Term time only retainer?

Helliepac, if you are paying her she should be available to look after your DC! If she has no space then what are you paying the retainer for? That is cheeky.

Well, she probably would look after her on the odd day if I wanted her to. I get 12 weeks holiday as a teacher and I think I have a great deal really to get away with such a small retainer.

bamboo, you pay a third to a cm who doesn't want to look after your child at that time? It's wrong.

helliepac, that is outrageous

How many self employed people are paid for holidays?

I am obviously lucky then as I pay my cm a third as a retainer but I think that suits her too. She doesn't really want my dd in the holidays, she wants to be out and about with her older dc and going to her place in France etc.

It's normal practice to charge half fees for holidays.
I had a parent who refused to, and took the chance that I'd still have a place In Sept.
They finished with me in the July, and rang me the day before school started in the sept asking if I had a place.
I may be wrong, but I took great pleasure in stating I was full.
Both parents were teachers, and had spent 4 weeks of the holiday in USA, and also took delivery of a brand new car on Sept 1st.
While I appreciate parents can choose how they spend their money, I find it's a shame their childs welfare wasn't as high on their list.
They ended up with a cm who lived 11 miles away who didn't last long.
Mum still asks me for a place, but Im full with a waiting list.

I am a teacher so therefore only require term time only. I pay half fees over the holidays which seems fair enough to me. It does sometimes rankle me a bit though when I ask CM to have DC's over holidays for half a day or something and she hasn't got spaces as I thought that was I was paying the retainer..to keep the place open. Never say anything though because other than that I love her

Yes it's normal.

I would charge a retainer if they wanted a guaranteed place held for them - it's the PLACE that's being paid for rather than the hours used.

Please find another CM though as you've already in your mind tarred this lady as "greedy".

It'll never work.

I paid full fees all year round, would have been over the moon to have had a CM who only charged half in the hols.

All childminders offer what suits them so shop around, personally I offer term time only contracts and don't charge a retainer but I am slightly more expensive than other minders around here. How much an hour was the minder charging as it may be worthwhile offering her a higher rate per hour and not charge a retainer. It would be more worthwhile for her also as it would free up a holiday space.

Standard practice here (South london) and what i charge. As others have said,you should be able to make use of your CM during summer hols (on payment of other 50% of days fees) which considering your childs age would be a good idea to prevent them forgetting her!

I pay my CM when I am on holiday - only half the normal rate though. But as I see it, I get paid when I am on holiday so she should too.

The thought of having 8 dc to look after on my own scares me witless even though I have 4 of my own and had the younget 3 in 3 years. It was hard hard work!

It is normally 6 under 8 of which 3 maybe be in the Early Years age range (ie under 5) of which 1 maybe under 1

They can also have 2 or 3 (ish) over 8's

Nope usual ratio is 3 children under school age of which only one can be under 12 months old.

The total number of chidren allowed is 8 I think.

However if you feel she is being greedy then it isn't going to work as you're going to resent her T&C from day one.

school children don't count in ratios in the same way as pre-schoolers.

It's usually 3 under full time school and a further 3 (possibly more!) full time school upwards.

Well as an individual if I can earn for 48 weeks of the year why would I chose to earn for 39 of them?

The reality of that is though that they don't get an income from that child for 15 weeks of the year - that is a lot.

Yes they can choose which child to take on but unless there is a huge oversurplus on childminders in your area I can't see anyone being contracted to have a child and then only be paid for 35 weeks of the year?

Childminders still have overheads to pay and other expenses regardless of how many paying children they have, it's just not cost affective to only have 2 children a day rather than 3. I know more cm who don't have their own children under the age of 15 and therefore only have pre-school children all year around than those who have extra older children in the holidays.

I think it can really vary according to where you live.

You have staff. That's a differnet situation katymac. That's m ore like a nursery situation. I assumed we were talking about individual self-employed cms.

That's not what happens though, is it, cargirl.

In practice, the cm has a few children who are there for most of the holidays and are probably happy enough to have a couple fewer. If they were really unhappy with it, they don't have to take on any children of parents who don't work in the holidays. They make the decision about who they will mind and who they won't.

My service is available 50 weeks of the year if you choose not to send your child that is your decision

In my case I pay staff - they would be quite annoyed if I said 13 weeks of the year they can be paid less as I had less children

pointyhat would you turn up for work every day in the summer holidays, not actually do anything, not get paid, not be able to go and work anywhere else because they need you in September?

Being a childminder isn't exactly well paid if all you have is pre-schoolers?