Absolutely! To ensure a smooth and seamless transition from home to nursery, we encourage you to participate in our complimentary settling-in sessions. These allow for children to familiarise themselves with the setting and meet our staff members. Our nursery managers are available to assist you during this transition process, so please feel free to reach out for additional details.

We are a term time only setting that follows the Hampshire County Council term dates. We open from 9.00 a.m. to 2.45 p.m. although we do offer an early bird club from 8.15 a.m. As well as attending for the whole day, children can come for a morning session which ends at 12.00 p.m.

In addition to settling-in sessions, we designate a key worker team for each child to provide updates on your child's progress. You will receive regular posts detailing their activities, highlights, and developmental progress through the OBVNS Famly app.

We use the brilliant ‘Famly’ nursery school management app. This is the main way we communicate with parents both individually or as a group. Your children’s progress as well as posts telling you what they’re up to, general updates for parents, menus for the week and everything else in nursery life happens on Famly.

Your child will have a dedicated key worker team who will lead their overall care and will also become your primary contact. However, our wider team care for all of our children in their cohort groups. Your child's key person will oversee your child's routine, monitor development, offer personalised learning opportunities, and support their progress. Our key worker 'buddy' system to ensure continuity when the primary key worker is unavailable. Our management team are active in caring for all of the children and also form relationships across The Nest and The Village Hall in order to get to know all of our little ones and their families.

At OBVNS, our goal is to provide every child with a strong start in life. We recognise that high-quality early years support is crucial for all children. We understand that some may require ongoing support, while others may need it temporarily during specific stages of their development. Parents can discuss support options with the nursery manager as well as our SENCo, Emma Parker.

We believe children should only be encouraged to progress onto using a toilet or potty when they are ready. We will look out for development signs and then work alongside families to manage this when the time comes. Children who are still in nappies will need to supply these. Our Owlets and Nestlings have nappy changes logged on Famly.

We try to use our nursery gardens whatever the weather. We ask that the children arrive for the day wearing wellington boots and clothing that is appropriate for the day’s weather. On arrival, the children change into indoor slippers and then put on their outdoor footwear when they go out. We provide puddle suits and waterproof trousers as well as sun hats and winter woolly hats.

We are often asked whether attendance will make any difference to getting a place in a particular infant school. The majority of our children attend Old Basing Infant School or Great Binfields Primary School but attendance here does not factor in to being allocated a place. We have also had children go to other Basingstoke schools and beyond. We work closely with whichever schools we have children going to, to try and make this transition as smooth as possible.

At OBVNS, children can enjoy breakfast, a snack, lunch, and afternoon tea based on their session times. Those that attend our early breakfast club, will be offered a light breakfast from fruit, cereal bars, as well as whole milk. Lunch includes a 2-course hot meal and pudding, while mid-morning snack is a cold offering, such as crackers, fresh fruit and vegetables, alongside a cup of milk. Fresh drinking water is available all day. Our catering partners, HungryMoose, have a team of dedicated chefs who plan our menus with this in mind and also happily cater for those children with allergies, intolerances, preferences, or require a specific diet on religious grounds.

Unfortunately we do not allow our children to bring in any of their own foods, including a packed lunch due to allergy control. Our catering partners, HungryMoose, have a team of dedicated chefs who plan our menus to ensure all food meets government guidelines of providing a healthy balanced diet. They happily cater for those children with allergies, intolerances, preferences, or require a specific diet on religious grounds so please do get in touch if your child's food needs require modifications.

Yes, at OBVNS we offer both vegetarian and vegan options for lunch and snack time.

To ensure the safety of children with allergies, we have a thorough process in place. Parents must provide information about their child's allergies and how they manage them at home. Written evidence from a medical practitioner or health visitor is required before your child starts at OBVNS to ensure accuracy. This allergy information is communicated to both nursery staff and our nursery caterer through various forms. These documents, featuring your child's photo and allergy details, are kept in their room and utilised in the nursery kitchen. Allergy colour labels are utilised at snack and lunchtime through individualised coloured placemats, and our catering chef maintains an allergen folder with food product details. This comprehensive approach helps safeguard children with allergies in our care.

We aim to make adjustments whenever possible but believe that the more exposure our children have to different dishes and types of foods, the wider their palate and acceptance of different food and experiences becomes. In terms of dietary preferences for cultural reasons, we aim to accommodate this whenever feasible. Our nursery caterer can cater to various dietary needs, including halal, kosher, vegetarian, vegan, diabetic meals, and allergies. Please get in touch to discuss your child's specific dietary requirements.

We accept both the universal 15 hour funding for three years olds as well as the 30 hour funding for those parents who are eligible. We charge a small hourly fee for funded hours to cover the snack, consumables and other activities that we provide and that are outside the basic provision we receive funding for.

Our invoicing software calculates the cost of childcare and then pro ratas this across 12 equal monthly payments. Spreading the cost like this means that in months of uninterrupted care (i.e. no school holidays) the invoice will be the same as in months such as December and August where there are holidays. This makes tax free childcare, voucher payments and direct debits easier to set up. Invoices need to be paid by the 1st of each month and are sent via the Famly app a week prior to this.

We follow the Hampshire Term Dates which exclude bank holidays and therefore you are not invoiced for these. However, in recent years we have seen a number of additional public holidays (due to the Queen's Jubilee and funeral). For extraordinary closures such as these you will be charged as usual.

Yes, our normal fees will be charged even if your child is off ill or on holiday.

The supplementary charge covers the additional services (outlined below) provided by OBVNS to elevate our exceptional childcare standards.

The additional small hourly fee we charge for funded hours covers various extras, such as: • Snacks and consumables • Expert staff and care • All extra-curricular educational activities (outside of the basic funded provision)