What must a nursery website include?

The short answer: the law doesn’t require a nursery to have a website. But if you offer funded hours, your website is now where your charges are expected to be published, and it is the easiest place to share everything the EYFS says parents must be told.

For group settings and childminders in England. Updated 28 October 2026 against GOV.UK. This is a guide, not legal advice; your local authority funding agreement has the final word.

1. Your charges, if you offer funded hours

DfE’s statutory guidance for local authorities says the costs of chargeable extras should be published on provider websites. Only if you have no website do they go on your council’s Family Information Service instead. Councils have been asking for this since January 2026.

Parents should be able to see, clearly and up to date:

• Your funded entitlement hours, and the pattern of hours parents can take them in
• Additional private paid hours
• Food charges
• Non-food consumables, such as nappies, wipes and sun cream
• Activity charges, such as trips or music sessions

Extras must be optional, never a condition of getting a funded place. Councils may exempt childminders and settings caring for ten or fewer children at a time, so check your own funding agreement. DfE publishes achargeable extras templatemany councils ask providers to follow. Our chargeable extras guide shows an example layout.

2. What the EYFS says parents must be told

Under the EYFS statutory framework, you must share this information with parents and carers:

• How you deliver the EYFS, and where parents can find out more
• The activities and experiences you offer, your daily routines, and how parents can share learning at home
• How you support children with special educational needs and disabilities
• The food and drinks you provide
• Your policies and procedures, including what happens if a parent doesn’t collect their child or a child goes missing
• Your staffing, the name of each child’s key person and their role
• How to contact Ofsted (or your childminder agency), for example in your complaints procedure

A website isn’t the only way to share it, but it’s the one parents can find before they visit, and it saves you answering the same questions on every show-round.

3. Your Ofsted report

After an inspection you must give a copy of the report to the parents of children who attend regularly. Ofsted publishes it online too. Linking to your report from your website, with the date and outcome, covers new families as well and shows you have nothing to hide.

4. Things the EYFS says you should share

• A list of staff with a current paediatric first aid certificate (group settings should display it or make it available)
• Your complaints procedure, which must include how to contact Ofsted
• Your safeguarding approach and who your designated lead is

5. What parents look for, even though no rule says so

• Fees and session times in pounds, not “call us for prices”
• Photos of your real rooms and garden
• Opening hours, closures and term dates from this year
• A simple way to book a visit or join the waiting list
• A site that works on a phone, without pinching to zoom

Our free nursery website checklist goes through all of this in about ten minutes.

Wales and Scotland

The EYFS and the funding guidance above apply in England. Settings in Wales follow the National Minimum Standards and are inspected by Care Inspectorate Wales; in Scotland it’s the Care Inspectorate. The parent-facing basics are much the same, and we build for all three.

Sources

• EYFS statutory framework, GOV.UK (group and childminder versions, from September 2026)
• Early education and childcare: statutory guidance for local authorities, GOV.UK (from 1 April 2026)
• Being inspected as a childminder or childcare provider, GOV.UK