Lostock Preschool understand that childcare cost can represent a significant outgoing to families and can be a barrier to Children attending nursery and preschool.

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We believe all Children should have the benefit of quality and engaging Childcare to help them develop in their early years which is why Lostock Preschool are committed to providing the best value childcare possible whilst maintain the highest standards without compromise.

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Lostock Playschool provides up to free 30 hours a week for those children eligible.

Please contact us for more information or:

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For 3 to 4 year olds see https://www.gov.uk/apply-30-hours-free-tax-free-childcare for more details.

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For 2 year olds see https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-2-year-olds for more details.

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Unlike at some Nurseries and Preschools you will never be required to take more hours than the free hours (unless you want to) and there are no hidden “top up charges”. For those Children who are eligible for the free hours the places are genuinely free.

In addition to the free places Lostock Preschool also works with all Childcare voucher providers which provides working parents tax benefits on the cost of childcare. See https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/childcare-vouchers for more details.

Childcare Vouchers

At Lostock Preschool we currently accept vouchers from:

• Accor

• Busy Bees

• Care-4

• Computershare

• Co-operative Employee Benefits

• Edenred

• Faircare

• Fideliti

• Kiddivouchers

• Sodexo

• and individual company schemes.

We are now accepting Tax Free Childcare.

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What are childcare vouchers?

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Childcare vouchers can be offered to you by your employer in addition to your salary but are more commonly offered as a “salary sacrifice”. This means that you sacrifice a specific amount of your salary and receive that equivalent amount in childcare vouchers. This means you will only pay tax and NIC on the reduced level of your salary. For more information on childcare vouchers visit the Day Care Trust or contact us. The key is they enable you to pay for childcare out of your pre-tax and National Insurance income. While this doesn’t sound like much, the benefit is huge.

It works by ‘salary sacrifice’

A few very generous employers will simply give you the vouchers on top of your normal salary, but most will ask you to do what’s called a ‘salary sacrifice’, which works something like this: you give up £1,000 of salary but after tax and National Insurance that is only worth about £700 in your pocket – so in return you get £1,000 of vouchers and you are £300 better off. For an accurate figure of savings look at calculators on Accor Services or Computershare Voucher Services. Always check first if you’re eligible for tax credits.

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How many vouchers can you buy?

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Basic rate tax payers (and higher/top rate payers who joined before 5 April 2011) can pay for up to £243 of childcare with vouchers each month (£55/week). This is per parent, so two working parents could get £486 a month of vouchers.

From 6 Apr 2011 new joiners paying higher or top rate tax had their allowance dropped so that all tax payers have roughly the same maximum tax gain. The limits are:

Basic (20%) Taxpayer:  £55/week vouchers, max annual gain £920.
Higher (40%) Taxpayer:  £28/week voucher, max annual gain £610.
Top (50%) Taxpayer: £22/week voucher, max annual gain £590.

The number of children you have does not impact the amount you receive; the limits are the same whether you’ve one child or more. Vouchers are not specific to each child and have a long expiry date.