If I become a childminder, can I work only term time?

[SaveMeASeat1]

Im currently an LSA in a school but I’m considering having another child. I thought childminding would be a good option as a job from when the baby is 1 until them getting their 30 hours childcare.

Ideally, I’d continue working only term time. The reason being, my husband is a soldier and we live far from family. It’s important to me to be able to spend that time focussed on our own children, especially since their dad is often away.

im just wondering, is offering term time only a service that people would want? Or would I be wasting my time going down that route?

Term time only could be fine.
I think a bigger problem might be that you're doing it so you can look after your one year old at home while earning money. I wouldn't mind a childminder looking after their own child too if they were 5+, but a 1 year old needs a lot of attention and you'd naturally prioritise them.
Only being in business for 2 years could be a big turn off for parents too. People want reliable childcare, they don't want to have to move their 3 year old to a new childminder or nursery.

As a working mum, I needed 48 weeks a year. Term time only would have been no use at all to me.

I image your potential customer base will be quite limited.

My mum did this for many years. It was always teachers children and she always filled her spaces. It worked well.

My mum did this when we were growing up, only ever had teachers children so it was term time only. They benefitted from not having to pay all year round fees like you would in nursery, and she also did before/after school care for some of our friends. It was all word of mouth, no advertising, we lived very close to 2 x schools so that made a difference too.

I was a term time only childminder for 8 years and always full with a waiting list.
Offering a degree of flexibility with covering TD days and offering to cover staff meetings seemed to keep me popular.

My childminder only works term time

Opening times aside, you don't seem like you really want to be a childminder. It's hard work, not just a side hustle so you can stay at home with you baby for a year or so.

My childminder is officially term time only, it’s fairly standard round here. She’s fully booked (we originally only managed to get a place for 1 day a week but then increased when she had more space) and not just children of teachers.

However, whilst she advertises as term time only in reality she does always end up offering some days in the holidays - not the full holiday but usually about half of it. Which we can work around as I’m part time and can pick when I work. I’m assuming the other families who use her can be similarly flexible.

I wouldn’t necessarily choose a childminder who also had their own baby to care for in the day though. Mine has two children who are there before/ after school which I’m fine with, but for the bulk of the day it’s just the three ‘mindees’ and I feel like that’s how it should be.

I have a term time only contract with my childminder (I work in a school), she does open some of the holidays but this isn’t in my contract with her.

In this situation you are competing with before and after school clubs, not nurseries /nannies. The reason I use her rather than school based wrap around is I needed to drop earlier than the school breakfast club was available - I can drop dc from 7:15am to the childminder whereas the school based club is 7:50am earliest drop off. Normal pick up time is before 6pm, I normally collect 4:30pm ish but I know she does sometimes offer later pick up on arrangement. (For a higher fee).

She offers a proper breakfast, and while I pick up before they do dinner, she does do a proper evening meal for those staying, not just a snack as school after school club offers, so it’s worth it for the parents who are working longer hours.

A friend was a childminder when her dc2 was little. She only did before school but again offered considerably earlier than the school breakfast club. Believe she made £50 a day, and was home by 9:10am, spent half an hour cleaning up from the mess then had the rest of the day with her preschooler until her school aged one finished school. She did her it though so went back to an office based job once both kids were in school!

if you live in an area without enough places in the school based wrap around, or parents who need to commute early, then it might be worth it.

If you live on the Pad, most of your custo.ers will be other soldiers who will need year round care. I was a CM on a Military base and all my children had parents who were both serving. A term time CM woukd have been no good for them.

Term-time only is fine but I wouldn't use a childminder who had their own 1yo at home with them all day.

My youngest went to nursery team time only, as I was only using the funded hours and I have her older brother in the holidays anyway. I'm sure there will be others in the same boat.

Might be good to plan thw set-up around using the 15 funded hours, so it would appeal more to people who don't need it as childcare (as they'llneed it all year), but want the education and socialisation. So maybe offer morning or afternoon 3 hour sessions, with focus on activities.

How many people are entitled to the free hours in your area OP? In my area there is high entitlement to the 2 year old funded hours and so there's some provision, albeit all nursery afaik, that came about specifically to cater to this and the 3 year old hours for those who don't turn 4 until the next academic year so can't be in school nursery. That's term time only because the funded hours are term time only.

Most of my teacher / TA colleagues use a childminder. I did too, specifically one who only did term time. It saved me a lot on fees as I obviously didn’t pay for the 13 weeks of the school holidays. There’s a big market for it out there!

That's a better idea because if people are relying on OP for childcare, what would she do if her own child is ill? She can't open, and toddlers are poorly all the time.

You need to look at the market. When we used one for DD, she had some term-time only children and later moved to term-time only but she basically only did school age children and some pre-schooler. The parents were either teacher/worked term time themselves or, like us, preferred to put DD into a holiday club during the school holidays.

For most parents of non-school age children, a term time CM would be a nightmare as there are no provisions for school holidays. Most don't have enough holiday to cover all days off and can't rely on family. A young toddler can't easily move between provisions either.

I think most CMs look after more than 1 child, and as a ‘client’ you’re not in a position to say who they can or can’t look after. Their own children do count in the numbers they are allowed to look after, which is why term time childminders who have their own school aged children children are good, because they don’t charge for the holidays.

and as a ‘client’ you’re not in a position to say who they can or can’t look after.

Of course you are. If I was looking for a childminder I would ask if they also care for their own children. If they said they cared for their one year old, then I wouldn't choose that childminder.

It wouldn’t be impossible but I think you do have two niche markets.

1 - people who only want term time. I’m a teacher, but still need non term-time care on occasion.

2 - people who would be happy with you looking after your baby whilst also caring for theirs. I think it would be natural to assume your baby would come first and I would worry about things like my child getting the best care and reliability. For instance, if your baby was ill would you cancel on me so you could look after them?

No but you find out the age of their children as yours will be playing with them and the children need to get on.

If you don't like they are under 5/under 10/whatever you can choose other childcare.

Btw my childminder has adult children, and the ones she mixes with children are teens or older.

Yes I think there’s a market but depends if you mind potentially not having all spaces filled.

my childminder did a lot of after school care and it was ok but when my dd was very little I didn’t love her being put in the car and having to do schools runs, it interfered with naps etc

It might not limit yourself as much as you think. When my eldest started school we switched to a term time contract for my youngest despite us both working full time because we had to find childcare for eldest anyway so it wasn't much more difficult finding it for 2. We didn't use holiday clubs, we shared annual leave and summer holidays family from afar would help out then. Save us a lot.

No harm seeing how much interest there is and how financially viable it is for you.

Advertise in schools. We are teachers and couldn’t believe our luck when we found a brilliant term time only childminder.

Just to add we were military too actually (hadn't caught that) so didn't have family nearby, but in the summer holidays kids would go stay with family "back home" was a great time for them to bond with family.

Just to add you could get a lot of interest offering wraparound school care now the MOD will pay for it for military families.