Funded places for 3 and 4 year olds campaign resources

• It can be confusing to know what early education options are available. Our Family Information Service advice and information can help you to make informed choices. Join the thousands of parents who already have a place for their 3 and 4-year-olds.
• Want to help your child get ready for primary school but not sure what you are entitled to? Funded places for children for 2, 3 and 4 year-olds are available in your area.
• Local nursery staff or childminders can offer great support and will be happy to assist you with your child’s early learning and development
• Taking up funded hours with a nursery or childminder can provide lots of opportunities for your child to be active and develop physically through fun and play both indoors and out.
• Making friends and playing alongside other children from a mix of different backgrounds really helps to develop children's confidence, social skills and their awareness of the world around them.
• Singing songs, rhyming, reading and being read to with their friends are just some of the fun activities used by nursey staff and childminders to develop your child’s speaking and listening skills.
• Transferring to a local school with others who a child may know from nursery or from their childminder really helps children to settle quickly.
• You can be confident your child will be looked after in a safe, secure environment as every nursery and childminder looking after children under the age of eight must be registered with Ofsted.
• All our nurseries and childminders welcome children from a wide range of backgrounds and they will be happy to discuss how best to meet any cultural, religious and dietary needs you or your child may have
• When your child is using their funded hours, this is also a chance for you to take some time for yourself. You might want to start a part-time job, do some training or study, go to the gym, spend the time with your younger children or relax with family or friends.
• Every nursery and childminder looking after children under the age of eight must be registered with Ofsted. The good news for us, is that in Lancashire almost all the childminders and nurseries are rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.

Click the share icon top right to share our funded places for 3 and 4-year-olds video.

We spoke to Eleanor Rushton, early years leader at Alston and Catholic Primary School and Nursery, about the benefits of funded places.

Alston Lane Nursery

Click the share icon top right to share our funded places for 3 and 4-year-olds video featuring Lancashire parent, Katie Jenkins.

She shares her experiences of her son, Jeremiah attending Alston Lane Nursery using funded childcare.

Help us spread the word about funded childcare and early education places in Lancashire and encourage eligible Lancashire parents and carers to take up a 3 and 4-year-olds place for their families.

Our messages make use of normative messaging to increase take-up by making it the norm i.e. "Join the thousands of parents across Lancashire who already use funded childcare for their 3 and 4-year-olds."

Please share our latest @lancashirecc #LancsChildcare social media posts on your official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. If you want to post your own social media posts, we have provided some suggested posts and images below.

Use of images: The images in this toolkit must only be used in the promotion of this campaign and must not be used for any other purpose.

Download the attachments and copy and paste the suggested ideas in to text messages to parents and content for your newsletters.

You can also share our latest #LancsChildcare messages from Twitter and Facebook to your own setting's social media pages.