Registered Childminding

Childminding Start-Up Grants

Tamsin — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:34:17 +0000

Childminding business start up grants are designed to help childminders get their business up and running by helping with the costs of registration and essential equipment. The amount of grant and the eligibility criteria varies between area, and in some areas there is no grant available at all.

Who is eligible for a grant?

Grants are more likely to be available in areas where there is a shortage of childcare provision and/or areas of deprivation. These areas may be defined by the grant criteria or you may be asked to provide evidence of a shortage of places in your area as part of your application.

Grants are aimed at new childminders so in most cases you can not apply for a grant if you have already completed your registration or have previous been registered as a childminder and received a grant.

How much is a startup grant?

The level of grant varies widely between areas, it may be as much as £500 but in most cases it is £100-200. In some areas no grant is available.

What can you use the grant towards?

Depending on the grant’s criteria you may need to use the money for a specific purpose such as safety equipment or membership of a professional body, or you may be free to use the grant for any general start up costs such as toys and equipment, training, reference books or business supplies.

You may need to specify what you plan to spend the grant on when you apply and in most cases you will be required to provide receipts showing what you have spent the grant on. It is important you check carefully what is permitted when you apply so you do not have to return money.

When will I receive the money?

In general you apply for the grant as part of the registration process and you will be paid the grant after you successfully pass the registration requirements. In some cases you may be asked to provide receipts in advance and the grant will be used to reimburse you.

If you stop childminding within a set period of receiving the grant (usually six months or one year) you may be asked to repay the money you received.

Where can I get more information?

You should be given information on available grants when you attend a pre-registration information session. You can also ask your local authority or local childminding association what grants are available in your area.

Where else can I get Funding for Starting a Childminding Business?

Childminding start up grants are specifically created to encourage more childminders to set up businesses, but there may be other more general business start up grants available in your area. To find out more try contacting the body for business start ups/business advice in your area such as:

Business Gateway in Scotland
Business Link in England
Business Support Wales
Invest Northern Ireland

If you are on benefits there may be financial support to help you get back to work and start a childminding career. For more information speak to your local Job Centre.

Calculate Childminding Allowable Expenses (Household)

Tamsin — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:34:39 +0000

Before you calculate your profit (the money you have to pay tax on), you need to deduct your business expenses. Most expenses are simple to deduct, things you buy specifically for the children to use such as toys, childcare equipment and food are all allowable expenses. However some general household expenses such as water and electricity are more difficult to calculate because you use part of them for personal use as well as for your business.

To make claiming expenses easier, we’ve make a tool to do the calculations for you. Just enter your bill amount and the hours you work and it will calculate the amount that you can claim as an expense:

How Does it Calculate Expenses?

The tool uses the proportions set out in an agreement between the National Childminding Association and the HMRC, which states that childminders can deduct a set portion of their household expenses according to how many hours they work. This agreement covers heating, lighting, water, council tax and rent.

This table shows the portion of your bill you can claim as expenses if you work full time (40+ hours). If you are working part time (under 40 hours per week) then you can claim a proportion of what you would claim if you were working full time.

Expense	Percentage Allowed to Claim
Heating and Lighting	33%
Water Rates	10%
Council Tax	10%
Rent	10%

Calculating Expenses when Working Full Time

If you work 40 or more hours per week then to work out how much you may claim as expenses, simply divide each bill by one hundred and multiply by the percentage you are allowed to claim in the table above.

Calculating Expenses when Working Part Time

If you work part time you may only claim a proportionate amount to a childminder working full time (divide the bill by one hundred and multiply the percentage you can claim). Next, divide the answer by 40 (the number of hours for a full-time childminder) and hen multiply the answer by the number of hours you work to get the total.

The number of hours you work is the hours of the day you are working, e.g. 9am to 5pm is eight hours, not the total number of hours for each individual child.

Other Ways to Calculate Expenses

You don’t have to use the set proportions when calculating the childminding business expenses for your household bills. You can also work out your own calculations based on the proportion of your house you use for childminding and the number of hours you use them for. If you use a large portion of your house for childminding this may work out higher than the default percentages.

Food Hygiene & Safety Course

Tamsin — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:09:27 +0000

If you are providing food and drink for the children in your care then under the Food Hygiene Regulations 2006 you have an obligation to ensure you store and prepare food safely. One way to make sure your skills and knowledge in this area is up to date is to complete food safety training.

Qualification Levels

Food hygiene qualifications used to be divided up into foundation (sometimes called basic), intermediate and advanced. Childminders that took food safety training pre-2008 usually have a Basic/Foundation Food Hygiene Certificate.

The revised qualification is called an ‘Award in Food Safety’ and is divided up into Levels 1-4, with level 2 being equivalent to the old Basic Food Hygiene Certificate. There are three versions of the qualification at each level: catering, retail and manufacturing. For childminders the most appropriate qualifications would be a Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering.

Course Contents

The Level 2 Food Safety syllabus varies slightly between providers, but courses all generally cover the following areas:

Introduction to Food Safety
Microbiological Hazards
Food Poisoning and its Prevention
Preventing Contamination
Hazard Analysis e.g. HACCP
Personal Hygiene
Food Premises and Equipment
Pest Control
Cleaning and Disinfection
Legislation

Format, Assessment & Cost

The the Level 2 course is usually taken over a single day, with a minimum of six hours study. At the end of the course there is a short multiple choice examination, in which you need to score 75% to pass.

The course is also available for independent study online, again with a short exam at the end. If you choose this option, check carefully that the course you take is properly accredited, see below.

Expect to pay between £30-50 for completing the course depending on the format and who is offering it.

Awarding Bodies

Food safety courses are widely available and most local colleges offer them as well as private companies. There are several organisations accredited by OFQUAL as awarding bodies for food safety courses, these include:

Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH)
Highfield Awarding Body for Compliance (HABC)
Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH)
City & Guilds

For your training to be formally recognised the course must be accredited by one of these organisations. Courses are often rebranded by the companies offering them, but they should state which awarding body it is accredited by, and it is the awarding body that will mark the exam.

Refresher Courses

Short refresher courses are available, for childminders this would be the Level 2 Award in Food Safety (Refresher). There is currently no obligation for childminders to take a refresher course, as long as they have the knowledge necessary to meet the legal requirements. However this is useful if you want to brush up your skills.

Food Hygiene Regulations 2006

Tamsin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:45:14 +0000

In 2006 the following legislation came into effect:

Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006
Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations 2006
Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006
Food Hygiene (Ireland) Regulations 2006

This legislation consolidates and simplifies previous food hygiene legislation, refocusing the responsibility on food business operators to produce food safely. It states that controls (the methods you use to ensure food safety is maintained) should be effective and proportionate, but it is up to you to decide exactly what methods are most effective for your setting. This means that as a childminder you will not be expected to implement the same procedures as a restaurant or food packaging plant as long as you achieve the same outcome – food safe for human consumption. In this context, food means all types of foods and drinks.

Most of the requirements set out in the legislation are practices that you should already be following as a registered childminder to meet the requirements of the EYFS and you regulatory body.

Identifying and Controlling Food Hazards

Under the Food Hygiene Regulations, you need to:

make sure food is supplied or sold in a hygienic way;
identify food safety hazards;
know which steps in your activities are critical for food safety;
ensure safety controls are in place, maintained and reviewed.

The way in which you achieve these are left up to the individual setting. As a childminder this could include doing a risk assessment to identify possible issues and appropriate solutions, researching food hygiene advice from the Food Standards Agency, and writing a policy outlining your food safety procedures which you reviews at regular intervals.

Basic Hygiene Requirements

The new regulations move the focus of food hygiene away from following a set list of rules and instead put the emphasis on you identifying potential issues and putting measures in place that are appropriate for our setting. This means that you won’t be expected to apply rules that are inappropriate for a domestic kitchen such as fitting floor drains or separate fridges for cooked and uncooked food.

Basic Requirements for Premises

Your ‘food premises’ should:

be clean and maintained in good repair;
be designed and constructed to permit good hygiene practices;
have an adequate supply of potable (drinking) water;
have suitable controls in place to protect against pests;
have adequate natural and/or artificial lighting;
have sufficient natural and/or mechanical ventilation;
provide clean lavatories which do not lead directly into food rooms;
have adequate hand-washing facilities;
be provided with adequate drainage.
have surface finishes which are easy to clean and, where necessary, disinfect
adequate facilities for washing food and equipment;
adequate facilities for the storage and removal of food waste.

Again, as a childminder you should already meet most of these requirements as you have to meet similar ones as part of your childminding inspections.

The main effect of the act for Childminders is the requirement for all food businesses to register with the ‘competent authority’, for childminders this would be their local authority.

Registering as a Food Business

Not all childminders will count as a ‘food business’. Please check with your local authority but in general you do not need to register if the only food related service you provide is:

Mains drinking water
Crockery and cutlery for use by children to eat packed lunches supplied by parents
Chilled storage for packed lunches that belong to the children
Occasional help with cutting up children’s own food in response to individual need rather than as an established service
Occasional food outside your normal service (e.g. a birthday cake or a snack because a parent/guardian has been delayed).

If you provide more food related services than these basics, such as supplying meals, snacks and drink then you need to register as a ‘Food Business Operator’. Registration is completely free and is handled by local authorities. You’ll need to fill in a registration for and in some areas you will also receive a visit from a Food Safety Officer. The visit will be pre-booked, not unannounced, and the officer will just be looking for general good hygiene and may check things like your fridge temperature.

Food Safety/Hygiene Certificate

There is no obligation for childminders to complete formal training however if you are uncertain about food hygiene procedures it is a good way to brush up your skills. You may also find it useful as part of your professional development and to help you learn how to meet the EYFS framework. If you decide to take a course, the most appropriate one for childminders is the Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering.

Writing Policies and Procedures

Tamsin — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:28:37 +0000

Writing a policy means putting down on paper how you run your setting day to day, and what you would do if several specific events occurred. Having this information in writing helps you to demonstrate that your setting meets legal guidelines, an important factor in getting a good Ofsted grading. Writing your policies will also help you plan for emergencies when you don’t have time to work out what the correct procedure is from scratch. This means it is important that your policies are easy to understand; they don’t need to be legal sounding documents. Simple and clear explanations are easier to write and easier for parents and other professionals to understand. In this article, I’ll break down writing a policy into individual steps to help you understand the process you need to follow. You can then apply to any policy you need to write.

Step 1: Research

It helps to read around the topic you are writing a policy on to give you ideas of things you need to cover. Many policy topics, such as Safeguarding, Disease Exclusion and Safety, need to reflect the rules all childminders must follow which are set out in the EYFS and other legislation. Reviewing these compulsory rules is a good place to start, and then you can add any rules specific to your own setting to build on these. Places you could obtain information include:

Government Legislation
Regulator Guidelines
Childminding Associations
Network Coordinator
Advice Charities
Experts e.g. Doctors, Health Visitors, Police, Fireman

You may also find it helpful to ask other childminders about their policies so you can see what information they have included. Try to only use these documents as a reference rather than copying the whole policy so your final policy is tailored to your setting.

Step 2: Topic List

Whilst you’re researching your policy subject make a list of the topics you need to cover to incorporate all the rules and guidelines you have found during your research. This could be a simple bullet list that you can refer to when you review your policy to double check you have everything covered. For example, for you equal opportunities policy your topics might include:

Obligation to provide equal opportunity
What equal opportunities is and why it is important in your setting
Promoting equal opportunities
Discrimination

Step 3: Write Your Policy Statements

For each item on your list of topics write a sentence or two explaining what your goals, aims and/or rules are for your setting. Some of these will be the rules that apply to all settings and some with be specific to your setting. Here are some examples for a Health & Safety policy:

Inspection

My aim/goal: I am subject to regular inspections by Ofsted and I will maintain the high standards they require between visits.

Risk Assessment

My aim/goal: Your child’s safety is of the up most importance, and I will take all reasonable precautions to minimise potential risks.

Healthy Eating

My aim/goal: The meals I provide are home cooked, nutritiously balanced, and will take into account individual children’s preferences and cultural or dietary requirements.

If you’re having trouble starting, try finishing off these sentences…

I will ensure that…

My goal is to…

It is important that…

Step 4: Write Procedures

Procedures explain how you will implement your policy. In other words, the practical steps you will take to help you meet the rules and aims you identified in your policy. To write your procedures, try to imagine yourself in the situation in your policy and then write down what you would do. For example, if you’ve stated in your policy that you’re going to accommodate children’s dietary requirements, then imagine you’ve accepted a child with an allergy or that requires a specific diet for cultural or medical reason. What things would you do to ensure their needs are met? Perhaps you:

Ask about allergies and food preferences on your child record form
Work with parents to identify suitable substitute ingredients
Ensure you have current first aid training on how to deal with anaphylactic shock

You need to balance the amount of information you include in your procedures so you have enough to be useful without so much that you have pages and pages of text. So, you may include the fact you record written information about children’s dietary needs and preferences but you don’t need to list out everything you record – this could easily be found by checking your record forms. Your policies do not need to cover every eventuality; they should be an overview of what you would do.

Step 5: Checking Your Policy

Once you have finished writing your policies, ask parents to read them and comment on how well they understood them and whether there is anything you may have missed. You could also ask other childminders or people in the appropriate field for the policy you are writing. For example, a Fire Safety Officer may be able to give you advice on your fire safety policy.

You will need to review your policies and procedures regularly to take into account new legislation, developments in knowledge and your experiences.

More Policy Writing Tips

Here are a few more tips to help you write policies:

Use simple language rather than attempting to make them sound like a legal document. Try using bullet points, short sentences, flow charts, diagrams or pictures to make your point clearer. For example, your fire escape plan could include a diagram of your premises with the exits marked.

Include a date on your policies and remember to keep copies of old policies when you update them. This is important in case you receive a complaint or there is an incident you need to account for, so you can reference the policy document that was current at the time.

Try reading our childminding book for topic lists and examples of many common policies.

Understanding & Supporting Multilingual Children’s Language Acquisition

Tunja — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:50:28 +0000

This article explains some of the theories behind the way children acquire second and subsequent languages and how you can support them.

Children developing a second language follow a recognisable pattern which is very similar to children developing their first language.

Process of Language Acquisition

Children initially use their home language in context. As they become more confident in the childminding setting, they will begin to use non-verbal communication.
Non-verbal communication includes eye contact, facial expressions, gestures and tugging of sleeves. You will need to understand the implied meaning, as you would with any child not yet communicating vocally, and to comply with requests putting them into simple words as you do so.
This is followed by a period where children do not talk as much in their home language. They are absorbing new language and gaining comprehension, and will understand more English words than they use. This period can be shortened helping to maintain a child’s self confidence. Help children feel settled by introducing them into small groups to help establish friendships and by encouraging other children to include them, preventing isolation from opportunities for English acquisition. No pressure should be made for them to speak English and opportunities to use their home language provided. Continue to hold conversations in English with the child even when they do not respond aloud. You need to be sensitive to non-verbal feedback such as questioning looks and nodding.
This period is followed by children using repetition and language play for example, repeating words they have heard and the use of single words and set phrases. The fixed phrases from routines and patterns, such as share and my turn, serve as a short cut allowing social interactions with minimal linguistic competence. Deliberately providing more directions and organisational phrases for example, signalling the start or finish of particular activities gives children more ‘stock phrases’ they can use. Single words and useful stock phrases include greetings, invitations to play, share and take turns. These stock phrases are easily remembered as they are often repeated and are always in context. Books, songs and rhymes are other examples where stock phrases can be repeated and become interactive.
During subsequent language development some children may use ‘bridge building’ strategies to move from speaking their first language to English. This may include using English with the grammatical pattern of the first language (Whitehead 1997). Within the use of more complex English children also experiment with grammar making similar mistakes to children learning to talk, for example “ maybe I’m playing now” when asking to join in. It is important not to correct pronunciation or grammar but to model the correct sentence construction, extending and remodelling, as for first language development, while encouraging the child to continue with the conversation allowing the development of more complex English.

Supporting Language Acquisition of Emergent Bilingual Children

It is important to learn as much as you can about a child’s home language and cultures so you can support their language development. Strong foundations in their home language provide a good foundation for learning a second language (Clarke 1992). According to Blatchford (2005) bilingualism is an asset and not just until the child speaks English, efforts should be made to continue the use of a child’s home language. To support language acquisition you will also need the ability of deduction to ensure topics and artefacts are familiar to children and empathy so you can understand and interpret implied meanings and extend vocalisations without criticism, and an air of dramatics to ensure through gesture, expression and props that give meaning to English.

Just as monolingual children, bilingual children need a rich active experience of oral language in concrete situations. Children with English as an additional language need language that is meaningful and based on their experiences, visually supported or demonstrated where possible together with predictable routines and behaviour expectations. Language is acquired through active use rather than just being exposed to it. This occurs naturally through play as children repeat words and phrases heard, to attract attention and interact and can be enhanced by positive responses and encouragement at attempts to communicate in English. Children’s understanding can be enhanced by non verbal cues such as gestures and visual aids. These visual and contextual clues enable children to interact.

In a setting where the predominant language is English and bilingual children are the exception rather than the rule it is particularly important that practitioners ensure children feel accepted and help them to establish friendships. Introduction to other children through small group activities and support to help them to interact with others can be offered to ease transition into the setting. Practitioners need to have sourced a language friendly multicultural environment and ensured children have the opportunity to settle in, feel safe and secure, relaxed and stress free then they are more likely to acquire language. As bilingualism is an asset and not only until children learn English (Blatchford 2005) practitioners need to be resourceful in maintaining and supporting a child’s home language. Practitioners should be positive about languages children use. Children should be encouraged to play, talk and sing with other children sharing their language even where we do not understand what they say.

Liaise with parents, family and the wider community, for help with language and resources such as dressing up clothes and household artefacts. Sensitivity may be needed if approaching adults from different communities for help with reading and writing in their home language. They may not be literate in this language and not all community languages have a written script. Inviting children’s families into the setting to share daily experiences brings children’s cultural lives and languages into the setting, helps combat racism, and makes children feel valued.

Curriculum Planning

As with planning the curriculum for all children, the child needs to be interested in the topic and curriculum tasks matched to language competences. New language should be offered in familiar concepts and not abstract in form. Attempting to achieve the child’s understanding of contexts requires empathy with a child’s cultural background and not a stereotypical assumption about a child’s cultural experiences. Knowing about their previous experiences, their understanding of the concept and their previous knowledge makes it easier to provide meaningful contexts for language. Target words can also be found in the child’s first language for example, mathematical words. Connecting unfamiliar with familiar contexts can be used to extend children’s present knowledge and understanding.

A wide range of strategies can be used to help children tune into the sounds and patterns of English and encourage language development. Encouraging children’s use of their home language through the reading and telling of stories, particularly those with repetitive phrases; rhymes and songs and using the same songs and stories in English can help with listening skills and the development of English patterns and ‘stock phrases’. Repetitive rhymes such as counting songs help develop oracy as they contain structured repetitive patterns and can be easily illustrated with props. Games with set responses like my turn and up the ladder are also particularly helpful at this stage of English development. Expanding and modelling conversations and developing them about activities, for example when using appropriate small world figures and artefacts can be used to extend and encourage language development.

When sharing stories they can be dramatized with gestures, pictures, props and facial expressions to convey meanings and embed contexts a child can relate to, story sacks can be helpful here. Bilingual children’s oracy and literacy development could then be extended by providing opportunities for children to retell stories, practice stock phrases learnt and to play with words they remember from the stories encouraged by the provision of puppets and artefacts associated with familiar stories. Role play areas can be transformed into settings for favourite stories. Visits to distinctive language communities of the children present will enrich their role play suggesting new settings and scenarios. In fact all the practices used for encouraging monolingual children to develop their language and increase their vocabulary.

Bibliography

Clarke, P. (1992) English as a Second Language in Early Childhood. Melbourne, Victoria. Victoria Free Kindergarten Assoc.

Dulay, H., Burt, M. & Krashen, S. (1982) Language Two. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Siraj – Blatchford, I. & Clarke, P. (2005) Supporting Identity, Diversity and Language in the Early Years. Maidenhead, Open University Press.

Whitehead, M. (1997) Language and Literacy in the Early Years. London, Paul Chapmen Publishing.

Including Multilingual Children in Your Setting

Tunja — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:54:03 +0000

The idea of having a child in your childminding setting who does not speak English, or your own home language, may seem daunting. However, supporting a child’s home language, even when you cannot speak it yourself, is not as impossible as it sounds. With a little extra care, bilingual and multilingual children can be accommodated and thrive in what was a monolingual childminding setting and their inclusion has many positive benefits to all children involved.

One of the most important things is for you to maintain a balance between helping children to acquire new language skills and supporting their home language. It is essential that children who are immersed into alternative speaking settings have help and feel able to use their home language. Children need to feel their language and culture is welcomed, valued and respected by having it acknowledged and visibly supported. Childminders should be careful not to provide transitional bilingual education that shifts the child from speaking their home language to the dominant majority language e.g. English but to maintain and enhance children’s first language. In order to achieve this, the whole environment of your setting should reflect a multicultural and multilingual approach.

Settling In Period

When you are discussing a placement with prospective parents you will be able to find out more information about a child’s home language and experience with other languages. Children may be initially shy and rely on their first language or be able to understand more words than they can speak. Discussing what words a child can speak or understand will help you build a more accurate picture of their current language skills.

It may also help to find out why parents have chosen a setting with a different language. Some parents may deliberately choose a setting to help their child acquire an additional language; others may have been forced into their decision by a lack of alternative childcare facilities. The reason for their choice may influence how they feel about the setting and language support. If they are hoping a child will develop new language skills you may need to discuss why you want to incorporate their home language too.

A settling in period where the child attends with a parents or other family member that can act as a translator will be particularly important. During these you and other children present can learn and use key words and phrases such as greetings, toilet, yes, no, mummy, daddy, drink and eat. They also allow the child to learn your daily routines such as preparing for a school run or a meal. Having predictable routines and behaviour expectations will help children to settle more easily. These could be enhanced by the use of photographic representations of the timetable and expected behaviour. These photographs are examples of the visual and contextual clues which enable children to interact. Other examples include conceptualising environmental print by the addition of photographs, for example, for the contents of boxes.

While a child is settling in, it can be beneficial to introduce the child to another child through an activity they can share as this will be less intimidating than being immersed in the larger group and expected to interact.

Children will need support as they learn and make sense of new cultural values and behaviours. A positive attitude from both you and the other children present lead to more success in becoming bilingual. Incorporating their home language is essential to their self esteem and to help them settle quickly into your setting.

Multilingual Environment & Resources

To create a multilingual environment you need to provide multi cultural events and resources and real life experiences and activity’s children can make sense of and identify with. In a monolingual childminding setting providing opportunities to communicate with adults, parents, peers, older children and others from the community who speak their home language and encouraging children’s use of the home language are also important.

When you are planning try to use familiar topics, songs, stories, rhymes and artefacts. Suitable artefacts might include dressing up clothes reflecting child’s own culture, cooking implements, tableware, calendars, pictures, leaflets, newspapers. It can be helpful to provide activities which demonstrate the purpose and function of items for example, using a Wok and chopsticks for stir frying. This allows children the opportunity to see their own culture reflected and other children have the opportunity to learn about different cultures in context. Experiment with role play with structured areas to represent home experiences to encourage interaction and engagement. Literacy materials can also be provided so children can use print in a relevant and purposeful manner, e.g. recipe books, menus and magazines.

Where possible use some songs, stories and rhymes in children’s home language. Stories from their own culture help children with their emotional security. Older more confident bilingual children, parents and family members can help support you and the children by helping to teach songs, dances, stories of other cultures, rhymes and legends in both English and the cultural language of the story. Share these activities with the whole group and not just those speaking the language. Props, gestures and facial expressions can be used to help their understanding.

The books and toys you provide should reflect the diversity of society in positive ways and representing language in addition to English particularly children’s home languages. Duel language books and story and song CD’s are available to borrow from libraries, or parents may have some to share. Other appropriate books include those depicting stories and people from other cultures, legends and folk tales from children’s home culture.

Books for bilingual children beginning to read need to be chosen with illustrations that match the text and of concepts children are familiar with. Abstract concepts may be more difficult to grasp. Abstract phonics in a foreign tongue may be more difficult for bilingual children to achieve.

Graphic or mark making activities should contain all the usual provisions used for monolingual children, with additional alphabet books and picture dictionaries in the emergent bilingual child’s first language. Examples of scripts familiar to all the children should be provided and early attempts at mark making encouraged and discussed. Adults could be invited to model writing and could include family and community members.

Parents, older siblings and family members are the most valuable source of multilingual tutors, artefacts, songs stories and recipes. They will be able to tell you what resources are relevant to them, never assume that just because a child identifies with a particular culture they will follow all the practices, for example just because a child is Chinese, does not necessarily mean at home they eat with chop sticks. Including parents and families informs childminders about home and community-based languages and experiences and the literacy experiences of the children and their parent’s expectations.

When Parents Arrive Late to Collect Children

Tamsin — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:44:30 +0000

Sooner or later every childminder will experience a parent arriving late to collect their child. Most of the time this is a one off incident such as a car break down or traffic jam, however a few parents are serial offenders and regularly collect their children ten minutes late, some even later. For a childminder this means a delay in after work jobs like tidying up or filling in paperwork and also cuts into their own plans for the evening and family time. It can also be distressing for children, particularly if they are the last one left and have waited whilst all the other children have been collected.

If you notice a pattern of late collections you need to address it as soon as possible. Ignoring the issue will make it harder for you to bring up later, make you frustrated and may give parents the impression that you don’t have a problem with them collecting their child late.

Your first step should be talking to the parents – don’t forget a successful conversation involves listening too! Find out if there is a reason for them being late; it is not necessarily deliberate. Parents may have misjudged the time in which it takes them to get to your home after work or their work patterns may have changed since they agreed the contract. In this case, one solution would be to review the contract and include the later pick up time, which at least means you are getting paid for the extra time.

It’s important that you make it clear that continually picking up their child late is not acceptable and the issue needs to be resolved. If you have not said anything they might not realise that their being late is causing you a problem. When talking to parents, be assertive and use ‘I’ messages to explain the behaviour you have a problem with and the effect it has on you. For example, “When you are late, I get frustrated as I can’t get on with the jobs I need to do and cooking a meal for my family.” You can follow this with suggesting a solution or arranging a convenient time to discuss the problem further. For example, “Would it help if we discussed changing the contract so you collect the children later?” It can also help to explain the effect their behaviour has on their child, that they worry when the parent is late, or are tired and would like to go home.

If there is no particular reason for the lateness then charging an overtime fee can help dissuade parents from being late and taking advantage of your services. Realising they will have to pay for the extra period their child is attending is often a strong incentive for parents to arrive on time. An overtime rate is often higher than usual hourly rates and charged for every fifteen or twenty minutes they are late. If you intending to charge an overtime rate you need to notify parents in advance, for example by including the details in your contract and policies. For existing parents you could add this in when contracts are renewed or with notice in writing that the policy will come into effect from a certain date.

Dropping off Children Late

In some cases arriving late to drop off a child can be as much of an issue as collecting a child late. If you need to leave at a certain time for a school run or to catch a bus for a planned outing then not knowing when a child is going to arrive can make planning very difficult. Again the first step is to talk to the parents. They may not realise that you find it a problem: they may think they are paying you for that time anyway, why should it bother you what time they actually come?

Explain to them why you need them to arrive on time, and the effect it has when they are late. If they continue to bring the child late and you need to be at school or playgroup at a certain time, suggest they meet you there to drop the child, that way you will not be late with other children’s commitments. You should also point out that you have to leave by a certain time and if they are not there they will have to wait until you return. This may encourage them to make an extra effort.

Some parents may have flexible working hours and have arranged to pay from a certain time so they can bring their child earlier some days than others. Hopefully, this will have been discussed when the contract was agreed. In this case you could arrange for a phone call in the morning to give you a rough idea of what time they will arrive that day or provide a weekly list of any scheduled activities so they know when arriving later will affect your plans.

What Childminding Policies do you really Need?

Tunja — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:52:38 +0000

Childminding policies and procedures set out how you run your childcare service. They are useful because they encourage you to think in advance about how you will deal with specific situations that you might encounter including emergencies, so when they do occur you can deal with them more effectively. Written policies can also be shared with parents and other professionals to explain clearly how you run your setting.

Required Policies

The table below indicates policies that are either specifically required by legislation/standards or, whilst not explicitly required, a practical way of meeting a required standard.

Required Policies	England	Scotland	Wales	N. Ireland	S. Ireland
Safe Guarding Children / Child Protection Policy
Complaints Procedures
Confidentiality
Emergency Procedures
Accident Procedures
Health & Safety / Risk Assessment
Medicines, Sickness & Exclusion
Fire Procedures
Parents Failing to Collect
Lost Child Procedure
Behaviour Management/Sanctions
Equal Opportunities Policy
Working in Partnership with Parents

Although not all policies are compulsory in every area, you may still find these core policies particularly useful to explain to parents what to expect from your service.

Other useful policies include:

Meals and Nutrition Policy
Anti Bullying Policy
Special Needs Policy
Payment & Fees
Fire Safety Policy
Daily Routines
Settling Children In
Provision of Basic Play and other Activities

You do not have to have a full policy document for every individual policy. You may combine several into one document or even have one document with a short paragraph about each situation.

It can be easy to get carried away and write unnecessary policies cover every possible situation. This creates extra paperwork for you and can be very daunting for parents to read. If you find yourself writing lots of policies that could easily be replaced with the statement ‘I will use common sense’ stop and think whether what you are writing will actually be useful to you or parents.

Childminding Retainer Fees & Deposits

Tamsin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:24:23 +0000

Deposits and retainer fees are charged at the start of childminding contracts to reserve places. They help ensure that a parent is committed to using the place that they have reserved and that you are not left out of pocket by keeping a vacancy open only find the parent has changed their mind about using your childminding service.

Deposits

A deposit is a one off down-payment on future fees and is usually paid when the contract is signed. It’s useful when there is a delay between signing the contract and the first normal payment being due, this might be because there is a gap before the child starts attending or you ask for payment in arrears. Paying a sum of money upfront helps to demonstrate a parent is committed to taking up the place and not a time waster.

There is no set amount for a deposit but it is usually related to the amount a parent would usually pay. For example, it could be the first week’s payment or 50% of the first month’s payment. Some childminders like to ask for the amount that would cover the notice period of the contract.

A deposit is an advance on future fees so once the child starts attending the deposit is usually deducted from the first payment that is due. However, you can also keep the deposit and use it against the last payment due when a child leaves or return it as a lump sum at the end of a contract. If you ask for payment in areas then holding the deposit to the end of the contract helps prevent a parent leaving without paying the last months fees. Whichever you choose, you’ll need to set out the terms you decide in the contract.

If parents change their mind about taking up a place after they have paid the deposit, you would normally keep the deposit (again you should explain this in the contract terms). However, if you are unable to take the child you must return the deposit.

Retainer Fee

A retainer fee is a reduced fee which is paid when there is a delay between booking a childminding place and a child starting. If you have a current vacancy and a parent wants you to reserve the place for their child but doesn’t want to start straight away, it may mean turning down other parents that could have started straight away. Sometimes parents may want places reserved for several months and that could mean a significant loss of income for you. A retainer fee acts as compensation for the reduction of earnings you will experience by not filling the vacancy immediately. It is usually a proportion (often 50%) of the normal fee that will apply when the child starts to attend and is paid on the same basis (e.g. monthly/weekly) as the future service will be provided.

Whilst you are being paid the retainer, you should not fill the slot the child would usually attend. If the parents need occasional childcare during the retained period you should have the space to provide it (the full childminding fees would apply for the hours they attend). If you take on a short term placement for another child during a retained period you should not continue to charge a retainer fee as the place would not be available; instead a deposit would be more appropriate.

You should have a contract to cover the retained period which sets out the fees, notice period (in case a parent decides they no longer want the space) and any conditions. A retainer fee is not a credit against future fees. If the retained place is not taken up by the parent, the retainer fees are not refundable. This should be explained in the contract.

You can also use retainer fees if a there is a break in a child’s attendance, for example the parents do not require childcare in school holidays. Charging a reduced fee helps to prevent big dips in income that you would not experience with a child that attended all year around. As with a retainer used to reserve a place, you can only charge a school holiday retainer fee if you are available to provide care but the parent does not use your services. If you are on holiday or you take on a temporary child that fills the place then a retainer fee is not applicable.

Note: It is good practice not to take retainer fees or deposits for babies until after they are born.