Useful links:

 

• Gov.uk website: Free Childcare for Working Parents

• Best Start in Life: 30 hours childcare

• Brent Council: Free childcare

• Brent Council: Childcare and early education

• Brent Council: Help with childcare costs

• Owls Daycare: Parental agreement form (required for every funded child)

 

​Overview:

 

Little Scientists Club Ltd (trading as Owls Daycare and Owls Daycare Pre-School) accepts government-funded early education hours — 15 or 30 hours a week depending on your child’s age and your eligibility — for the 38 term-time weeks of each academic year.

We do not stretch funded hours across the whole year. Funding is applied in term time only. We bill evenly across the year so that your monthly payments stay the same — that is budgeting, not stretching.
 

Funded hours are free at the point of delivery. We never charge a top-up on funded hours.

We are open for 46 weeks each year, Monday to Friday and closed on bank holidays: the 38 term-time weeks, aligned with Brent Council's published school term dates, plus 8 non-term weeks outside those dates. Some weeks at term boundaries are part-weeks; the exact dates are on our Term dates page. You can choose a term-time-only place (38 weeks) or a full-year place (46 weeks).

 

 

The funding we can claim for your child:

​

Depending on age and eligibility, families may be entitled to 0, 15 or 30 funded hours a week during the 38 term-time weeks.

From the term after their third birthday, all 3- and 4-year-olds are entitled to 15 hours a week; eligible working families may be entitled to 30 hours. Eligible working families with children from 9 months may also be entitled to 15 or 30 hours.

 

It is your responsibility to confirm eligibility with HMRC (or, for the two-year-old entitlement for eligible families, with Brent Council) before your child’s start date, and to reconfirm your code every three months to keep it live. The links at the top of this page take you to the official guidance.

Before any funded hours can be claimed — 15 or 30, whatever your child’s age — we will ask you to complete our parental agreement form. It collects your child’s details, your funded childcare code where you have one, and your consent for us to verify eligibility with Brent Council at the point of each claim.

​

 

Our rates (how we price the two parts of the year):

​

Your invoice is built the same way for every family. Everything is based on the session pattern and hours you have booked, not the hours your child happens to attend — so if you collect early on some days, your fee does not change, and neither does your funding credit.

1) The first lines of your invoice show the monthly price of your booked session pattern, split into its two parts: term-time childcare — your booked weekly hours × 38 weeks ÷ 12 at our term-time hourly rate — and, for full-year places, the non-term weeks. Together they add up to the published monthly price for your pattern. Our term-time rate is a single rate for every child, whatever their age; we set it at the hourly funding rate for 3- and 4-year-olds confirmed by Brent Council and update it each financial year. For 2026/27 it is £6.61 an hour. The term-time part of every price is worked out the same way, so if two patterns cost different amounts overall, the difference shows in the non-term part. That figure is simply the rest of your monthly price: it isn't a separate price for eight weeks, and it is the same for every family on your pattern, funded or not.

2) Funded hours: If your child accesses funded hours, we credit your weekly funded hours × 38 weeks ÷ 12 at that same rate of £6.61, so your funded hours cost you nothing. Any term-time hours above your entitlement are charged at £6.61.

3) Price protection or sibling discount: If our published prices have risen since you reserved your place, you keep the monthly amount you were quoted; the difference appears as a “price protection” line. Any sibling discount is shown the same way. These lines never change because a child is funded. If your child starts part-way through a month, your first invoice is reduced pro rata and shown as a separate line.

4) Additional charges. Any optional items you have chosen, or charges under our Terms and Conditions such as a late collection fee.

​

Term-time rate, all ages: £6.61 an hour.

Full-year places (46 weeks), per month, before any funding credit (see table below). Term-time-only places (38 weeks) are the term-time line only. A different pattern, such as extra hours or days on top of a listed session, is agreed in writing and priced from the nearest listed pattern.

The funding credit is then deducted for funded children: £313.98 a month for 15 hours, £627.95 a month for 30 hours.
 

 

​​