Country Kids Nursery | Financial Help for Parents
websitebuilder • August 7, 2020
Did you know, if you have a child aged 3 - 4 years old, up until October 2020 you will be able to receive 30 hours of free childcare and tax-free childcare, even if your income has dropped due to COVID-19?!
These government schemes usually require working parents to earn at least minimum wage for 16 hours a week for the next 3 months for them to qualify, however, HMRC have now confirmed that eligible parents whose income has fallen due to COVID-19 will now continue to receive this support until October 31st 2020.
Key workers with income that exceeds the maximum threshold of £100,000 for the 2020/2021 tax year for the same reason will also be eligible.
Here are some of the ways in which you can get help with funding:
- Parents of 3 and 4 year old children can apply for 30 hours of free childcare a week. To qualify for this, you must usually work at least 16 hours a week at minimum wage, and earn less than £100,000 a year.
- If your employer offers childcare vouchers you can use this to pay towards your childcare fees. Here at Country Kids Day Nursery we are proud to offer discounts to NHS key workers, and those employed within the emergency services.
- Tax-free childcare is also available for children from working families and/or the self employed, for every £8 you put in, the government will add an extra £2. This means that parents can get up to the value of £2,000 per child each year, or £4,000 per disabled child each year in financial support. This money can be used towards the cost of childcare for your child up to the age of 11, or 17 for a disabled child.
- To receive tax-free childcare, or 30 hours of free childcare, you need to re-confirm your eligibility every 3 months through the GOV.uk website. If you have had changes made to your income, whether it’s decreased or increased, you should apply and re-confirm as usual.
If you have any questions regarding what you could be eligible for, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we are here to help!
Alternatively, if you would like to get your child’s place secured before October 31st please send our team a message, or book a viewing through our Facebook booking system. We look forward to seeing you!
These government schemes usually require working parents to earn at least minimum wage for 16 hours a week for the next 3 months for them to qualify, however, HMRC have now confirmed that eligible parents whose income has fallen due to COVID-19 will now continue to receive this support until October 31st 2020.
Key workers with income that exceeds the maximum threshold of £100,000 for the 2020/2021 tax year for the same reason will also be eligible.
Here are some of the ways in which you can get help with funding:
- Parents of 3 and 4 year old children can apply for 30 hours of free childcare a week. To qualify for this, you must usually work at least 16 hours a week at minimum wage, and earn less than £100,000 a year.
- If your employer offers childcare vouchers you can use this to pay towards your childcare fees. Here at Country Kids Day Nursery we are proud to offer discounts to NHS key workers, and those employed within the emergency services.
- Tax-free childcare is also available for children from working families and/or the self employed, for every £8 you put in, the government will add an extra £2. This means that parents can get up to the value of £2,000 per child each year, or £4,000 per disabled child each year in financial support. This money can be used towards the cost of childcare for your child up to the age of 11, or 17 for a disabled child.
- To receive tax-free childcare, or 30 hours of free childcare, you need to re-confirm your eligibility every 3 months through the GOV.uk website. If you have had changes made to your income, whether it’s decreased or increased, you should apply and re-confirm as usual.
If you have any questions regarding what you could be eligible for, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we are here to help!
Alternatively, if you would like to get your child’s place secured before October 31st please send our team a message, or book a viewing through our Facebook booking system. We look forward to seeing you!
At Country Kids Day Nursery, we welcome babies from as young as 3 months old. We know that caring for younger babies is about so much more than bottles and nappies. It’s about creating trust, offering comfort, and providing a safe, loving space where every baby can thrive emotionally, physically and developmentally. We don’t treat babies as a group. Each child is cared for as an individual, with their own rhythm, routine and personality. Whether your baby is just beginning to roll or starting to babble, our baby rooms are set up to nurture them through each stage of their first year with warmth, care and expert support.
When you leave your little one in our care, we know you’re putting your trust in us and that’s something we never take lightly. At Country Kids Nursery, every decision we make is guided by one core priority, keeping your child/ren safe, supported and happy throughout their day with us. One of the most important ways we do that is by following the correct staff-to-child ratios in each of our rooms.
Toilet training isn’t always straightforward, and that’s okay. Every child takes this step in their own time, and here at Country Kids Nursery, we’re with you for the ups, the accidents, and everything in between. Whether your child is curious about the potty or confidently running to the toilet, our team is here to support your family every step of the way. We believe toilet training is a team effort – and it works best when we’re working closely with you.
At Country Kids Day Nurseries, your child’s safety and wellbeing are our top priority. With over 80% of our team being parents themselves, we deeply understand how important it is for you to feel completely confident leaving your child in someone else’s care. That’s why our nurseries are more than just places to learn and play, they are nurturing, secure environments where every child is cared for, protected, and supported through every stage of their development.
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Did you know here at Country Kids Nursery we have an app called Parent Zone?
On June 1st, hundreds of nurseries re-opened their doors to their much missed children for the first time in 10 weeks which included 2 of our own sites, Kneesall and Newark. We were given just one week to put government measures in place, reach out to our parents and prepare nursery for re-opening. As a high quality childcare provider, our focus was of course to ensure that each child would be as safe as possible on their return to nursery, but also take into account how this could affect them emotionally. I'm sure you will all agree with us here, that it is simply impossible to socially distance from any child under the age of 5. Although they can take in the information and do have some understanding, they do not yet have the capacity to remember to socially distance. The government guidance stated that as a nursery, we must have a small hub of children that stay with the same staff member all week. In addition to this, we were to spend as much time as we could outside and with this guidance, we started to look at what nursery life would look like upon our return. Country Kids are incredibly lucky to have an exceptional group of staff who were willing to help shape our return and were eager to return to work. As our staff members have been having weekly zoom calls with their key children during the lock down period, it allowed our first day to be a little easier on the children as they still had their amazing bond with the staff members. Drop off & Pick ups are one of the biggest changes within nursery. Each parent has a 5 minute time slot where one designated family member can drop off and collect the child for the foreseeable future. Children arrive and depart through the outdoor gates and are met by their key worker. The first day was a little unusual for the children but as the week has gone on, they find it really exciting to go straight into the outside play area! Each hub of children have their own set of toys that are thoroughly cleaned at the end of each day. Following advice, sand play has been restricted so that each hub can play in the sand every couple of days. Country Kids have invested in extra shading at both sites to ensure the children can spend as much time outdoors as possible. Luckily, just before our return both sites had their outside area's revamped so the children had something really exciting to return to! In addition to this, each site has a brand new outside hand washing facility which has been fantastic. It has not only allowed hand washing upon arrival but also frequent hand washing throughout the day even whilst playing outside. An additional member of staff has been brought in at each site to help with cleaning and to cover staff lunch breaks. This staff member is extremely vigilant with hand washing and input will be kept to a minimum. All other external providers such as Caterpillar Music and Tennis have been temporarily put on hold. Usually, we would chat to parents upon collection about their child's day however due to social distancing, we have decided to revert back to an app called i-connect. This allows the parents to receive real-time updates of what their child has been up to throughout the day including sleep times, nappy changes and what they have eaten. All in all, our return to nursery has been extremely successful and we would like to thank our staff members, parents and children for being so fantastic and working with us to ensure our transition back to nursery was a positive experience for our children. Looking for childcare in the Newark area? Check out the rest of our website, enquire about a place though our contact form here , or call us on: Kneesall (A616) - 01623706100 Newark (Lincoln Road) - 01636370822
A simple guide on how to make your own coloured sensory rice for activities!
Question: What is Squiggle While You Wiggle? Squiggle while you wiggle is a fantastic activity to engage children in developing the motions they need to learn in order to prepare them for writing. Squiggle while you wiggle is an activity to kickstart their journey in learning to write by doing circles, semi circles, horizonal lines and the vertical lines they will use to write a letter whilst dancing along to our favourite music. It’s important to remember that children are not expected to write letters and their name until they attend school at the age of 5. At Country Kids, this is something we strongly believe in and the children love when we do Squiggle while you wiggle! We focus on developing their gross and fine motor skills to imitate lines and circles in order to write each letter of the alphabet. You will need: Anything you can wave around in the air! You can do Squiggle while you wiggle anywhere, with anything that can swish around. In nursery, we like to use: Scarves Material Shakers Ribbons Bamboo If you are at home, you could use: Cheerleading style Pom Pom's Ties Long socks Tea towels We like to add some music to our Squiggle while you wiggle, some of our particular favourites in nursery are: Dolly Parton: 9-5 S Club 7: Reach Tina Turner: Proud Mary You can use any of your favourite 60s / 70s / 80s classics. The clue is in the title - they really do squiggle while they wiggle! Now, let's get started! The next part of this activity requires some adult led learning. It really doesn’t matter how silly you may feel, the more you squiggle, wiggle and have fun the more engaged the child will be in this activity. 1. Start by doing some big circles with your arms, you could do 5 one way and then 5 the opposite way. To add some mathematical language, you could talk about clockwise and anticlockwise movements with older children. Then you could do some small circles with your wrists, again both ways. 2. Once you have done circles, you could draw lines reaching all the way to the top, and crouching all the way to the bottom, and touch the floor. These movements can go up and down, or side to side. Again, with older children you can really emphasise going left and right. 3. Next, we like to do some wavy lines, and dance around twirling around in a circle. The children are likely to do these motions to a couple of songs before they get tired or their arms hurt! This activity is so simple but really is effective. We hope you have lots of fun trying Squiggle while you wiggle at home! - The Country Kids Team x