FAQs
Sessions & Fees
We are able to accept payment through all Childcare Voucher providers. If you wish to pay via vouchers, please email finance@muddybootsnursery.co.uk to let us know. Please ensure that if you are paying through childcare vouchers, that you order the vouchers to come to the nursery account by the 20th of the month previous, so that they payment is accounted for on your invoice.
The fee for that particular month will be calculated based on actual sessions booked in the month, then a new monthly average would resume the following month. This is the case even if the number of sessions per week is the same e.g. a child changing from Full Days Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays to Full Days Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays.
Fees are based on the reservation of a place for your child, not on actual attendance. Therefore, all fees are payable even if your child does not attend nursery for all their booked sessions.
Day to Day
The short answer is ‘yes!’ We have children that sleep in Explorers, Discoverers, Adventurers and Rising Threes. When registering your child, you will be asked to fill out an ‘All About Me’ form which asks you all about your child’s sleeping habits and favourite comforters. As much as possible we try to stick to children’s normal routines, taking our queue from parents about what would usually happen at home.
Babies will need;
- A bag with a spare change of clothes (or two!) and any comforters
- Woolies, wellies and waterproofs in the winter
- A sun hat in the summer
- Their Daily Diary
- If breastfeeding, any expressed breast milk in bottles – we can store this at nursery. (Nursery provides formula milk which is included in your fees)
Older children will need;
- A bag with a spare change of clothing (lots more if toilet training!)
- Woolies, wellies & waterproofs in the winter
- A sun hat in the summer
As often as possible! All the children are free to go outside for some fresh air every day. Outdoor play fosters a love of nature and the outdoors, and encourages healthy physical activity, team play and social inclusion.
We have three gardens – our ‘Muddy Garden’, full of digging pits, climbing trees, discovery areas and a mud kitchen, our ‘Yard’, where the children can run around and zoom around on bikes, trikes and scooters, and our baby garden, small, safe and shady for the littler ones. We also enjoy the use of the huge field – with plenty of space for long walks and running around.
We usually go outside no matter what the weather. Wrapped up warm in woolies, waterproofs and wellies, the outdoors is just as fun in the rain. One of our favourite sayings at Muddy Boots is; “There is no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothing!”.
Whilst Muddy Boots Nursery aims to be a welcoming environment for children and families, the safety and security of the children, team members, parents and all other visitors to the nursery is paramount. We ensure the nursery is safe and secure using a variety of methods including ‘safe’ passwords, door entry systems and daily registers, where team sign children in and out of their base room. Please see our ‘Security, Arrivals and Departures Policy’ for more details.
Muddy Boots operates a Key Person system, whereby each child and their family has a designated team member who will take lead responsibility for the relationship between the family and the nursery.
You know your child best and we are committed to working with you to make sure your child settles in to nursery life as quickly and as easily as possible. In order to help your child settle in when they first join the nursery Muddy Boots offers;
A Home Visit – Prior to starting sessions at nursery, we endeavour to visit every child in their home, an environment where they feel safe and secure. This will usually be the Nursery Manager or Deputy Manager and the child’s Key Person. This provides an ideal opportunity for paperwork to be fully completed, comprehensive information sharing between nursery and parents, and for parents to ask any questions or discuss concerns they may have.
Settling In Visits – Prior to the first full day of attendance, arrangements will be made for two ‘settling in’ visits at the nursery, so that the child and parent can meet the team and visit the room in which the child will be based.
- The first settling in visit lasts around an hour and requires the parent to remain with the child.
- During the second settling in visit, we encourage the parent to leave the child in the room on their own. This visit usually lasts 2 hours.
- Third and subsequent visits may be made prior to full attendance commencing. These can be either made in advance or agreed at the time if felt necessary. These additional settling in sessions can be booked as half or full days and are chargeable at the usual rates.
We understand that things out of your control can sometimes make you late. If you know you are going to be delayed, we ask that you give us a call to let the team know what time you are likely to be arriving. If your child remains at nursery beyond opening hours, their Key Person or a familiar team member and a Manager would stay behind with them until they were collected.
If you are going to be significantly late, we advise that you ask a friend or family member who you trust to pick up your child on your behalf.
Unfortunately if you are frequently late, we may have to charge a ‘late pickup fee’, at £5 per 15 minutes late (or part thereof). This is to compensate for the overtime that would be paid to the team who would have to stay behind with your child.
Illness
We can prescribe most prescribed medication at nursery – please see the ‘Medicines Policy’ for more information.
For minor illness or injuries at nursery, after giving first aid (if appropriate), a team member will call you to let you know of the situation. You will not be required to collect your child if you do not wish to, unless it is an infectious disease as described in our ‘Illness and Injury Policy’. After trying both parents, if we cannot reach you, we will leave a message where possible to do so but no further action will be taken to try and contact you.
If, in the opinion of the team, your child is ill and requires medical treatment or diagnosis, you will be contacted and requested to collect your child as soon as possible.
For more serious accidents or illnesses, where the team feel that hospital treatment is required, you will be contacted straight away, and either asked to meet the team and your child at hospital, or collect them from nursery to take them yourself if you are nearby.
For any illnesses or accidents that occur at nursery, you will be asked to read and sign an ‘Accident/Illness/Injury Form’ at the end of the day.
We aim at Muddy Boots to encourage and promote a healthy and hygienic environment and to minimise the spread of infection for all the children in our care. Therefore, if a child is ill, especially with an ‘infectious disease’ it is sometimes appropriate for them to stay at home.
A common example of such illness is vomiting and/or diarrhoea. In this case it is our policy for children to stay at home for 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting/diarrhoea, returning to nursery only when they are back to full health.
You can find more information about how long to keep your child off nursery for in our ‘Illness and Injury Policy’. If you are unsure as to whether your child should attend nursery or not, please do give us a call and the team can advise further.