Do any of the other HEXUS.parents use 3rd party carers ?
do you have the full or part time ?
would you be happy to say give a ball park cost ?
I'm looking for an alternative nursery for Moby/Angel Jnr as we have some doubts about the level of professionalism of our existing childmind and some of the costs seem a little on the high side..
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Well I will let you into a little something. Childminders are more professionally trained and educated more than the nursery teacher you will trust your childs care with. Childminders have to do more in the way of qualifications and training than any pre-school teacher or teaching assistant will ever do.Originally Posted by Moby-Dick
As for professionalism, you have asked to see the childminders ofsted report? Or you have checked this online as all childminders (well the registered ones - all should be registered if they are with childcare) are logged and reports are available on the ofsted website.
As for costs what are you paying an hour? Why is the cost unreasonable to you.
My mother has been childminding for over 25 years now so if you have any questions I could ask her to look over it and she will tell you any glaring errors the childminder you have now might be making.
What is your current childminder doing that is making you a little cautious about them?
Forgot to add, as for a pall park figure, up here in the North Tyneside area you will be looking around £3 - £4 an hour for childcare through a childminder depending on the area of the North Tyneside area. Although most parents will get around 60% of the cost paid for them through the childcare tax schemes etc.
Last edited by Grey M@a; 11-01-2010 at 01:19 PM.
Our current child minder costs are very reasonable ( around £500/month full time ) nursery costs seem to be nearly double that.....
as for professionalism , I don't really want to say too much , but for example she seems just a little too keen to call angeleyes to pick her up , when she has a slightly runny nose and no temperature. knowing that we choose not to bring little one in for a day we still pay, she seems again quite keen for us to make that choice , for what ever reason. Also seems to not have the best menu ( bit too much junk food , but we've addressed most of that hopefully )
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If you want, put it in an email then PM me for my email address and I can show it to my mother and her contact who is the head of the north east child services.
Seems strange for junk food to be on there as Ofsted is doing the whole healthy eating kick and children are under no circumstances to have junk food from the childminders unless specifically requested by the parents to be allowed biscuits or crisps/sweets etc.
As for the paying if your child is off for the day. The contract you would of signed would of been for a 5 day week so if you are ill or your child and you don't go you still pay for the day. However if the childminder is ill and takes the day off then you shouldn't be paying for it.
I would ask your local childcare authority about her credentials and see if she is actually registered. Does she also do the Ofsted pre-school timetable with your child? As under the new guidelines they have put even more work on to the childminders and they have their own fully developed curriculum which they are supposed to teach the child and also keep a diary/record of it which they then pass onto the nursery that the child joins when they are 3/4.
I don't know the full ins and outs of this but I could try and get any information you need from my mother and the local childcare centre etc as they seem to be sh*t hot on this stuff as they had issues with new/unregistered childminders causing issue's so they tightened all the rules and regs up in order to catch the childminders who didn't give a toss and were in it for the easy ride.
She is registered. I'll let angeleyes post on the thread ( she can probably expain things better than I can... )
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Just to clarify it's not junk food as such, just more food that we aren't necessarily happy for her to have. Such as smilie faces, beans and chicken nuggets or Sausages, waffles and peas. At home she gets more unprocessed meats and far more vegtables than she gets at the childminders. They also get a roast once a week and pasta and sauce which we are happy for her to have, it's just we aren't too happy with the amount of salt that will be in waffles. A little salt won't do her much harm but a waffle a week will.
And the not paying thing is more that she words it very cleverly. Like last week, she text me to say that the road was really bad but she would still have her if i could get the baby to her. So i quite rightly made the decision not to take the baby over to her. Now i still have to pay for that day as she didn't directly say she couldn't have the baby, however i then found out that although her road was slippy it wasn't as bad as she made out. So she got a day off and got paid for it when i had to attempt to work from home whilst i had a child attempting to write her first novel all over my spreadsheets!
Oh and she will call me to say that i need to pick her up when she is ill, but will still charge me for the rest of that day. Despite her having made the decision that she couldn't be there, when she wasn't contagious or running a temperature, so therefore would be no reason why she couldn't be there. I used to work for a nursery chain in their accounts department and had close dealings with the nursery's and the nursery managers so have a little understanding of how these things work.
Schmunk Jr. is about to start going to nursery 2 mornings/week.
Each session is £25, so it would be £250/week for 8am - 6pm full-time care (or £1,083/month).
Thankfully, the amount we're paying is covered by Childcare Vouchers, so it's actually costing us £128/month rather than £217/month.
Edit: This price includes 3 meals and 2 snacks per day plus nappies/wipes/laundry etc.
Last edited by schmunk; 11-01-2010 at 02:34 PM.
You would be surprised how often you hear stories of childminders doing this but at the end of the day she shouldn't of rang you, but if you rang her and said we aren't going then you would have to pay. Either way though she said she would work but its dangerous, this is the simple case of her getting the day off and passing the buck to yourself.
As for the food, you won't normally get that from a childminder as who has the time to cook a roast if they are looking after your child...... Obviously most childminders will cover breakfast and lunches but most the time the parents supply the food anyway as then that way the childs and parents dietary needs are followedUnless you specifically requested meals to be provided, problem being you throw food in front of a kid they aren't going to turn it down are they.
Also is your daughter the only child this childminder looks afters? If not have you had a word with the other parents?
She has both my nephews which is why we placed her there. My nephews are 4 and 8. In total she has 2 children that are in preschool, 2 that have just started school and 4-5 that are aged 8 and over on a full-time basis and then one child that is under a year that she has 2 afternoons a week.
My sister is having a massive problem with her at the moment, which is one of the incidents that we don't want to go into until things have reached a conclusion.
Sorry but how do you work that out? The training offered is exactly the same as a Pre-school staff will do. apart from training to run a business (and needing a minimum of level 3) I can assure you that my qualifications and training - Level 3 early years and Playwork diploma and an NVQ 2 (due to start the foundation playwork degree) are just as good as any qualifications and training a Childminder may have thank you very much
Moby can you talk to other Parents that use her? ask to see credentials, qualifications and as mentioned Ofsted registration ( the registration should be on display where visible ) did you have copies of the policies? if not ask why not? As for charging you when your little one poorly, i'm afraid that's very often the norm, we charge if a child is off sick ( as do other settings in the area ) depending on circumstance, then charging is at the discretion of the manager, but information about fees should be made clear in the policy, if it's not then again ask her why not?
As for looking into nurserys then ring around, find out off parents who use them, and you can browse Ofsted reports online. Any good Nursery will encourage you to pop in. It's daunting leaving your child with the unknown, so it's best to be thorough. Ask to see the policies. Ask what the qualifications are the staff hold, the Manager will have a level 3 or above, Supervisors should have a 3 or above, assistants, level 2 and 3. As what the child to staff ratio is ( it's 1-3 for children up to 2 yrs. 1-4 for 2 yr olds, and children aged 3 and above 1-8. Look for high staff ratio in any setting
Hope this helps.
Is this just one person looking after all these children?
Most of the time yes. If she starts to get over her numbers, like in the school holidays, then she has a number of adults that are CRB checked to help her out. Most of the time though she has mine all day, 2 kids all day except 3 mornings a week when they go to pre-school, and then the rest from 3pm to around 3:30pm/5:30pm depending on the parents hours of work.
I should of reworded what I meant. In the way of the teaching assistants, my mother looks after a child of a teaching assistant and the courses my mother had to do the teaching assistant said they never even seen it in their time training or further training and qualifications. There are several of them that childminders have to do that the teaching/teaching assistants don't do or have never been told to do it.Sorry but how do you work that out? The training offered is exactly the same as a Pre-school staff will do. apart from training to run a business ( and needing a minimum of level 3 ) I can assure you that my qualifications and training - Level 3 early years and Playwork diploma and an NVQ 2
( due to start the foundation playwork degree ) are just as good as any qualifications and training a Childminder may have thank you very much
Moby can you talk to other Parents that use her? ask to see credentials, qualifications and as mentioned Ofsted registration ( the registration should be on display where visible ) did you have copies of the policies? if not ask why not? As for charging you when your little one poorly, i'm afraid that's very often the norm, we charge if a child is off sick ( as do other settings in the area ) depending on circumstance, then charging is at the discretion of the manager, but information about fees should be made clear in the policy, if it's not then again ask her why not?
As for looking into nurserys then ring around, find out off parents who use them, and you can browse Ofsted reports online. Any good Nursery will encourage you to pop in. It's daunting leaving your child with the unknown, so it's best to be thorough. Ask to see the policies. Ask what the qualifications are the staff hold, the Manager will have a level 3 or above, Supervisors should have a 3 or above, assistants, level 2 and 3.
Hope this helps.
Saying this though it could be different for each of the local LEA's and counties etc. I can only go off what I know for the North/South Tyneside area. I wasn't having a go at the teaching staff as you quote you have the qualifications for the early years and Playwork diploma (Does this include the EYFS Shelly? Not to clued up on this side of things) and there is no way in which I could fault the nursery staff from when my son went to nursery, in fact they were exemplary.
My mother also had to do these under the new Ofsted rules and regs to level 3 and then they all had to do the the child wellbeing and wellfare in child abuse (in order to spot child abuse from parents so at the sign of anything out of place they are to act on it), they have to complete all three levels of the NCMA with level 4 being compulsory I do believe (information can be found here http://www.ncma.org.uk/ ) and then the EYFS. On top of this and the ones that didn't or refused to do it were told they would have their registrations stripped and they would be removed off the local lists of childcare.
In fact I agree with this as it shows the one's dedicated to providing the best care and education progression every child should have at their pre-school lives and continuing right through till the child leaves the childminder. There have been times where my mother has sat down and done the spelling tests and reading with the kids that have just started school among all other aspects of work that the child might be stuck with. It amazes me at times that childminders do all this for £3.50 an hour.
As Shelly has said, its always wise to actually have copies of the registraion, qualifications and from memory the Ofsted reports also require childminders to keep a personal diary of every child they look after to outline what they have done with the child and the day to day activities with the child as to which you should be shown this on a weekly basis. The easiest way to find this out is to go to the Ofsted site, ask your childminder for her reference number and you can then search for the Ofsted report that links to her inspection if you have any doubts (you can find these here: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_prov...9/Childminders and then look for your county/area)
As for how many children a childminder can look after within certain age groups these are based on the inspection itself at registration as to the suitability of the childminder and the size of their home etc. So you may find some childminders can look after more or less than another. This is based on their ability but more the accommodation and to stop over crowding etc. Although from the numbers you state, I would highly suspect that she might be over her numbers, you can also check this on the Ofsted report as it will state how many children of certain age groups she can look after)
At the end of the day both nurseries and childminders offer services to parents that more than match their needs. The only problem is as Shelly has said is those that might be playing the system, this is why checking all credentials and qualifications is a must and ask to see them whilst you are visiting a childminder or a nursery (they should have it all ready just to pull out and show you and should sit down and explain it all to you.
This is what should be in place at any nursery, double check this and ask what the case is if there are staff absences etc. There are always cases of places stretched beyond what they can handle but as Shelly said, you will know if the nursery or the childminder is the right choice as once you have gone through everything, discussed your needs and in the case of nurseries add to this the staff level (the more the better) you should see your child flourishShelly:
As what the child to staff ratio is ( it's 1-3 for children up to 2 yrs. 1-4 for 2 yr olds, and children aged 3 and above 1-8. Look for high staff ratio in any setting
I will pop back to the thread later as I am on my lunch break and need to get back to work
shelley bda (11-01-2010)
There is ill and then there is "ill" ie. I dont want to wipe a runny nose and there is something on TV I wan't to watch so I'll palm the only kid I have off during the day back to he parents while charging to do so.As for charging you when your little one poorly, i'm afraid that's very often the norm
None of the times angeleye has been called to take a day of work has the little on had a temperature or repeated diahoreea , which is the definition as far as I can see it. She might have been a needy little so-and-so , but that's what I pay her for!
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Any sign of illness then a childminder or nursery will say to keep the child off for 48 hours. It's not in the case of they can't be bothered to wipe a nose, its more the fact of infecting the other children. We aren't talking sniffles here but sickness, mumps, chicken pox etc etc common sense really
shelley bda (11-01-2010)
Thank you Grey M@a. I thought that's what you meant, just making sure lol
Moby, can't comment on their definition of "ill" you may well be right, again you need to see the sickness policy, it's finding a balance, knowing the children you look after and using common sense to make informed decisions about when to contact the parents. Grey M@a is right, a lot of places, us included have 48 hour exclusion policy, if a child is infectious, but again its going back to common sense and knowing the children you care for ( lol we child carers like our policies we know, but they are there to safegaurd you and us )
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