Childminder Advise

[D4D2]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone could give me some advise. My 2yr old daughter has been going to a childminder 1 day a week since March, we tried to nursery environment but it just wasn't the correct setting for her due to spending most of her life at home with a small number of people.

Our childminder sent us termination of contract late last night stating that she has felt challenged with every decision she has ever made.

This came to a complete surprise to myself and my wife as we have always had a open communication relationship with our daughters childminder.

Since starting with her in March 2021 we have had 5 sick days from our childminder, 1 day where her cat was ill, and another day where she gave us 2 weeks notice of a last minute holiday.

myself and my wife have only ever communicated that our daughter needs some consistency and we wouldn't always be able to swap around days as my wife will be returning to work early next year. All of this was well received from our childminder but yesterday when we messaged her stating that "our daughter has woken up slightly bunged up but fine in herself and we was still planning on sending her" we was faced with a response of "not to attend today" and later in the day given notice period of 1 month,

Myself and my wife now don't feel comfortable to send her for the last 4 weeks and don't feel that we should pay the following month when she is not going to attend. she has come back with a breach of contract even thought she is meant to give us 4 weeks notice for a holiday and we was given 2 weeks.

any advise would be much appreciated

you're complaining that the childminder only gave you 2 weeks notice of her holiday. I totally understand that would have been frustrating. Potentially you could have flagged that breach at the time but you didn't.

But now she's correctly given you 4 weeks notice of termination and you want to not pay, effectively giving 0 notice. So she's right to flag your breach of the contract. If you choose not to send your child that's your choice - but it's your choice.

Clearly it hasn't worked out - time to start looking for a new arrangement.

thank you for the response.

we was given 2 weeks notice of annual leave which we initially stated we couldn't do due to appointments, however the childminder still went and changed our daughters childcare date anyway.

My frustration is that the contract is set out by the childminder (or they work to a standard contract policy that is pre-written) and is signed by both parties agreeing to adhere to the terms. if the childminder is not adhering to the contract terms then surely the contract has been breached already.

If her giving two weeks notice for a holiday was a breach of contract then that should have been addressed at the time. 5 sick days is a lot of she only has her one day a week, the short notice holiday I wouldn’t have been happy with either - the thing is you’re only just voicing these things as grievances now so it’s a little too late. You have no argument for not paying your CM the four weeks notice.