Strawberry How Nursery School in Cockermouth is a modern, purpose-built, private Day Nursery. Within our setting we seek to offer professional, high-quality childcare and early years education within a friendly and caring atmosphere. We are open from 7.30-6.00pm, 50 weeks a year and we are proud that all our staff have a Level 3 qualification of higher. We are unusual in that we have specialist facilities and staff specially trained to care for babies. We have recently reduced the number of baby spaces that are available. We have the highest accreditation from Cumbria Childrens' Services and since 2009 we are the only Nursery in the Cockermouth Area to have a 5 star food hygiene rating from Environmental Health.
Needless to say, we are all proud of our Nursery - we hope you gain lots of information from our website. Nevertheless, we live in times of change so we thought it a good idea to throw some light on the new Government funding proposals.
A note on the new Government funding
The Government (or HMRC) calculates Early Years Funding on a 38 week year. This means for 14 weeks there is no funding provision. When they say 15 hours per week they really mean 570 hours a year. When they say 30 hours per week they really mean 1140 hours a year. Because we are open 50 weeks a year (closed all Bank Holidays and the days between Christmas and New Year) we distribute funding as 570/50 = 11.4hr/wk or 1140/50 = 22.8hrs/wk. We employ staff full-time so we do not distribute funding term-time only. As far as we know the Government plan is -
2 year olds will be funded from next April (189 hours in summer term). This is worth £279.72 per month till September and thereafter it's £351.50 per month
9 mth old babies will be funded from September 2024 for 47.5hrs/month. This is worth £351.50 per month.
NB We now only have spaces on Monday, Thursday and Friday through to October 2024
9 mth old babies will be funded from September 2025 for 95 hours/month. This will be worth £703.00 per month.
