Bookings to suit your family

At Tops Day Nurseries, we offer a variety of booking options, learn more below.

Permanent booking

A permanently booked place means that the days and hours you book are your permanent days and hours and remain unchanged from week to week, this place is guaranteed. These hours and days cannot be swapped. Additional hours can be booked on top of these but cannot be guaranteed, additional hours must be requested via eyLog. All additional hours are charged at the publicised hourly rates.
If a permanent change is requested this can be made in writing with four weeks’ notice and if space is available, the manager will confirm this change. Please note: a permanent change is a change of hours that must be in place for 6 weeks or more. Day Swap option. This allows permanent bookers to swap a day booking to another day in the same week using comparative hours. To swap your permanent booking to another day, requests must be made by 2pm on the Tuesday of the preceding week at the latest (via email). Swapping bookings will incur an administration fee, please refer to the price list for the current charge.

Bank Holiday options

The majority of Tops Day Nurseries remain open on bank holidays, apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day.

If you access any funding package, if the Tops Nursery your child attends open on the bank holidays, you have the option of whether you want to book childcare for these days. If you decide you do not want your child to attend on a bank holiday, you need to give us 4 weeks’ notice if you are on the Flexible Funded Package, to have the charges removed from your account. Please note, there is a mandatory additional charge for attending on a bank holiday, please refer to the current price list for the nursery your child attends for details.

If you access a Basic Funded Package and do not want to pay the additional bank holiday charge, your booking will be automatically be removed for the day and you will have no charges.

Flexible Shift booking

We require all shift requests to be made via eyLog, we accept shifts up to 3 months in advance. eyLog is an online learning journey and your eyLog account will be set up when you enroll your child at Tops Day Nurseries.

A flexible shift place gives you the option to book various days and hours and change them as required according to your work patterns. To be eligible to use the flexible shift place, you must be able to demonstrate your employer varies the hours you are required to work. For those on the all-inclusive packages, either Flexible Funding Packages or Private Packages, the shift bookings do have a minimum booking requirement set at the 30 hour package price, this applies to all nurseries.

If you would like to add additional hours to your packages on some weeks, you can do this. For example – If you select the 30 hour package, your minimum booking fee each week will be the 30 hour package price, but if you wanted to book 32 hours for one week, you would pay your 30 hours package price plus 2 additional hours for that week. If you want to permanently change your selected package, this can be done in writing with four weeks’ notice, and if space is available, the manager will confirm this change. Please note: a permanent change is a change of hours that must be in place for 6 weeks or more.

For those on a Basic Package, the minimum booking is at minimum 11 or 12 hours dependent on your nursery or the number of hours usually booked based on your package. For example, for those on a 22 hour basic package, the minimum booking is 22 hours. For those not on a package, but paying the private hourly rate, the minimum booking fee each week is 11 or 12 hours dependent on your nursery hours. Permanent booked spaces are given priority over shift booking requests and shift booking requests cannot be guaranteed. These are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

Monthly

All shift bookings must be requested via eyLog by the 14th of each month for the following month. Booking your shifts monthly allows a better chance of your requests being made available.

Bi-Weekly Bookings

Shifts must be booked via eyLog by Monday 1pm, 2 weeks in advance.
Any bookings made after the deadlines will incur an additional charge (refer to current price information).

For all shift bookings, the minimum charge is applied in advance to all weeks within the month. Once you have requested your required shifts within the deadline, the minimum booking charge will be removed.#

Term-Time Only Booking (Only Available for Tops Newport and Topsie Yeovil)

A term-time-only booking is available to parents at Tops Newport or Topsie Yeovil. The term-time only place applies to the following school holidays: Easter, Summer, Christmas and 3 half terms. No concessions are made for teacher training days. The dates are confirmed by the Isle of Wight College.

As per our Admissions and Funding Policy we only offer stretched funding, therefore the amount of funding that can be claimed is limited to stretched funded amount of hours per week. Typically this is 11 hours or 22 hours dependent on local authority and term.

During the holidays your funded hours will still be allocated but we will amend your hours to fit into the Basic Funded Package sessions that we offer.

Hi 5’s Holiday Club

A holiday club booking is subject to the same terms and conditions as all other bookings and is based on a sessional charge. The holiday club sessions can be topped up with additional hours. Breakfast and after-school club bookings are treated as term-time-only bookings. Holiday club bookings are treated as shift bookings.

Last-minute 40% Off Bookings

This offer will be available between specific hours each week at a reduced rate, the hours on offer will vary from week to week as they depend on staff ratios allowing us to take more children without increasing staff hours. If the hours available fall on a bank holiday, please be aware there is an additional charge per hour, the charge is detailed on our price list.

Booking any additional hours does not alter the type of booking you currently have in place, these hours are available in addition to your regular booked hours/booking pattern and cannot be swapped with any bookings already made. These additional hours cannot be used as part of your 11-hour minimum booking. These hours are one-off hours.

Please be aware any 40% off hours will be emailed to parents as available.

Emergency Bookings

If you find yourself being obliged to work extra days due to an emergency (for example hospital, or police staff) or have a domestic emergency, and need childcare unexpectedly, please do not hesitate to contact the nursery, we will do our utmost to cover this for you and only the normal hourly charges will apply.

All bookings
As per our terms and conditions, booked hours and additional extras are payable if your child is absent regardless of booking type.

Get in touch today to find out more and visit a Tops nursery near you!