Ashcombe. Open 07:30 to 18:00, fifty-one weeks a year.
The whole day, and the part of it funding actually pays for.
Every nursery publishes an hourly rate. This one publishes the day it buys you, hour by hour, with the funded block shaded and the ratio in the room beside it.
07:30
08:30
Arrivals and breakfast
Doors open. Breakfast is served until 08:15 and a key person meets every child at the gate.
08:30
09:00
Free play
Rooms open, children choose. Parents can stay for the first ten minutes.
09:00
09:30
Registration and circle
Register, weather, calendar, and the day read out loud. The funded block starts here.
Funded
09:30
10:30
Focused activity
Planned adult-led work in small groups: phonics, number, fine motor.
Funded
10:30
11:00
Snack
Fruit and milk or water, laid on tables the children help set.
Funded
11:00
12:00
Outdoor session
An hour outside every day the weather allows it, and most days it does not have to. The garden runs a mud kitchen, a digging bed, a covered construction bay and a fixed climbing frame with a bark-chip fall zone that is checked each morning and raked each afternoon. Waterproofs and wellingtons are kept on site in every size so no child sits inside because the right coat is at home. In heavy rain or a red heat warning the session moves to the covered veranda, which is the same hour with a roof on it.
Funded
12:00
12:45
Lunch
A cooked lunch, allergens listed on the door, second helpings offered.
12:45
14:00
Sleep and quiet room
Sleep mats for those who need them, quiet books and audio for those who do not.
14:00
15:00
Afternoon session
Messy play, forest school on Wednesdays, or a visiting session.
15:00
15:30
Snack and story
Second snack, then a story read to the whole room.
15:30
17:00
Free play and garden
Rooms and garden both open. First collections from 15:30.
17:00
17:30
Tea
A light hot tea for children staying past five.
17:30
18:00
Late collection
Handover, day sheet, and what your child actually did today.
18:00
18:00
Close
Doors close at six. A late collection fee applies from 18:05.
Shaded rows are the funded block: 09:00 to 12:00, five days a week, thirty-eight weeks a year. Fifteen hours. That is the entitlement most families are told about, and it is not the same as fifteen hours a week.
The number no fees page prints
A funded place is not a free place.
Fifteen funded hours a week are granted for thirty-eight weeks. Most families attend fifty-one. Spread across every week you actually come, the entitlement is worth 11 hours 11 minutes a week, and the hours it does not cover are not charged at the rate on the fees page.
What the shortcut says
$9,945
45 hours a week, minus 15 funded, times 51 weeks, at $6.50.
What the year costs
$15,982.50
The same attendance, with the entitlement allocated properly and meals, consumables and registration included.
The gap
$6,037.50
Every dollar of it is real and none of it is on a fees page anywhere.
Effective rate, unfunded hours
$9.27
Against the $6.50 we publish. 1,725 hours a year are charged at it.
Run it on your own hours
Nothing is stored and no email is asked for.
Four rooms
Places open now, from the register rather than the brochure.
Every charge, on one page
One hourly rate, and every line built from it.
Charge
Basis
Hourly, ad hoc
per hour
Full day
per day, 9 hours
Morning session
per session, 5.5 hours
Afternoon session
per session, 5 hours
Notices
2026-09-01
Places
Two places open in Acorns from January
2026-08-18
Fees
Fees held at 6.50 an hour for a second year
2026-06-11
Inspection
Inspection report published, judged Good
2026-04-20
Term dates
Holiday club booking opens 1 May
Come and see the eleven o’clock hour.
Visits are booked for 11:00 on purpose: it is the outdoor session, the loudest and least tidy hour of the day, and it is the one that tells you what the place is actually like. Twenty minutes, no appointment fee, and you can bring your child.