On the way home from school we popped in to the supermarket and whilst in there I saw the DSC's childminder - with no kids!
I had only seen her 2 mins before picking them up so I went outside and saw they were sat in the car. Admittedly they were with her son who is about 12 (DSC are 5 & 7).
She wasn't just rushing in for bread and milk, she had a trolly and was getting quite a bit, I hovered around for a bit and she was in there for a total of about 20 mins.
I'm sure the kids would have been perfectly fine, I'm not really concerned about there safety, especially as they were with the older boy. But she is getting paid to look after them not paid to do her shopping whilst they wait in the car. She doesn't even have any children during the day so surely she should be doing her shopping then? I just think there's no excuse for it.
I didn't say anything to her as she looks like a gobby common cow who would probably punch me if I confronted her. I rang DP and told him, he doesn't really have anything to do with her, wasn't involved in picking her and very rarely picks them up from her but he's going to mention it to ex.
From what I'm aware leaving the DC alone is a serious no no in the eyes of ofsted and I'm not sure whether its something she would lose her license for?
Things are very difficult at the mo between DP and ex so I don't want to look like I'm a trouble causer but if I was her I would definitely want to know.
Should I report her to Ofsted or should DP just tell the ex and see if she wants to report her? I think she's quite pally with her and she's quite happy leaving the kids with teens babysitting so I doubt she'll see it as a problem so I would think that she'd probably not report her. But in my eyes if she's not taking her job as a childminder very seriously then there may be other issues in her home too. And what if I don't report it and then she does it with somebody else's kids?