Term-Time vs All-Year Nurseries: Which Model Fits Your Family?

Not all nurseries run on the same calendar. Some open around 51 weeks a year and close only for bank holidays; others follow school terms and shut for around 13 weeks of holidays. The difference shapes your childcare costs, your holiday logistics and even how funded hours apply — yet many parents only discover which model their nursery uses after they have fallen in love with it. Here is how the two models work and how to decide which fits your family.

The two models, briefly

All-year-round (full daycare) nurseries are the standard model for private day nurseries. They typically open roughly 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, for about 51 weeks a year, closing for bank holidays and sometimes a few days at Christmas or for staff training. You pay a consistent fee every month, whatever the season.

Term-time-only settings follow the school calendar — around 38 weeks a year — and often school-day hours, sometimes with breakfast and after-school wraparound attached. This group includes school nursery classes, many preschools and playgroups (often run by committees or charities), and some private nurseries that offer term-time contracts alongside full-year ones. During half terms and holidays, they are closed.

Many all-year nurseries also sell term-time-only contracts as an option, so the choice is sometimes available within a single setting — always ask.

Cost: cheaper headline, same childcare need

Term-time provision usually costs less overall, for the obvious reason that you are paying for 38 weeks rather than 51. Preschools and school nursery classes are often the cheapest registered childcare available, and for eligible children a term-time place can be entirely covered by funded hours. But the honest comparison is not fee versus fee — it is fee plus holiday cover versus fee. If you need childcare in the holidays, holiday clubs, a childminder or annual leave must fill roughly 13 weeks, and patching that together has both a financial and a logistical price. Our guide to nursery costs in the UK covers how to compare quotes properly.

How funded hours map onto each model

Government funded hours in England are built around a term-time skeleton: the full entitlement is 15 or 30 hours a week over 38 weeks a year. At a term-time setting, the funding maps on directly — 30 funded hours can mean genuinely little or nothing to pay, apart from any voluntary charges for meals and consumables.

At an all-year nursery, most providers let you stretch the same annual hours over 51 weeks — so "30 hours" becomes roughly 22 to 23 funded hours every week of the year, with you paying for everything above that. Neither approach gives you more funding; they distribute the same pot differently. Ask every nursery how they apply the entitlement, because policies differ, and check the current rules on Childcare Choices. Our 30 hours guide explains eligibility, codes and deadlines in full.

Who each model suits

Term-time-only tends to suit families where a parent works in education or genuinely has school holidays free; families with a grandparent or other reliable holiday cover; part-time working patterns with flexibility; and families prioritising the lowest possible cost using funded hours. It can also suit three and four-year-olds attending a school's own nursery class as a runway into reception.

All-year-round tends to suit two-parent full-time working households and working single parents; anyone whose annual leave could not begin to cover 13 weeks; shift workers and others who need predictable, consistent provision — see our guide for shift-working families; and babies and toddlers, for whom consistent routine and familiar carers matter more than calendar alignment.

A useful test: count the weeks of holiday cover you can genuinely provide between you — leave, flexible working, family help — and be honest about the buffer. Most full-time working couples can cover five or six weeks between them. If the model you are considering leaves a gap bigger than your buffer, you are really choosing all-year care with extra steps.

The questions to ask any setting

Whichever model you lean towards, pin down the specifics before signing. Exactly which weeks are you open, and which days do you close for training or between Christmas and New Year? Do you offer both term-time and stretched contracts, and can we switch between them as circumstances change? How do funded hours apply here, and what voluntary charges sit alongside them? For term-time settings: do you run, or partner with, a holiday club? For all-year settings: is there any fee reduction for the weeks we book away? These belong on your list alongside our general questions to ask on a nursery visit.

Mixing models as children grow

Plenty of families change model over time, and that is fine. A common pattern is all-year daycare through the baby and toddler years while both parents rebuild careers, then a shift to a term-time preschool or school nursery class at three or four, when funded hours cover more and the child benefits from mirroring the school rhythm they are about to join. Children adapt well to a change of setting when it is handled with a proper settling-in period — our settling-in guide applies to movers just as much as first-timers.

Find the calendar that fits yours

Opening patterns are a filterable fact, not something to discover on a tour. Search NurseryMatch to see registered nurseries near you with their inspection grades, fees and funded places, then compare your shortlist with your family calendar in front of you. If you are still working out what kind of provision suits you at all, our two-minute match quiz is a good place to start. The right model is simply the one whose closed weeks your family can absorb without stress — choose that, and the rest of the decision gets much easier.