Pre-School Centre Obligations

The Pre-School Centre will support both child and parent during the course of your booking. We will provide a safe and stimulating environment where each child will be encouraged to achieve their potential by a caring, informed and knowledgeable team of dedicated staff.

In addition we will:

• Inform you as soon as possible as to whether your application has been successful.
• Provide the agreed childcare facilities for your child at the agreed times (subject to any closure days).
• Maintain records on your child’s development, which may include recordings and images using iConnect.
• Provide you with regular feedback and updates on your child’s progress and development at termly developmental reviews with your child’s key person.
• Requests made for additional extra sessions will be accommodated based upon availability.
• Provide you with information relating to your child’s day-to-day care and activities. Parents will be invited to receive this via the ParentZone app.
• If significant concerns have been raised about a child and there is reason to suspect the child is being abused or neglected or is likely to be abused the Pre-School Centre is duty bound to consult Children’s Social Care.

Information Sharing

• Is undertaken to provide early interventions and to achieve positive outcomes for the family/child.
• Information sharing with other professionals will take place where there is a clear and legitimate reason to do so. Where there is an identified need or a request is received to share information, consent from a person with parental responsibility for the child will be requested in the majority of cases.
• There are circumstances when consent would not be sought and where the child or family will not be informed that information has been shared.

Examples of these are if doing so would:

• place a person (the individual, family member or a third party) at increased risk of significant harm.
• prejudice the prevention, detection, or prosecution of a serious crime; or
• lead to an unjustified delay in making enquiries about allegations of significant harm to a child, or serious harm to an adult.

Parent / Carer Obligations

Rules and regulations will be kept to a minimum, but certain parental obligations must be met in order to facilitate the effective and efficient management of the centre. To enable essential records to be kept in line with the registration requirements, for Health and Safety and other reasons in the best interest of the children. In order to obtain and retain a place at the Pre-School Centre Parents/ carers must undertake to abide by the following requirements:

• Provide correct and necessary information for proper records to be kept.
• Allow sufficient time to settle your child into the Pre-School Centre.
• Collect your child at the end of the sessions at the agreed times.
• Inform the Pre-School if anyone other than the adults registered with the Centre will be collecting a child from Pre-School either during or at the end of the day. Provide a password to the Centre’s staff and the adult collecting.
• Inform the Centre as far as possible in advance of known absences from the Centre due to holidays etc.

Parents / Carers must

• Collect a child from the Pre-School if the Centre advises that s/he is too ill to complete the session or give permission for someone else to do so.
• Agree to a child being taken to hospital, or any other source of medical attention for treatment in the event of an emergency.
• Give written authorisation for administration of prescribed medication.

Fees and Payment

• Payment of fees for the child’s attendance at the Pre-School Centre should be made within 30 days of receipt of the invoice.
• If payment of fees is not settled within 30 days the University debt collection procedure will be invoked.
• The Pre-School Centre reserves the right to increase the said fees at any time upon giving one calendar months’ notice of the increase to Parent/Carers.
• No refund will be made for periods of sickness.
• The Pre-School Centre is unable to refund or waive fees if the Centre had been forced to close early or has been unable to open due to adverse weather conditions or any other circumstance beyond our control.
• The session times are non-negotiable. A maximum of 5 minutes is acceptable at the end of a session. An escalating late collection charge will normally be made for persistent offenders. We will at all times ensure that your child is kept safe until they are collected.
• If you have requested and have been allocated extra sessions a charge will be made for this session whether the child attends or not.
• It is not possible to exchange one session for another session.

Cancellation / Termination

Bookings will cease when:

• The child named on the booking form becomes eligible to attend primary school. Assumed to be at the end of August in the year of the child’s 4th birthday. An exact date will be advised.
• Either party ceases this agreement by the service of one calendar month’s notice in writing to the Centre Manager.
• In the event of the parent/guardian giving notice of withdrawal of the child and immediately withdrawing the said child there shall be, due to the Pre-School Centre, one calendar month’s fee in lieu of notice.
• Requests received to amend the pattern of a booking by increasing the number of sessions will be given consideration and a decision made based on the availability of spaces.
• Requests received to amend the pattern of a booking by decreasing the number of sessions will be required to adhere to the terms and conditions of the booking.
• Where your eligibility to Working Families Childcare Support or Extended Entitlement ceases and following the agreed Local Authority grace period, the remainder of the terms sessions booked will be charged at the full session rate applicable to your status, unless it is possible to reallocate the sessions.

Opening Times

The opening dates and hours of the Pre-School will be published on the booking forms.

Sickness and Medication

• If your child becomes unwell during the session you will be contacted and if necessary asked to collect your child. If asked to collect your child, we ask that arrangements to do so are made as soon as possible.
• Prescribed medicines will be administered in accordance with the medicine procedure.

Safety and Security

• Pre-School staff are instructed not to release your child to anyone other than those listed on your child’s registration form.
• The Pre-School security system requires you not to disclose the door codes. You are also requested not to open or hold open the door for other adults.

Suspension

The Pre-School Centre may, following consultation, suspend the provision of childcare or issue a warning of the intention to suspend childcare in the event of any of the following actions/behaviours being met/sustained: -

• Failure to pay any fees.
• Aggression by a parent/guardian or unacceptable behaviour towards any member of Pre-School staff occurs.
• Your child’s behaviour at the Pre-School Centre is deemed by us to be unacceptable or endangers the safety and wellbeing of other children and staff at the Pre-School Centre.

The suspension shall continue whilst we try and address these problems with you.