how to find a Child Minder

[Tanso]

Hi, I need to find a child minder in London as I am starting Uni in September. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Im not sure where to start looking

Thanks

I used www.childcare.co.uk to find our lovely CM when we lived in London.

FWIW if you're anywhere Finsbury Park / Hornsey then I can't recommend our old CM highly enough. Here's her profile with reviews Natasha Nelson and here's her own website.

We left London so go to uni BTW. I love it, it's great DS goes to the uni nursery now - when he's older he'll be able to tell people he started uni aged 2

Look at local authority listings here; childcarefinder.direct.gov.uk/childcarefinder/ Enter your postcode and minders come up in distance order to your home. Please note that not all registered childminders are listed online. Some opt out of this service. You can call the Families Information Service on 0800 2346 346 and they will send you a hard copy of all their listed minders.

Look at www.childcare.co.uk/ Again, specify childminders and your postcode. The website charges a fee for you to contact minders directly. Instead, cross reference the name against the FIS listings to aquire contact details. Some (but not many) minders also list in the Yellow Pages / Thompson Local.

And contact your local children centre. Many have links with Childminding Network Coordinators. Some may also offer a childcare placement scheme.

Your uni may also hold a list of eligable local providers.

Many childminders simply rely on word of mouth so ask friends who have children if there is anyone they can recommend.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much ladies, this is really helpful.

Threefeet, i am looking around Holloway road/finsbury Park so I might just look up Natasha.

Thanks x

Tanso, I really can't recommend Natasha highly enough. She's a brilliant CM, a complete professional, and a lovely, warm person too.

We travelled all the way from Hackney to take DS there.

She's not cheap, but as a student you'll get 85% of your childcare fees paid if you're full time (as long as they haven't changed the rules since last year).

FWIW, when you apply for funding, it's really worth speaking to your student advisor at college to find out what you're entitled to as a parent, as we've found that the people on the phones at Student Finance England really aren't used to dealing with parents and gave us advice that was completely wrong, on several occasions.

For example, both my DP and I are full time students. This means we are both entitled to some extra money because we're parents - but the SFE people told us (several times) that only one of us could apply for this money (not true!) and that one of us should apply for some money based on the other one being a dependant (also not true as we're both students!). We sorted it out in the end, but only after our student advisor got involved and it took until December to get the money!

So, if there's anything you're not sure about WRT what you should be applying for as a parent, I would advise speaking to a student advisor at your future college.

Don't rely solely on the advice SFE give you, they can't be trusted IME!

HTH

What are you studying BTW?

I'm doing a Digital Media degree, and really enjoying it