Nursery admissions
Barnes Primary School Nursery 2025/26
Closing date for applications Saturday 1st March 2025
Offers with be sent out Thursday 1st May 2025
Any applications submitted after the closing date will be placed on our waiting list.
Our mission
Barnes Primary Nursery provides a friendly, enthusiastic, and calm atmosphere, where high levels of engagement and sustained concentration are evident throughout. Our dedicated, compassionate staff effect high quality interactions throughout the day. Outstanding resources are linked logically to the learning intentions or the skills progressions underway at that time, whilst also providing open-ended scenarios to enable children to follow their own imagination or lines of enquiry and be challenged or supported at any moment.
We are continually motivated by how children learn and give high importance to the Characteristics of Learning: a series of phrases which signal the importance of nurturing children’s innate creativity, autonomy, and curious minds. Our understanding of how children learn underpins everything that we do at Barnes Primary Nursery. Our goal is for all our learners to be safe, happy, determined, empowered, kind, articulate, coordinated, and strong risk takers.
Important Information
Children must be 3 years old by 31st August 2025 to join nursery for the 2025/26 academic year. Please do not fill in this form unless your child was born between 1st September 2021 and 31st August 2022. Children should be toilet trained and able to independently use the toilet.
Nursery admissions information for Kingston and Richmond
All provision is located in Barnes Primary School Nursery and our onsite Forest School. Our nursery operates during term time only. Children attend five days per week.
Nursery Hours
Nursery hours are 08:50 – 15:20 Monday to Friday (32.5 hours per week), comprising:
15 hours a week of free early education (the ‘Universal Entitlement’):
plus
15 hours per week ‘Extended Entitlement’ for those eligible and in possession of a valid HMRC code
and
2.5 hours per week self-paid Forest School, PE and social sessions at lunchtimes at £40.00 per week (alternatively you can choose to collect your child for these 30 minutes periods daily, returning them at the start of the afternoon session).
We also offer those not eligible for Extended Entitlement the opportunity to self-pay for the additional hours over the Universal Entitlement. This Self-Paid Provision comprises:
15 hours Universal Entitlement
plus
17.5 hours (including Forest School, PE and social sessions) self-paid at £197.50 per week.
School Meals
We provide nutritious, gold standard hot meals freshly-prepared on site. The current term’s menu can be found on the home page of the website. Barring exceptional circumstances, all Nursery children are expected to have a school lunch. There is an additional cost for this unless your child is eligible for Free School Meals.
Admission Criteria
Nursery places are allocated on the following criteria:
- Looked After Children who are currently in public Care and previously Looked After Children who have left Care due to adoption, special guardianship or child arrangements order.
- Children who have an exceptional medical, social or educational need that requires their attendance at a particular school.
- Children who have siblings already attending the school.
- Children of staff working directly for Barnes Primary School for at least two years.
- Children living closest to Barnes Primary School.
Starting Reception
The acceptance of a nursery place does not guarantee a place in Reception class. There is a separate application process for starting primary school, made through the Local Authority. If you require further information regarding admissions to Barnes Primary School for reception year 2025, please consult the London Borough of Richmond primary school admissions page: https://www.richmond.gov.uk/primary_school_admissions
Fees
Currently all 3 & 4 year olds are entitled to up to 15 hours of free childcare and early education per week for up to 38 weeks a year.
Some working parents of 3 and 4 year-olds are eligible an ‘extended entitlement’ of 30 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks of the year: see www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare. Please note that we cannot accept a child on the 30 hour entitlement basis until we have verified both the age of the child and the 30 hours code that you must supply. Until this code has been validated, you will be responsible for paying a charge of £197.50 per week. Equally, if your child falls out of eligibility at any point within the academic year, the £197.50 per week charge will become payable by you accordingly.
The cost of a full time nursery place for families not eligible for extended entitlement is £197.50 per week
Both part-time and full-time children are offered a freshly prepared three course lunch at a separate cost.
Full-time children can have a forest school experience each day, part-time children will have one per week. Those eligible for 30 hours funding will have the option to pay £8.00 a day for the forest school session or to collect your child from the nursery at 12:00, returning them at 12:30.
Why sign my child up for a whole day in Nursery?
The nursery experience at Barnes Primary School is quite exceptional. The staff are highly skilled; the learning environment is outstanding. Your child will be incredibly well cared for, nurtured and educated. Having this additional time within such a stimulating environment will enable your child to flourish in a play-based learning setting. All children who are staying for the extended provision can have a daily forest school or P.E. experience and they will have an extended period of time to explore the extensive nursery learning environment. Over the past few years, we have spent over £250,000 on our nursery provision and the quality is state of the art.
Nursery application forms
Nursery 2024/25
Our nursery is currently full. Please contact Lucy on 020 8876 7358 if you wish to enquire about a place for this academic year.
Nursery 2025/26
The deadline for nursery applications for next academic year is Friday 1st March 2025.
Use this form if your child will be 3 years old by 31st August 2025:
Useful information about 30 hours funding
30 hours of funded childcare for working parents of 3- & 4-year-olds explained:
- Follow this link: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/
30 hour eligibility guide and checker:
Parents can check whether they could be eligible for a range of government childcare offers, including 30 hours, via Childcare Choices at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk, or the Childcare Calculator at: https://www.gov.uk/childcare-calculator. Those who could be eligible for 30 hours and/or Tax-Free Childcare will be directed to the digital childcare service to apply. The eligibility criteria for 30 hours and Tax-Free Childcare are broadly aligned.
For a more detailed guide to the 30 hours eligibility criteria see the guide at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/30-hours-free-childcare-eligibility. Parents will be able to apply for both 30 hours and Tax-Free Childcare at the same time by entering their details once. HMRC will check parents’ eligibility for both schemes at the same time. Parents will not need to apply through the digital childcare service if they only want to claim the universal 15 hours entitlement for 3- and 4-year-olds.
How to apply for 30 hours extended entitlement:
Parents should apply via the childcare service. You will be asked to:
- Create a Government Gateway account if you do not already have one. If you do, you will need to sign into Government Gateway to verify your identity before accessing the childcare service. You can find details and instructions on how to register for a Government Gateway account at gov.uk.
- Once in the childcare service, enter your personal details including: name, address and National Insurance number and the same details for your partner (if you have one).
- Declare that you expect to meet the income requirements over the coming three months.
- Declare whether you are in receipt of any relevant benefits.
Once you have completed your application, if you are eligible, you will have a childcare service account. In the ‘secure messages’ section of your account, you will receive messages regarding your eligibility. You will be given an 11-digit ‘eligibility code’ for your child – this can be found in the ‘30 hours free childcare’ section of your childcare service account and in your ‘secure messages’ section. These codes normally start with ‘500’. However, there are a small number of cases where you might have a temporary code starting with ‘11’. You will be asked to take this code (along with your National Insurance number and child’s date of birth) to us to reserve your 30 hours place. If you need assistance to apply, or do not have access to the internet, please call the childcare service Customer Interaction Centre on 0300 123 4097 and you can apply over the phone. If you encounter any problems during the application process or when accessing your childcare service account, you should direct your queries to the childcare service Customer Interaction Centre.
The Reconfirmation Process:
This is important. Please make a note in your diary of when you need to reconfirm your code.
Every three months you will need to reconfirm that the details you entered on your application are still accurate. This is to check that you are still eligible. You will be prompted, via text message and/or email, four weeks before the reconfirmation deadline and again two weeks before the deadline if you still have not reconfirmed. This prompt will tell you that you have a secure message to read. This message will remind you to reconfirm and can be found in the ‘Secure messages’ section of your childcare account. If your circumstances have changed, you will need to log into your childcare service account, update the information and resubmit your details. If your circumstances have not changed, you will only need to tick a box saying that your details have not changed. If you have completed your original application over the phone you will need to phone the Customer Interaction Centre to reconfirm your eligibility. Temporary codes beginning ‘11’ expire and so you will need to reconfirm by completing a childcare service application online. You will need to reconfirm regardless of whether your child has started their 30 hours place. If you miss the reconfirmation deadline, or if your circumstances change, you will receive a message telling you that your eligibility has lapsed.
In these circumstances, you will then need to pay for additional hours that your child is attending. The cost of these hours is £31.50 per day for 5 days a week: totalling £157 per week.
Important information from HMRC:
- A parent can only take up 30 hours once both of these conditions are met: a child starts the term following their third birthday and the term following receipt of their eligibility code from HMRC, whichever is later.
- Parents should be encouraged to apply the term before their child meets the age criterion to ensure they can access a place at the start of the term after their child turns three. If not, they will need to wait until the following term to access their 30 hours place. Please note that the earliest a parent could receive a 30 hours code for their child will be 16 weeks before they turn three years old. If a parent applies before this point, they will need to wait until reconfirmation before applying for 30 hours.
- Like the universal 15 hours entitlement, parents cannot claim 30 hours free childcare once their child has reached compulsory school age (the term following their fifth birthday). Please note the latest a parent could receive a 30 hours code is 22 weeks after the child turns five. It is therefore important that providers check the age of the child as well as the code. Parents cannot claim their 30 hours in addition to a full-time reception place in a state-funded school.
One additional link that maybe helpful:
Open hour visits
Nursery
Tuesday 5th November 2024 15:30 – 16:30. Please register your attendance using this link.
Monday 6th January 2025 15:30 – 16:30. Please register your attendance using this link.
Wednesday 5th February 2024 15:30 – 16:30. Please register your attendance using this link.
(Please note that a place at Barnes Primary Nursery does not entitle you to a place in Reception the following year. You will need to apply for the main school via the borough’s normal application process.)
