funded childcare

Funded early education and childcare is available for all three years olds, and some two year olds, for up to 15 hours per week. We also offer a limited amount of places for the 30-hours funded places. To find out if you are eligible, information can be found on the gov.uk website: www.gov.uk/get-childcare. 

requesting a place

If you are interested in a place for your child, please complete the relevant application form below and return it to us by email, post or in person. Nursery fees / prices and session times are included on the forms.

Application forms:

>  Non-funded children application form

>  Funded 2-3 year olds application form

>  30 hours extended entitlement application form

nursery opening hours

We are open from 8am - 5pm Monday to Friday. There are various session options within those times, plus an additional session option until 5.30pm.

Little Peeple Nursery is open for 48 weeks a year, closing for a week at Christmas and Easter, and two weeks in the summer. Children can either attend for 48 weeks or for school term-time dates.

nursery term dates

You can download term-dates for 2023-24 below.

> 2023-24 term dates for term-time only children

> 2023-24 term dates for 48-week children

Oxfordshire resident Rod Nicolson has finished his incredible feat of cycling 1,200 km in 90 hours in the prestigious (and gruelling!) Paris-Brest-Paris event. Read all about it on our  Bicycling for Books page, including the huge total that he raised for our local Dolly Parton Imagination Library! Thank you to all his supporters and thank you to Rod who deserves a cuppa and sit down! 

In Peep groups, parents find out why the little things they do with their baby or child make a big difference. Families discover and share ideas and activities that cost nothing, but support their child's learning in the earliest years, making a lifelong difference. 

>  Donate by text:  Text  peep 3  or  peep 5  or  peep 10  to 70085  
    (to donate £3, £5 or £10)​

> Donate online - a single donation or regular gift:  Donate now  

"In the past I would not so much talk or read to my daughter because I thought she was too young to understand, but after seeing her response to everything at Peep it has improved my help towards her talking and listening."

Many thanks for all your support, it means a lot. 

At Peeple and Growing Minds we have a local Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which sends a free book to every child from birth to five in the Leys, Littlemore and Berinsfield areas of south Oxford.> Click here to read more about our Imagination Library and how you can help, or you can: 

 Donate to our local Imagination Library   

Terms & Conditions:
Text costs the donation amount plus one standard network rate message.
Text PeepNoInfo after you've donated if you don’t  want to receive further information from Peeple.​

Since the Coronavirus social distancing, it's been great to hear about all the online Peep-type sessions happening with families. We've been asked by a few people what this means re sharing Peeple songs or stories, so here's an overview:

If you’re making a social media post

...using a book or song copyrighted to Peeple  we’d appreciate it if you acknowledge:

‘This is the Peep book ‘Peep paints his room’ by Lisse Honeyman & Katherine Groves’   
and/or
‘This [X] song/rhyme is a Peep song from their Singing Together songbook/CD’

The Peeple copyrighted songs, all by Alison Street, are:  A little mouse sat on my chair  ~   Alphabet song  ~   Baby band (words only)  ~   Bed for baby  ~   Bicycle song  ~   Engine song  ~   Eyes to see  ~   Goodnight  ~   Here comes a spider  ~  I’m floating  ~  I’ve got one nose  ~  Little red bus (words only)  ~  Look what I can do  ~  One little finger  ~  Peep-o  ~  Popping on your vest (words only)  ~  Pull up pull up the turnip  ~  Roll the dough  ~  Sit down here  ~  Stroking baby’s cheek  ~  We are going to the seaside in a train (words only)  ~  What shall we do baby?  ~  Who’s that?

If you're using non-Peeple-copyright audio-recordings  from a Peeple CD please acknowledge:

• ‘Recordings of [e.g. Incy Wincy spider] are reproduced from the Singing Together 1 CD by permission of Peeple.’

If you're using non-Peeple-copyright lyrics  from a Peeple songbook/CD:

• Peeple has obtained copyright permission for some of the songs as listed in the acknowledgements page in the back of the Singing Together books. If you want to reproduce these lyrics you will need to approach the rights holder to obtain permission.
• The words to the songs not  listed on the acknowledgements page are to the best of our knowledge in the public domain, and can be reproduced freely.
• Permission to use recordings  needs to be obtained from the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society for which there is usually a small fee if they are not in the public domain. (Peeple songs are not registered with MCPS.)

If you are producing a CD/MP3 or equivalent

...and want to use songs (audio and/or lyrics) from any of Peeple’s Singing Together Songbooks/CD/MP3 that are copyrighted to Peeple (see list above) – please contact us at info@peeple.org.uk with the following information, and we will email you back to confirm permission and acknowledgement wording:

• Your name and/or Organisation name
• Name/s of the tracks/lyrics/story you would like to reproduce
• Your target audience/customers – e.g. local families that you work with or for sale on the open market.

We hope that this helps. Please get in touch with any other questions: info@peeple.org.uk.

The Learning Together Study was a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) research study which adds to the Peep Learning Together Programme evidence base. The findings showed that the Peep programme improved children's outcomes and helped narrow the gap in educational achievement. Trained practitioners use the Programme to strengthen parents’ skills and confidence in helping their children to learn through everyday activities.

Improving children's outcomes...

We are very pleased that overall the Study found that the Peep Learning Together Programme made a positive difference of an additional two‑months progress over a five-month period to children’s early literacy development.

... and narrowing the attainment gap:

However, the Programme made the greatest difference to children eligible for Early Years Pupil Premium, who made an additional four months' progress in core language skills and in communication, and three months' additional progress in early literacy development.

The Peep Learning Together Programme is based on evidence that the quality of learning opportunities within a child’s home environment increases their chances of doing well at school and beyond.

Outcomes for parents:

The study also found that the Programme had positive effects on parents, who reported improvements in:

• parental self-acceptance
• the home learning environment
• their confidence in enjoying and playing with their child
• their parenting knowledge and learning.

The large-scale, independent LTS evaluation was carried out by Queen’s University Belfast and was funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. It involved 1447 families with three-year olds from 139 nursery settings, using a 20-week version of the Peep Learning Together Programme across England. 

The findings of the Learning Together Study replicate those of the Birth to School Study, a six-year longitudinal evaluation of the Peep Learning Together Programme carried out by the University of Oxford. During the first three years of the evaluation, the Birth to School Study found positive effects on parent/child interactions and the quality of the care-giving environment at home. In the following three years it went on to find an increased rate of progress for the children in a suite of outcomes related to early literacy development.

Watch the 90-second video of Peeple CEO Dr Sally Smith giving an overview of the Study and its findings:

Feedback from practitioners and settings

Other findings of the study showed that more than 90% of practitioners found that the Programme was easy to use and implement and also that it was delivered with high fidelity. Some practitioners felt that the length of the Programme (20 weeks) may have been a barrier for some parents. However, parents who attended at least one session of the Programme, attended on average 70% of sessions. We were pleased by this figure, given the various difficulties that can get in the way of parents attending weekly sessions with their three-year olds. 

In addition, the cost to schools of delivering the Learning Together Programme is very low: £31.60 per pupil per year, as averaged over three years.

Practitioners noticed positive changes in the children’s communication, and in relationships and engagement with parents:

'I think the children are more talkative, they’re bringing things in more to school...activities to share or objects to share or books to share, and some of the children were very quiet originally and they’re much more talkative.'  (Nursery practitioner)

'The confidence of parents… - as a parent but also...with each other - and their confidence at the nursery, their confidence to approach me and talk to me about absolutely anything and realise that that’s okay, and just they want to join in with things, they’ve attended things in the nursery.'  (Nursery practitioner)

Practitioners found the training very useful:

'I thought the training was lovely, I really enjoyed the training, I thought it gave detail, it gave structure, it gave focus. I came away from the training feeling extremely confident about delivering the programme.'  (Nursery practitioner)

Feedback from parents

Parents noticed their children's growing engagement with literacy:

'The other session that she’s really enjoyed recently was making a book, which again was something I thought she wouldn’t be interested in at all and she made two in the end…and she sat and read them to herself and she’s really proud of them.'  (Parent)

'I mean the other session that he really liked was the environment… with the signs...so at the moment when we go out with the dog, he’s constantly looking for signs everywhere, like logos and things like that.'  (Parent)

The study also highlighted the value of parenting programmes being available in the nursery:

'I haven’t done (apart from sort of...early days mum and baby groups, you know) toddler groups, things like that - I don’t think I would have...committed to that sort of thing if it hadn’t been available through the nursery.'  (Parent)

We would like to thank the Education Endowment Foundation and Queen's University Belfast for their collaborative approach to working with Peeple on the Study. Its robust nature (as with all studies funded by the Education Endowment Foundation) gives confidence in the findings which make an important addition, both to the evidence base for the Peep Learning Together Programme, but also to the evidence, more broadly, that working with parents to improve the home learning environment is a feasible and effective means to improve child outcomes, particularly for the most disadvantaged.

We'd also like to thank the Sutton Trust and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation for the Parental Engagement Fund, which provided an important stepping stone towards this evaluation by randomised controlled trial. 

Finally, we would like to thank all the settings, practitioners, parents and children who took part in the Study. We really appreciate the time and commitment involved and we hope that you will all continue to enjoy learning together!

>  A5 summary leaflet - Learning Together Study Findings

>  Learning Together Study - full report

We've been working with CBeebies' 'The Baby Club' and DK to produce a book for parents based on the the kinds of activity seen on the TV show. Our CEO Sally Smith was Consultant Editor on the book: 'Play and learn with your baby - simple activities with amazing benefits'. There are lots of ideas from the Peep Learning Together Programme, including short explanations of why the activities are so helpful for babies' development.

The book's full of bite-sized activities for exploring everyday household objects. Day-to-day tasks such as making meals, sorting the washing or tidying up don't disappear sadly, just because we have a baby to care for. But the kinds of activity in this book can fit around or even within those tasks. And whether you're playing a game together, or watching your baby exploring the object themselves, the bonus is that they're learning lots as they do it! 

Each time your baby sees, smells, touches, hears or tastes something new, vital connections are formed in their brain. The book includes suggestions to help your baby notice and learn from the world around them. There are also tips on sharing songs and stories, as well as play ideas such as 'what's in the bag?'. 

The Baby Club presenter Nigel Clarke wrote the foreward, in which he explains how his Peep practitioner training "highlighted how everyday activities are great opporutnities for a baby to learn, without the need for expensive toys - there's a world of discovery in everyday items and simple toys... That's why this book is so useful.... When you understand the potential behind the simplest of activities, you start to see how every task, meal, changing session or buggy ride becomes an opportunity to bond, encourage or aid your baby's understanding of the world." 

The book was released on 6 February 2020, published by DK, and you can buy it here. Have fun playing and learning together!

K is a mum in a Peep Mini Explorers group at a Children's Centre, led by Sophie from the Foundation Years Trust in Birkenhead. Her feedback is a great example of the value of sharing ideas about children's development, but also the importance of supportive relationships - between parent and child, practitioner and other parents:

"I’ve been attending Peep sessions since my little boy L was 10 weeks, now he’s 16 months!

I knew absolutely nothing about Peep beforehand. Hand on heart, I believe that attending these Peep sessions has made me the parent I am today.

They taught me that certain behaviours weren’t ‘naughty’ but actually developmental. That everyday things are an adventure for him, no matter how little! And that everything can be fun, and how he can learn through fun!

L has made some little friends for life, as have I. The Peep sessions have supported me and taught me the importance of supporting him, praising him, providing him with opportunities and how to encourage his learning and development. They’ve shown me that L doesn’t need ‘expensive’ experiences to learn, but actually low cost or free opportunities are just as useful, like a trip to the free fun day at the local urban farm where we can sing nursery rhymes and practise animal noises with the animals!

I find being a parent the most amazing and rewarding experience of my life, but I also have ‘hard’ days as does every parent. In group, it’s so nice to talk about those hard days with other parents and Sophie, with no judgement just support. I was so hesitant initially about going to a baby group - what if L got upset, or I needed to breastfeed and wasn’t comfortable, or I was judged -  but this group was the first I attended and it’s changed my parenting experience. Sometimes, life as a mum can be hard or lonely, but this group really does make a difference."

June 2019