Fees & Financial Information

Fees & Session Times

We are open Monday to Friday, all year round. We are not able to offer Term Time Only booking patterns. 

We close for all Bank Holidays, and from 1pm Christmas Eve into the New Year. Children must be booked to attend at least two full day sessions per week, one of which must be a Monday or Friday. 

 

3 Months - 3 Years

3 Years and Up

Early Drop Off (7.30am-8am)

£10.30

£10.30

Full Day (8am-6pm)

£96.75

£94.50

Morning (8am-1pm)

£67.25

£63.00

Afternoon (1pm-6pm)

£61.00

£56.70

All session fees are fully inclusive.

Funding

Government funding is stretched across 50 operational weeks at Red Bus. This provides consistent monthly allocations for families.

Funding Offer

Stretched Weekly

Hours per Month

15 hours

11.5 hours

47.92 hours

30 hours

23 hours

95.83 hours

Optional Charges for Funded Hours

Optional charges are available for families who wish to include meals, consumables, and enrichment activities. Families can speak with the Manager about alternatives.

Item

Hourly Rate

Catering

£2.00

Consumables

£0.31

Enrichment Activities

£0.35

If you opt in to these non-mandatory charges during the funded hours, then you opt in to all three of them, and you cannot opt out during any days your child may be absent from the nursery - this includes any sick days, holidays or any other absence.

Discounts

• 10% sibling discount (eldest child)
• 5% full-time discount (five full days)

Registration Fees & Deposits

To accept a place with us, we require a non-refundable Registration Fee of £50 and a £400 deposit to be paid in order to secure the booking. This deposit will be used as part of your first month’s fees. 

If your fees are being entirely funded by the government (ie you are not paying for any private hours or additional services which includes catering services, consumables and enrichment services), then we ask you to only pay a refundable £50 deposit to secure your place, which will be refunded within 4 weeks of your child starting at the nursery. If your child does not take up their fully funded place, then we will retain this £50 deposit.

Funded Hours

Red Bus has settings in different local authorities, so the information below has been kept generic. Please contact your local setting for specific information.

Funding for Working Families of children ages 9 Months to 4 Years

  • Parents must meet qualifying criteria to be eligible for this funding. You can learn more about the eligibility criteria on the Government website.
  • We offer All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 50 weeks of the year. 
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 23 hours per week. 

Funding for eligible 2 Year Olds

  • Parents must meet qualifying criteria to receive this funding, different from Working Families entitlement. You can learn more about eligibility criteria on the Government website.
  • We offer All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 50 weeks of the year. 
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 11.5 hours per week. 
  • You cannot use this type of funding alongside Working Families entitlement.

Universal Funding for all 3 and 4 Year Olds

  • There is no qualifying criteria for this type of funding. Red Bus will automatically claim the funding for your child from the appropriate date.
  • We offer an All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 50 weeks of the year. 
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 11.5 hours per week. 
  • You cannot use this type of funding on top of the Working Families entitlement.

How to Pay

There are lots of ways to pay your invoice, and support you may be able to get to help pay it. The Best Start in Life website is a great place to start, as it lists all the different ways you can get support paying for childcare.

Direct Debit

If you tell us when you register that you’d like to pay by direct debit, we can get this set up for you in advance. All you need to do is complete a form, and you will be set up for automatic payments on the 1st of each month.

Tax Free Childcare

This scheme is designed so that for every 80p you put into your Tax-Free Childcare account, the government will add 20p. It essentially gives you basic-rate tax back on your bill – hence the scheme's name! You can be set up easily for payments to Red Bus using your government gateway account.

www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare

Other Ways to Pay

We can also accept payments via bank transfer – we do not generally accept payment by cash, but please speak to your setting about this.

We also accept childcare voucher payments from most suppliers, please let our finance team know if this is how you plan to pay.

At our Flax Bourton site we are also signed up for Yellownest, a workplace salary exchange scheme.