Child counting out numbers

Fees and Admissions

Admissions Procedure

Here are the next steps.

  1. Sign up to, and attend, a visit & tour.
  2. Talk with us to find out if Children's House Montessori is the right place for your family.
  3. If you think it is, complete the application form. We will then enter your child's name onto the waiting list - please note this is not a guarantee of a place.
  4. When places do become available, we will invite you, and your child, to visit Children's House Montessori so that we can get to know each other.
  5. If you are still interested in a place, and subject to a place being available, two taster sessions will be organised.
  6. If during the taster sessions we judge that your child will thrive in this environment, we contact you confirming we are able to offer your child a place and discuss session availability with you.
  7. Places will be offered to children in order of priority:
    • Children of staff members
    • Those whose parents are training as Montessori teachers, and need their child to attend nursery school in order to be able to attend a Montessori course or teaching practice
    • Those who have attended another Montessori school regularly but have moved into the area
    • Those who have brother(s) or sister(s) at the school
    • We must maintain a balance between 2 and 3 year olds and those who have Special and Additional Needs.

Please note that you are part of a registration process which must be completed successfully end to end before a formal offer of a place at our preschool is offered. Successful registration as previously stated is on a first served basis, with priority to those that have siblings with us or as in our admissions criteria.

We have to make some complex internal judgements as well, to make sure we balance needs and ages of our intake which can be no more than 20 children in a session.

The registration process includes you completing all the necessary paperwork, agreement with our terms and conditions of provision, two successful taster sessions, which indicate that children are ready to gain the most from our environment, payment of invoice and ends with a formal letter of acceptance.

We are a sessional term-time only preschool. A session is a three hour slot 0930-1230 or 1230-1530 at £28.

15 Hours Universal Government Funding. All children become eligible for 15 HUGF the term after they become 3. At Children's House the HUGF is offered in afternoon sessions for five days per week. A session is 12:30 to 15:30hrs. Parents opting to use their HUGF in this way will be subject to no other charges.

We are not a part of any other schemes including the 30 hour system or 15 hours for two year olds and do not therefore offer those schemes.

Parents may choose to use their 15 HUGF in the following format:

Full Day 9.30am - 3.30pm   5hrs FEE (1000-1500) + a fee of £36.46
Morning Session 9.30am - 12.30pm 2.5hrs FEE (1000-1230) + a fee of £18.23
Afternoon Session 12.30pm - 3.30pm 2.5hrs FEE (1230-1500) + a fee of £18.23

2 year olds a minimum of 4 sessions.

3 year olds a minimum of 6 sessions.

Extra curricular classes that are all free include:

  • Cooking and ingredients
  • Music
  • Phonics
  • Yoga
  • First Aid
  • Art classes
  • Science
  • STEM Lego (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths)
  • Forest school
  • Play therapy -delivered by a qualified Play therapist , where a child needs it and is subject to availability. (Children doing HUGF are not be eligible for Play therapy).

French and Spanish lessons are run by private teachers that come in to deliver this and arrangements are made with them independently.

Financial Viability of Running the Preschool

It is common knowledge that the 15 Hours Universal Government Funding (HUGF) is SIGNIFICANTLY less then what we charge for our session. Currently we operate a broad ratio of 1 teacher highly qualified teacher to every 3 children which stands in stark contrast to the legal minimum of 1 teacher to every 13 children. That ratio, and the qualifications of the staff, are what allows us to be a true Montessori early years educational setting, rather than industrial child care. But that quality comes at a price and we would have to more than triple our teacher/child ratio in order to stay in business under only the 15hrs HUGF- government contribution or stop taking funding altogether.