information on how to claim it and the deadlines involved – for example, if you are claiming for the autumn term starting September 2022, you must apply before 31 August 2022. If you miss this deadline, you will not receive the extended 30-hour funding for that term. Sessions attended by your child that amount to more than 5 sessions a week (15 hours) will then be invoiced to you.
All parents/carers of children eligible for universal and extended funding are required to sign the parent/carer declaration form before the start of each term to confirm the number of funded hours they wish to access at our pre-school. You will also need to give the 11-digit code starting 500 and your NI number.
The declaration form is emailed to parents eligible for funding before the start of each term.
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has agreed that if a parent/carer decides to increase the number of hours their
child is accessing after our headcount date (usually within the first 2 weeks of term), we can charge the
parent/carer for these additional sessions. You will be able to claim for the increased hours, provided you meet all
entitlement criteria, from the start of the next term.
If you think your child is entitled to 2-year-old funding (this will start the term AFTER your child is 2), you can check your eligibility at childcarechoices.gov.uk. If you are eligible, please contact the office staff on office@ourladyoflourdes.southend.sch.uk . We must advise the council that we will be claiming 2-year-old funding BEFORE your child starts at pre-school. We will need a parent’s date of birth and their NI number.