Fees & Financial Information

Fees & Session Times

We are open Monday to Friday, all year round. We close for Bank Holidays, and the week between Christmas and New Year. 

 

3 Months - 3 Years

3 Years and Up

Early Start: 7.30am-8am

£10.00

£10.00

All Day Session: 8am-6pm*

£92.00

£90.00

AM Session: 8am-1pm*

£64.00

£60.00

PM Session: 1pm-6pm*

£58.00

£54.00

Late Finish: 6pm-6.30pm

£10.00

£10.00

* All non-funded fees include catering services, nappies, wipes, creams and enrichment activities.

The Early Start and Late Finish sessions are dependent on availability. 

Children must be booked to attend at least two full day sessions per week. We offer discounts for siblings and full time bookings, please fill out an enquiry form to receive our detailed fee sheet. 

The above fees do not incorporate any Local Authority funded hours. See below for estimated charges associated with funded hours, and please contact us for a more accurate estimate of costs where funded hours are taken.

Funded Hours

Red Bus has settings in different local authorities, so the information below has been kept generic. Please contact your local setting for specific information.

Funding for Working Families of children ages 9 Months to 4 Years

  • Parents must meet qualifying criteria to be eligible for this funding. You can learn more about the eligibility criteria on the Government website.
  • We offer All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 51 weeks of the year. This is reduced from 52 weeks due to bank holidays and our closed days in between Christmas and New Year.
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 23 hours per week. This gives a child 1140 funded hours per year if all sessions are attended.

Funding for eligible 2 Year Olds

  • Parents must meet qualifying criteria to receive this funding, different from Working Families entitlement. You can learn more about eligibility criteria on the Government website.
  • We offer All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 50 weeks of the year. This is reduced from 51 weeks due to bank holidays and our closed days in between Christmas and New Year.
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 11.5 hours per week. This gives a child 570 funded hours per year if all sessions are attended.
  • You cannot use this type of funding alongside Working Families entitlement.

Universal Funding for all 3 and 4 Year Olds

  • There is no qualifying criteria for this type of funding. Red Bus will automatically claim the funding for your child from the appropriate date (please see Section 2).
  • We offer All Year Round (AYR) funding pattern only, which runs over 50 weeks of the year. This is reduced from 51 weeks due to bank holidays and our closed days in between Christmas and New Year.
  • Funding is stretched over the year and allows each child to receive 11.5 hours per week. This gives a child 570 funded hours per year if all sessions are attended.
  • You cannot use this type of funding on top of the Working Families entitlement.

Funding Offer

Early Years Education funding, as offered by the government, is calculated on 38 weeks of the year but since Red Bus operates for 51 weeks we spread the funding evenly across the year.

• 15 hours/week becomes 11.5 hours/week

• 30 hours/week becomes 23 hours/week

How Funding is Applied

Funding is worked out weekly, not daily or monthly. It is always applied to the first hours of your booked sessions each week. Any hours beyond your entitlement are charged at the normal rate.

Funding is intended to cover the basic delivery of the EYFS, it is not intended to cover the cost of catering services, child consumables and enrichment activities. To make things simple, we have a single set of charges for funded sessions++:

• Full day funded session (10 hours): £26 total (£20 catering, £3 consumables, £3 enrichment) ++

• Half day funded session (5 hours): £13 total (£10 catering, £1.50 consumables, £1.50 enrichment) ++

• Part-funded session: Any hours not covered by funding will be charged at our nonfunded hourly rate of £9.40

++ these charges are not mandatory, if a family is unwilling or unable to pay speak to the nursery manager in the first instance to discuss options.

How to Pay

There are lots of ways to pay your invoice, and support you may be able to get to help pay it. The Childcare Choices website is a great place to start, as it lists all the different ways you can get support paying for childcare – it even includes a calculator to work out how much you could save!

Direct Debit (Coombe Dingle and Downend only)

If you tell us when you register that you’d like to pay by direct debit, we can get that set up for you in advance. All you need to do is complete a form and you will be set up for automatic payments on the 1st of each month.

Tax Free Childcare

This scheme is designed so that for every 80p you put into your Tax-Free Childcare account, the government will add 20p. It essentially gives you basic-rate tax back on your bill – hence the scheme's name! Using your government gateway account, you can be set up easily for payments to Red Bus – we just need to know your reference code for payments coming in!

www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare

Other Ways to Pay

We can also accept payments via bank transfer – we do not generally accept payment by cash, but please speak to your setting about this.

We also accept childcare voucher payments from most suppliers, please let our finance team know if this is how you plan to pay.

Term Time Only spaces

Most information out there states children will receive 15 or 30 of funded hours per week, but this would be on a Term Time Only basis. To protect our sustainability, we limit the number of Term Time Only spaces we offer and this limit varies by setting and by room. Please contact your nursery directly to discuss booking on a Term Time Only contract.

Red Bus are closely aligned to local authority school term dates, however they may not be the same. There are only slight differences so please ensure you read the term dates carefully.

Coombe Dingle and Downend

Autumn Term 2025 

Monday 1st September 2025 to Friday 17th October 2025 
Half Term 20th – 31st October 2025 
Monday 3rd November 2025 to Friday 12th December 2025 

Spring Term 2026 

Monday 5th January 2026 to Friday 13th February 2026 
Half Term 16th – 20th February 2026
Monday 23rd February 2026 to Thursday 2nd April 2026 

Summer Term 2026 

Monday 20th April 2026 to Friday 22nd May 2026 
Half Term 25th – 29th May 2026
Monday 1st June 2026 to Monday 27th July 2026 

Flax Bourton

 Autumn Term 2025 

Monday 1st September 2025 to Friday 24th October 2025 
Half Term 27th – 31st October 2025
Monday 3rd November 2025 to Friday 12th December 2025s 

Spring Term 2026 

Monday 5th January 2026 to Friday 13th February 2026 
Half Term 16th – 20th February 2026
Monday 23rd February 2026 to Friday 27th March 2026 

 Summer Term 2026 

Monday 20th April 2026 to Friday 22nd May 2026 
Half Term 25th – 29th May 2026
Monday 1st June 2026 to Monday 27th July 2026