Our ethos here at Sevenoaks Day Nursery ensures a very healthy mix of children:- different backgrounds, countries, cultures and abilities. That’s the way we like it and that’s the way our parents and children down the years have liked it too!
Places become available throughout the year.
Opening times
We’re open from 8am to 6pm, five days a week, 51 weeks a year. We’re closed on Bank Holidays and during Christmas Week.
Places
We have around 75 children on our roll and 50 places per day. We only offer full-year, full-day places and a minimum of two days a week. We don’t offer sessional or term-time only places. We have ten places each day for each 'cohort' - children born in the same academic year
Ages
Children can join us from 8 weeks old until they leave for school (in Kent this is in the September following a child’s fourth birthday).
School Structure
We have four separate rooms: Baby Room, Toddler Room, Big Toddler Room and Pre-School Room Each is staffed with permanent staff (we rarely use temporary staff) and each is headed up by a Room Manager.
Fees
Our fee (from 1 September 2024) is £54.00 a day. This includes three meals, but not nappies, wipes etc.
Applying for a place
We expect parents to visit us before making a choice, so we will provide an application form during this visit (there’s a copy of our application form on the Useful Information page).
Reserving your place
If a place is available that suits your start date and other requirements then you may reserve it by signing a contract and paying a deposit of two weeks’ fee. This is not refundable, but will be credited to your account and be available to part-pay your first invoice. A copy of our contract can be found on the Useful Information page.
Waiting List
If a place is not available, then you may be added to our waiting list. There are times, however, when we have to close the waiting list because there are just too many names on it and we don’t want to give false hope to anyone else.
Admissions Policy
Our admissions policy contains full, detailed information.
Settling-in period
We generally expect to ‘ease’ a child into nursery life during a settling-in period, agreed with the parents. We do not charge for this. Full details can be found in our settling-in policy.
Funding
We accept Free for Two, Universal and Working Parent Entitlements and offer a limited number of fully funded places on Thursdays and Fridays between 8am and 1.30pm. We accept childcare vouchers and are registered with the Government’s Tax-Free Childcare.
Current Availability
The way we work it is on a first-come, first-served basis. We have ten places each day for each 'cohort' - children born in the same academic year. If a place is available and a parent wants it, they reserve it by signing a contract with us and paying a deposit of two weeks' fees. Parents rarely give up their place, but sometimes a change of circumstance (new job, house or spouse!) may result in a cancellation.
We currently (Nov 24) have space for children born before 31/08/21.
Enquiries
If you are interested in a place please write to us at admissions@sdn.org.uk
Or complete our online enquiry form:
A note about the availability of places
We're a charity; we keep our fees low to make it affordable and in some cases of real hardship we don't charge fees at all. The only way we can achieve this is to keep the Nursery full, every day. And if there's an empty place, then we'll be losing money every day. So, for example, we can't keep an available place unfilled for six months because it means we won't earn anything for that period. Having said that, I have known parents pay for a place long before their child has taken it up.
Places become available throughout the year because parents’ circumstances change (new job, new spouse, new house), but even though it always happens, these are ad hoc and cannot usually be planned for (parents only have to give four weeks’ notice).
So if you want a place for your baby in six months it will only happen if, at that time, there is one available or one of our babies is leaving or another is ready to go up to Toddlers and there is space in the Toddler Room because someone has left or because a toddler is ready to go up to the Big Toddler Room where there is space because someone has left!
If we sometimes seem rather vague and non-committal about your child’s future at our Nursery I hope you’ll understand why.
enquiries