Parent Information Pack

New Forest Child Care CIC will endeavour to remain open at all settings where possible during any extreme adverse weather conditions/pandemics.
However, the opening of the Club will depend on several aspects.

• i) Firstly, it will depend on if the Schools that we are based within are open, and on how many staff are able to work safely. We will not remain open unless satisfactory staff/child ratios can still be maintained. Secondly, is whether the building is suitable for the children and lastly if the premises are accessible.
• ii) A decision will be made each day by the Manager as to whether the setting opens. We will need to know from the Schools if they are closing, we will monitor the situation and let parents know as soon as we are informed. We will text or email parents on the day as soon as we know if the Club/Bubble/Year Group is open or closed. If you are told that your School/Bubble/Year Group is closed, then we may also be closed.
• iii) If the Schools make a decision to close during the School day, then we will not be able to open for after school club. Again, you will be told by your School as a parent, we will then notify you by text or email that the Club will be closing.  This could be wholly or individual Bubbles/Year Groups.
• iv) No refunds will be offered due to the closure for adverse weather conditions.

Advice – For adverse weather
We advise parents/carers not to set off for the breakfast club without first confirming that it will be open. Please check our web site for your Clubs telephone number.

Pls note that Head Office is only staffed between 9am and 2pm Monday to Thursday and from 9am – 12pm on Friday, therefore if you need advice outside these hours please contact your Club directly.

We are obviously conscious of the safety of both the children and staff, and everyone’s well-being in extreme weather conditions/pandemics.

We take great pride in training our staff so our high standards are met. All Managers & Senior Staff have a minimum of a level 3 in Child Care. Additional staff/apprentices are on a level 2 and are encouraged to progress to a level 3. All staff have Paediatric first aid, food hygiene, safeguarding/child protection and where possible behaviour management, moving & handling, health & safety, and other specialist training.

Follow this link Register here to iPal V2, complete your registration and add your Child.  A payment of a £25 registration fee is then required to allow you to make bookings.

Please click the link Book here and you will be able to book your sessions either adhoc or permanent.

You will need to give 14 days notice and amend via your account in Ipal, to log in follow the link from our website www.newforestchildcare.co.uk.

Yes, you can via the booking tab on our web site. However, you must be registered with us to do this. Bookings: https://newforestchildcare.ipalbookings.com/

We provide a range of activities so the children enjoy the sessions and can do something different or creative. These are well resources and discussed with the children regularly to ensure they appeal to the children. See Pinboard of Club flyers that we have had produced.

This can vary at each site, Children are either accompanied or make their own way, age dependant to the agreed meeting point, where they will be met by Club Staff who will be in uniform & wearing their ID badges. The Children will be given High Visibility Waistcoats; staff will check they have all their belongings and a register will be taken. Children will then either be walked back to the Club or be taken to the appropriate Transport such as minibus or staff cars. Clubs commence from 3pm and children will be re-registered upon arrival at their Club. We take the safety of our Children very seriously and will always make sure we have clear routines and boundaries set & communicated to Children, Staff and parents.

We all know how hungry children can be at the begginning and at the end of the day. We offer breakfast in the morning and the afternoon snack we offer is a super energy boost and not meant to be an evening meal. We offer various Healthy Snacks throughout the week, sample menus and pictures of our food can be seen in Club and on our Facebook www.facebook.com/afterschoolandholidays and Instagram page at www.instagram.com/newforestchildcare. We have a closed Facebook page which is only for our parents, you can join this once you have registered with us, we will provide you with the details once you have registered.

We do work closely with the School and rely on a good relationship to help spread the word and grow the Club. As owners of the company we meet with the head teacher regularly but our staff work with the school staff every day. However, we are a separate Organisation. We are a not for profit company and have our own Policy & Procedures. The School assist us by sending out our flyers and letting us attend parent evenings. If you have any questions, then please contact us directly and not the School. We founded this company as we are both mums who know how crucial this service can be. Please do contact us if you have any ideas or if you have any feedback for us.

We accept Child Care Vouchers and National Savings Payments and direct payments, all can be made via IPAL, we cannot accept Cash or Cheques to either the Club or Head office.

Please log into your IPAL account to view and print your invoices.

All adhoc bookings are payable at point of booking. Permanent bookings create monthly invoices in your Ipal account.  These invoices are payable each month by the 7^th of the month.  Late payment charges may apply if this is not adhered too.  Please see our terms of business.

Yes, this is £25.00 per family and will require payment before you can make bookings in your Ipal account.

This is an insight into some of the items this registration fee covers:

• As a business we incur many cost whilst storing, updating and managing customer records and data. To comply with Ofsted regulations some records have to be stored for many years in the event of a safeguarding incident, we could be called upon provide information even after a child has left our care and could be up to the age of 25 years.
• Other records have time scales that need to be adhered to. This takes time and costs money to re organise as different time frames are reached There is the cost of secure shredding, storage of documents both on site and at head office There are many amendments we have to make to customer records over the life time of a typical registration.
• We offer a Professional service and therefore have standards to adhere to
• The web site doesn’t import the parent & child info into our systems, this has to be in manually for each family
• We have to constantly update our web site to provide information to Parents and update our Parent Manuals
• We are a not for profit organisation and therefore try to keep our costs to a minimum without the registration fee we would have to increase our session fees and that would impact more on high usage customers
• Time to answer enquires from customers, including emails and phone calls, providing information to parents for Tax Credits and liaising with the Tax office to provide information to them on Childs attendance patterns, and chasing invoices that aren’t paid on time Setting up new voucher companies for Parents take time and includes many emails and conversations with these External Companies

All existing Clubs will be registered with Ofsted, the Ofsted numbers can be found on our locations page.

The club can be contacted via email, text or phone. If it’s a last-minute arrangement, please contact the Club directly as the office is not always open all day due to other commitments. Each Club will have its own dedicated email address and mobile number.

We would like parents help to grow our Clubs, and by making permanent bookings this will improve the Stability and Longevity of all Clubs. Please share any positive comments and feedback with our teams and you can also add comments to our “Closed” Parents Facebook Page. Please do recommend us to your Family and Friends if you are pleased with our service, if you have any questions at any time please do not hesitate to speak to your Clubs Manager.

We require 14 days notice to amend/cancel any bookings. You can do this via your Ipal account, choose the calendar tab and select the date your wish to amend/cancel.

Please let the Club Teams know if your child isn’t attending, this session will be chargeable. If you don’t let our team know then we will spend valuable time looking for your child when we should be taking all the Children to Club. Please work with us on this. You can text, email or call the Club on the information listed above.

We have clear procedures for pick-up as we take the safety of the children very seriously but anyone over the age of 16 and has ID and has been added to your IPAL Account. Without them knowing this information we will not release your child and we will call you to get your permissions.

Yes, if you would prefer, however we have a healthy eating policy and would ask that you adhere to this and we also have to be aware of any allergies for all our Children. So we would ask that you don’t supply anything that contains nuts as per the Schools Food Policy as we will have the same children in Club.

We would rather that Children do not bring their own toys as we have had incidents of accidental damage and from a safeguarding point of view we cannot allow anything in the Club with a Camera. i.e a mobile phone, ipad, ipod etc. However, if your child has special requirements and needs to bring a specific item to Club with them, then we can accommodate this but we take no responsibility if its lost or damaged.

As with all schools no, we do not permit any mobile phones in Club with the exception of the Clubs work phone. We will ask children to leave their phones in their bag. If there was an incident and the child needed to use a phone, then we will facilitate usage of the Club phone provided it was to a Parent or Carer.

No, this would not happen because we would play in different areas to any remaining School or Local Children, however there maybe instances where we are using the same facilities, then Club children will be wearing High Visibility jackets but we would always try to avoid this situation.

Club hours are individual to each setting. The Club Manager will be able to tell you more and all contact numbers can be found on our web site.