Teachers, what do you do for childcare?

[Poetryinaction]

Hi,
I have 3 small dc (5, 3, 1) and teach part time. I recently moved and my son started school, so the old childcare arrangement had to change. I prefer childminders to nurseries, partly as they work out cheaper for me only paying term time and the hours we use. Also, I prefer the little ones to be in that environment. But ideally at age 2, on to preschool, with a childminder to pick up.
The problem is that my new childminder is unreliable. I need to find alternative childcare and am struggling for childminders.
So I am looking at nurseries now. But they are so expensive! Do other teachers use them? Although my childminder is not cheap, it works out at about 5 or 6k pa. A nursery would be 9k. Can I justify this hige difference? Do other part time teachers pay this? I have no family help. Thanks

Find a nursery that offer term time deals so you do not pay for holidays.

I’m part time and have no family help either.
We were using a childminder for my two, but now they are both at school, we are using the breakfast and after school clubs.
Cost has always been a big factor for us, so we’ve never gone down the nursery route.

Thanks both.

Childminder here. Cost per say is a lot more than my local nursery, I hope it works out cheaper but I would rather a childminder anyway 2bh.

I'm not a teacher, but I imagine teachers use the same childcare as everyone else. We stagger our days/work flexible hours so one of us can always do the school run (with some after school club days), so we pay no childcare for our primary school age dc (except during school holidays, then she goes to holiday club 3 days per week). Then we use a nursery for younger one, which goes 8:45-4:45. If we wanted it to be cheaper, we'd keep hours the same as one in school and collect him earlier, but it's easier to have him in there the extra 1-2 hours just in case one of us needs to run back to work or do something urgent in those after school hours. We pay about £750-800 per month for 40 hours a week (with tax free childcare).

Your 3 year old should surely be eligible for 30 free hours if you are working, plus tax free childcare on top of that, which if you are only part-time should mean paying nothing for nursery for that one. Youngest one you'll have to pay for, but it should be less than £9000 a year for part-time. I don't even pay that for full-time!

Make sure you are getting all the funded hours and tax free childcare you are eligible for, and also find a nursery that does flexibly hourly rates and term time only.