Childcare

Randers offers different types of childcare facilities, depending on the child's age, and you can freely choose the sort of childcare facility that fits you and your child best.

If your child is less than three years old, you can choose whether it should be taken care of in a nursery (vuggestue) or by a childminder (dagpleje). In a nursery, there are many children and several adults, while a childminder is one adult taking care of four to five children.

Shortly before your child's third birthday, the child will begin to attend a kindergarten. The child stays in the kindergarten until the year he or she turns six and starts school.

Many childcare centres contains both a nursery and a kindergarten.

Childcare guarantee

Randers Municipality is legally obliged to allocate places in an age-appropriate childcare facility to all children from the age of 26 weeks to school starting age.

We cannot guarantee a specific place or specific opening hours, but we will do everything we can to meet your wish for a specific childcare facility.

Your child must be registered for guaranteed childcare no later than three months before you need a place. If you want a place immediately after your child is 26 weeks old, the municipality must offer a place within four weeks from this date.

If you decide not to accept the place you have been offered through the guaranteed childcare, you will no longer be on the waiting list and will have to register for guaranteed childcare again. Consequently, we cannot guarantee a new place for at least three months. However, we always attempt to offer you a place as quickly as possible. The waiting list is always arranged according to the children's age, so your child will not be moved to the back of the queue if you refuse an offer.

Often your workday is longer than your child's school day. Therefore, your child can attend after-school care and be together with his or her friends from school and take part in social activities.

There are two different after-school care programs called "SFO" and "fritidshjem", respectively. The SFOs belongs to the public schools and are located at those, whereas the fritidshjems are municipal childcare centres that are not located at the schools.

Your child can attend after-school care from it starts school until it finishes third grade.

The office assigning childcare, Pladsanvisningen, has a self-service solution that you can use to register your child for care or withdraw it from care. Pladsanvisningen’s self-service solution is called Digital Pladsanvisning (online place allocation service). In order to use Digital Pladsanvisning you need a MitID.

Via Digital Pladsanvisning you can:

• get an overview of the childcare options available to you.
• put your child on the waiting list for a childcare facility.
• follow developments on the waiting list.
• apply for allowances for childcare.
• withdraw your child from a childcare facility.

If you wish to withdraw your child from care, you must do so with one month's notice from the 15th or last day of the month.

If you want to transfer your child from one childcare centre or childminder to another, you should not withdraw your child. Once registered with the new childcare centre or childminder, the child will automatically be withdrawn from the old one.

Digital Pladsanvisning is only for public childcare centres or childminders. To enrol your child in a private institution, you have to contact the institution directly.

You can apply for an income-based allowance for children attending childcare centres or childminders. It is also possible to get a sibling allowance.

If your family’s total household income is below a certain threshold, you can apply to the municipality for an extra allowance so that it will be cheaper or completely free to have your child in a childcare facility. This is called an income-based allowance.

You can apply for an income-based allowance via the self-service solution Digital Pladsanvisning, in person or by calling the office assigning childcare - Pladsanvisningen. You can apply when your child has been enrolled in a childcare facility.

You cannot obtain allowances retrospectively.

Allowances are not available for school junior clubs from 4th to 7th grade.

You can see the income-based allowances for childcare facilities at Randers Municipality’s website.

When you have been given an allowance, please remember to inform of any changes in your income or family set-up via Digital Pladsanvisning. If you fail to inform about an increase in your income, you might be receiving a higher allowance than you are entitled to. In that case, you will be required to repay some of the allowance.

Sibling allowance

If you have more than one child in municipal childcare facilities, you are entitled to a sibling allowance. You pay full price for the most expensive place and half price for subsequent places in the childcare centre. This also applies if you have a child in a private childcare institution.

You cannot get family discount to any after-school care, other than the SFOs at the public schools.

Read more about income-based allowance, sibling allowance and other allowances at Lifeindenmark.dk.