To think this isn’t on (childminder and school events)

[PoutySprout]

I arrange a lot of events at DD’s school.

One of the mums from DD’s class registered as a childminder about 18 months ago. She has 2 children now at the school (year 3 and reception). She has the maximum number of minded children she’s allowed to have. Causes chaos in the morning when she blocks everyone else in in the car park with her minibus, then herds the children 4 abreast as the lay crawl towards the school entrance (across a road) and blocking everyone else who just wants to be able to travel at a reasonable pace.

Anyway, since she started this she brings her minded children to school events. Discos (the triple pushchair gets in the way and she regularly loses the older children either inside or outside the school because she just can’t keep control of all of them). She came to several Xmas shows, had the kids push to the front of the queue and then hog the front seats, changed nappies and left the bags under the seats for the whole performance, fed them snacks she brought with her (we sell snacks - that’s the point) and then ignored them whilst they tried to climb on stage, winged, ran off to pull a xmas tree apart because she was filming her kids on her iPad and blocking the view of the parents behind her (we sell a DVD for a few £s). Other parent helpers are whinging to me about it, but it’s hard to know what to do. The headteacher is aware but seemingly not bothered enough to do anything about it.

Surely the minded children’s parents don’t expect them to be cared for in this way?ive never used a child minder so don’t know what’s normal.

Protecting their identities from what? They're in a public school in a publicly attended show. Are these kids secret agents working behind the iron curtain?

She wouldn’t have been able to take anyone out anyway? She’s have had to take them all.

Well then she shouldn't have gone! If you're working and earning money you obviously have restrictions on what you can and can't do. If you can''t look after all the children you're responsible for while watching a school play you can't go to the school play.

The snack thing is only an issue if there's a policy of not bringing your own snacks to school plays. At DC's school plays no one really eats anything during them (they're only about an hour anyway) so it's not an issue.

I was replying to the op who was saying if she was near the door she could have taken one out if necessary. Was just pointing out she’d have been leaving the others unattended.

My childminder 'herds' my sons and other children to school. Sometimes she has a double buggy too. She takes the little ones to school events when she can, they like seeing their older siblings in a play etc. I can't believe people are actually annoyed with her for walking slowly with children she's paid to look after. Childminders are invaluable, and good on her for creating a job that allows her to be there for her own kids too.

I feel for you. The PTA at most schools do a thankless task. School fundings are down and without them all the extras at school would t happen. So hard of to you. You are obviously heavily involved in your school. To such an extent the Axe drops on YOU when there is an issue ( eg car park ). Maybe you should have a meeting with the other members and Gorvenrs to come up with a solution. You should not get the flack all the time. For school shows maybe have a parents/ carers and siblings only policy. ? We did at our school as there were never enough seats. Close the car park for a week and explain why. Then reopen and see if an improvement.
Don’t rise to the bait of the child minder, she is obviously not very considerate. Look at the overlap picture on how the school can move forward. Finally maybe step back a bit and let someone else take more responsibility. In life people will carry on using you if you let them. Good luck.

I don't think it is fair to criticise her for walking along the road , but the video is a bit much if the school is selling one already. But that's up to the school to deal with. I wouldn't be lumping all these things together, tempting as it is. It just sounds like you've got a vendetta against her which isn't nice.

There are a few things going on here but mostly you do seem to be judging her quite harshly. She is a professional childcarer trying to support her own children by attending tueur school events. Would you rather she doesnt come to support her children.If she was a mother with younger children would you tell her she coulent bring them. It is not for you to comment on whether the parents she works with are happy with this arrangement.Also its quite possible the little ones she is bringing along will also attend your school and because of what they see will be confident to come and will get to know the layout of the school and know the teachers too .What she earns is quite frankly none of your business. Its not an easy job and it sounds as though she is thinking about the children she cares for in bringing snacks with her .It may be that the parents provide these snacks which is not unusual .You dont know if they have allergies .You should embrace childminders into your school as they are so important to parents looking for wrap around quality care

The car park hogging and nappies are issues - the rest pfft.

It's interesting how funny people on here can be about nappies in bins and yet no one is bothered by nappies under chairs

Attending a school event with childminding toddlers isnt easy. It certainly wouldnt be my chosen thing to do as far as entertaining the children.However as others have said its very good for them.If a little tricky trying to get them to sit still in what can be a cramped space. Childminders will often attend events too during the day when a working parent is unable toi so at least their cjild feels supported

I don't really get the walking slowly thing - or how that's an issue for anyone else? The general impression though is that she has more children under her care than she can really look after well and that she's just trying to continue as before going to school plays and filming her kids etc when in reality she needs to adapt to her new responsibilities.

If the children are at risk then of course you need to report this but you do come across as very angry.Maybe PTA isnt for you?

100 children needs more the 3 staff /pta

Lock car park

If any mindees child escaped and lost then inform ofsted

Tell headmaster to grow some balls and 1) move buggy as fire risk 2) stand on stage and say no children up here

Your school discos are a similar setup to ours and it's made clear throughout the whole thing that school and the pta are not supervising kids and they are the parents responsibility. We do insist on tickets for all in order to make sure we're within fire numbers - we don't charge for preschoolers but they have to have a free ticket pre arranged. It does reduce the spur of the moment ones and makes it a bit more manageable.

You've basically become a venting station for the entire school though (easy situation to get drawn into if you're on the pta). Parking - in our heads own words "sometimes you have to let an arrangement lapse for people to realise what it meant to them" - send the reminders, then let it go tits up and the parents, school AND head who suddenly has to deal with parking Armageddon will get a better sense of where parking like a twat gets you.

I think the childminder aspect is slightly just an added bit of this - basically you've got a parent who would be letting their own kids run riot at school events (hell we have a fair few of those gems), is only ever going to contribute the absolute minimum to come to stuff but will take everything they can from it (again we have a few of those ones) and unfortunately because of her job she brings added numbers along into the equation. It's crap but there's not that much can be done about that (see all the "twat with iPad blocking view at Nativity" and "toddler gatecrashed the Nativity stage while parents simpered indulgently" threads in December for those ones being common) apart from gritting teeth and mentally detaching a bit. Comes with the pta thing - some people see you as a nicely accessible extension of the school to offload all their grumbles onto and it can be very draining if you let it. I tend to give them the name of who to take the grumble to and advise them to pop it down in writing which reduces it down as most don't want to have to do that - they just want a good moan. People are people

I was wondering whether to get DH to conduct one of his international conference calls during the finale. But I doubt she’d get the message!

Ooooh, just had to shoehorn that in there so we all know that you're 'considerably richer than yow'. This is just snobbery isn't it? Lots of references to things which suggest she doesn't have a lot of money, e.g. bringing her own snacks.

It's the schools problem, nothing to do with you or the PTA. You have no official role for complaints, don't try and justify it with your PTA role, you're just bitching with other parents. This is straight up schoolgirl bullyin, you should be embarrassed to admit to it at your age, it's pathetic. Grow up.

busyhonestchildcarer yes! I'm a childminder, and in the last year I have attended 3 sports days and a nativity for my minded children not my own children because their parents couldn't get time off work.

These children were delighted to have me there to support them. I take along my pre schoolers who love to watch the older children. It's also fantastic preparation for when they go to school.

I supervise them properly and in many years of attending school events like this (for my own children when they were at primary) I have never had such a miserable response from someone like you OP

I don't understand how she could turn up at a school play with 1 ticket and wander in with her group. The school where totally at fault there and should have corrected her on how many tickets she needed.

As for the head teacher, I think he is delegating a lot over to you because 1. he knows he can and 2. He knows you will feel responsible and feel like you have to fix the problem.
You are helping the school. But the head teacher is not helping you.

Good luck OP with your role You seem to be doing a wonderful job raising funds but you dont seem to be getting much thanks for it from either the teacher or the parents

Oh and I am not anti PTA. In fact I chaired the PTA at my children's primary school AND childminded as well.

I made sure everyone was welcomed and accommodated.

don't understand how she could turn up at a school play with 1 ticket and wander in with her group.

I imagine because the teachers are nice people, know she's a bit hard up and needs to childminder and don't see why her kids should miss out because she can't afford loads of tickets. You know, compassion, some people have it.

I don't really get the walking slowly thing - or how that's an issue for anyone else?

I think it’s because several children (4?) and her walk along in the line. Complaints this week were that she and her charges took up the whole width of the pavement, and being very little they move very slowly, leaving parents who really do need to drop and run having to go up an icy bank to get around them. I haven’t seen it myself because (as I said before) I don’t do school drop off!

It’s obvious the walking slow being a problem is because the bus remains parked across the lot entrance for a long period of time. If she only parked there for 30 seconds, it wouldn’t cause as big of a disruption.

I’m surprised that people expect the PTA to supervise children. At our school, either the kids are in the care of the teacher because it is a class activity or they are in the care of a parent because it is an extra activity.

A maximum of six under the age of 8 with no more than three under the age of 5 (and of those three, no more than one under the age of 1).

Out of interest, are the rules different completely if you have twins? Surely a parent isn't expected to send twins to separate childminders

So basically OP you invited lots of children to your wedding but when they behaved like children you were infuriated?

DH invited them. No issue with the children’s behaviour - but as parents surely you don’t stay whilst your child screams the place down?!

You think anyone with more than two children should sit at the back?

No. She has 3 minded children that are very close in age. Unlikely to find that occurring in a family group.

You believe that walking slowly with small children is unreasonably inconveniencing other pavement users?

That’s what I’m being told. I’m not judging it because (again) I HAVEN'T SEEN IT
MYSELF!

You would rather babies sat in filthy nappies than were changed, or she missed her child’s performance?

Nappy was changed long before the performance started. Instead of finding a bin (she could even have asked someone to do it) she put it under the seat, so that everyone could enjoy it.

You don’t like her.

I don’t know her. I don’t like the complaints that are coming my way about her and the hassle being dropped in my lap. I doubt very much that you would either.

You don’t like children and you really don’t like larger families.

Yes. That’s why I do so much for the 200 children that aren’t mine at the sodding school. It’s to show my absolute hatred of them.

I know of several chikdminders who use events to basically entertain their charges. Some turn up early at eg free mother and toddler clubs and basically use the spaces up and play centres expect to receive discount. One I know offered to help as a volunteer at a kids club taking 3 of her regulars with her for free. Sorry but my opinion of childminders is not the most favourable. One concern raised about the triple pushchair being in the away would be if an emergency arose in particular fire, may not be blocking an exit but would certainly be an obstruction. Clear rules on all you mention must be given say on tickets and on entering premises or else mayhem may prevail.