Skip to content

FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions

We’re here to answer all of your questions, and we’ve heard them all since we opened our doors in 1998.

Here, in our Nursery FAQs, we hope you will find comprehensive answers to every possible question a parent might have when researching nurseries.

Whether you’re curious about our daily routines, staff qualifications, funding options, or how we support your child’s development, you’ll find the information here. If you still need assistance, please get in touch, and we’ll be happy to help.

Visiting & Places

You can quickly and easily arrange an appointment to visit your local Tommies nursery online.

Just tap the link below to arrange your visit:

Arrange your visit

After you have made your enquiry or visited your preferred Tommies nursery, the Nursery Manager will invite you to complete our online registration form.

You will be required to pay a £100.00 Registration Fee. After your registration form has been reviewed, and the nursery can offer you a place, you will be contacted and asked to pay a £250.00 Acceptance Fee within three working days, which will be deducted from your first month’s bill. At the point you accept a place, your £100.00 Registration Fee will become a non-refundable ‘joining fee’. Once we receive your £250.00 Acceptance Fee, we will confirm that your space and attendance pattern are secure.

When it comes to registering at your preferred choice of nursery, we don’t believe in such a thing as too early. Our nurseries are very popular with local families, and some locations have waiting lists as long as 12 months. That’s why we recommend you make enquiries as early as possible, with a view to completing a registration form, ideally, no later than 6 months from when you’d like your child to start attendance.

In cases where we cannot offer you the exact attendance pattern you’d like, or we do not have any availability, we can place you on our waiting list until an acceptable attendance pattern is available for you. If you ever decide to leave the waiting list, we will refund your £100.00 Registration Fee.

Sessions, Hours & Settling My Child

All of our nurseries are open from 7.30 am – 6.00 pm* and offer the following sessions:

Morning Session Afternoon Session Full Day Session Full Week
7.30 am – 1.00 pm
1.00 pm – 6.00 pm*
7.30 am – 6.00 pm*
7.30 am – 6.00 pm (Monday to Friday)
*Please note, Four Brooks Day Nursery in Coventry closes at 5.45 pm.

We have a minimum sessions policy in place across all nurseries. Children aged 0-3 years may only book full-day sessions. We do not offer half-day sessions to children aged 0-3 years. The minimum number of sessions for children aged 0-3 years is two full days per week. If you book fewer than four full days, one of those days must be either a Monday or a Friday.

The minimum number of sessions for children aged 3+ years is three half-day sessions per week or one full-day session plus one half-day session per week. If you book fewer than four full days, one of those days must be either a Monday or a Friday.

Settling-in sessions take place in the weeks ahead of your child’s first official day at Tommies. We encourage families to make full use of the settling-in process to ensure that your child is ready for full days of play, learning, and adventures. Your Nursery Manager will arrange your settling-in sessions with you in advance, and as part of our Peace of Mind Promise, you can take as many settling-in sessions as needed until your child is genuinely happy and settled.

We close on weekends, Bank Holidays, for one week at Christmas*, and for one company-wide training day per year**.

*Christmas closure dates vary each year. Parents will be notified in advance of our closure dates.

**The training day date will vary each year. Parents will be notified in advance.

Attendance, Holidays & Notice

When your child arrives at nursery, they’ll be signed in using Famly. Either you or the nursery staff will record their attendance or absence in Famly. If your child is absent and you let us know the reason, we’ll make a note of it. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll give you a call to check in.

If we can’t get hold of you, we will follow our internal procedures to check everything is well.

You can learn more about this on our Policies & Procedures page.

Please inform your Nursery Manager if you and your child will be on holiday with as much notice as possible so that this can be recorded on our system. Unfortunately, we do not offer discounts on fees when your child is on holiday, as the place will need to be held for you when you return.

We require a minimum of 4 weeks’ notice to change your attendance pattern or leave the nursery. If we can accommodate a change of sessions earlier than 4 weeks’ notice, we will do so.

Fees, Funding & Payments

Fees vary depending on which Tommies nursery you register at. Please find your local Tommies nursery to learn what the fees are. All paid nursery fees include meals, snacks and activities. We do not provide nappies or formula milk, so parents should provide these if necessary.

We calculate nursery bills on what we call an annual basis. To calculate a bill, we take the value of your weekly sessions, multiply it by 51 (the number of weeks we are open) and divide it by 12. That way, you’ll receive the same bill each month for added assurance.

Yes, we accept funding via the 15 hours for eligible 2-year-olds, 15 hours for all 3 and 4-year-olds, and 30 hours for eligible 9+ month-olds schemes. Learn more about Early Years Funding here.

Bills are due on the 1st of each month, and you will receive your bill in advance on or around the 15th. You can pay your childcare bill by Direct Debit, Tax-Free Childcare, or a combination of these two methods. Learn more about Tax-Free Childcare here, including checking if you’re eligible and how to use Tax-Free Childcare to pay your bill.

Food, Sleep & Daily care

All food is provided for children throughout their time at the nursery. There are exceptions to this, including children who have opted to bring a packed lunch and are accessing fully funded places, or where, through discussion with the nursery management team, a dietary request cannot be accommodated.

We have a comprehensive and stringent policy around the catering of Special Diets. We understand how complex and difficult this can be for parents of children with allergies and the children themselves. At the point of Registration, you will be asked to advise if your child has an allergy or intolerance. This will be discussed with you ahead of a place being confirmed, to ensure that we are able to cater for the requested diet.

Sleep is a huge part of children’s development and well-being routines, and we aim to support this alongside parents. We do, however, ask that parents work in partnership with us to ensure that this can be managed effectively and smoothly for the child.

It’s also important for babies to become accustomed to not being held all the time. As you can imagine, a nursery setting isn’t a 1:1 environment, with three babies for every one staff member. While we always ensure love, care, and cuddles are part of our daily routine, we can’t carry babies around as they might be used to at home.

For our youngest children, we recognise that some may need gentle reassurance during nap times. However, we encourage parents to help children with self-soothing and to phase out sleep associations that may complicate coming to nursery, like rocking them to sleep or relying on a pushchair. We, of course, encourage any self-soothing items that can be supported at nursery, e.g., a dummy, cuddly toy, blanket, or comforter.

We encourage you to bring a small bag with essential items to help your child feel comfortable and settled throughout the day. This typically includes a full set of spare clothes suitable for the weather, a comforter or favourite toy to provide reassurance, and any bottles or feeding equipment your child needs.

Please ensure all items are clearly labelled with your child’s name.

For babies, please also bring nappies and wipes, as we do not provide these. If your child uses a dummy or special blanket, feel free to include these too, as they can help with settling and nap times. Our team will always work with you to make sure your child has everything they need for a happy day at nursery.

Key Person & Staff

Your child’s Key Person is an individual chosen to be the main point of contact for you and your child during their time at nursery. They will build meaningful and purposeful relationships with their key children and families to ensure continuity of care and to support the children to reach their full potential through daily contact, feedback sheets and termly parent consultations. Parents will be informed of their key person during their settling-in sessions and/or induction into the setting.

The key person will be the main point of contact for the parents/carers of these children. The key person may change as children progress through the nursery.

We understand the importance of consistency across our nursery settings and support and look after our employees to ensure they are happy in their work. That said, we also recognise the challenges that we face as a sector and have strategies in place to ensure that consistency is maintained where we are able. There will always be a member of your nursery team working with your child. We will never underestimate the importance of this for children and parents. That said, where we have recruitment gaps, existing team members may be supported by Tommies Childcare employees from other nursery settings, a member of our Bank Staff team, or, as a last resort, external agency staff.

All staff will have received Paediatric First Aid training within the first 6 months of being employed at Tommies Childcare. We will always ensure that the required qualification ratios are met; however, we also recognise the value that those who may not have a full and relevant Early Years qualification bring to our team, and welcome and support them as key members of our nursery teams.

We ensure that all statutory ratios are adhered to at all times. These are outlined below:

Age Group Staff : Child Ratios
Children under 2 years old:
1:3 (One member of staff for every three children)
Children aged 2-3 years old:
1:5 (One member of staff for every five children)
Children aged 3+ years:
1:8 (One member of staff for every eight children)
Where we have qualified teachers, we may also use the 1:13 ratio for children aged 3+.

Toileting, Nappies & Transitions

We will support parents through this journey of toilet training, and where we have groups of children embarking on their toilet training journey, we may ask for your support on this, if this isn’t yet something you have started at home.  We understand there will be exceptions, where, due to children’s developmental needs, they may not be ready to toilet train, and we will, of course, support this too.

School readiness for children leaving our settings may differ from the expectations that you think children need to meet as they embark on their school journey.

Here at Tommies Childcare, we focus on the core skills that are needed to allow children to succeed in their academic journeys. These include:

  • Children being able to communicate their wants, likes, dislikes and needs through verbal communication
  • Children being able to emotionally regulate, through resilience and confidence building
  • Children to have independence in basic care needs, i.e. toilet training, wiping their faces, washing hands
  • Being able to make relationships with their peers
  • Have good levels of self-esteem: Know what they are good at and enjoy doing

If children have these skills when they leave us, we have no doubt they will thrive in their future educational journey.