Charge for time mindee is at pre-school?

[OopsDoneItAgain]

Hiya, Im still fairly new to childminding, don't actually start for another month so currently doing contracts etc. One of my prospective mindees will be dropped with me at 8am, then I will take him to pre-school for 9.30 and pick him up again at 1pm, keeping him til 6pm. Is it fair to charge something for the morning despite him being out? its just that hes taking a place even tho hes not with me, I cant see me getting a mindee for a few hours, and what if I needed to go pick him up early for some reason, I would go over numbers. What do others do? TIA for any advice.

What I do is charge half fees for the time the child is at the pre-school, so I get some money in, but if for example the pre-school was closed, then I would charge full fee for the time.
Some other CMs charge the full fee, but sometimes it puts parents off.

Thanks Ripeberry, just the answer I was hoping for! I was thinking of charging 50% since felt uncomfortable charging full price, but equally, I cant just give away a few hours of potentially paid work!

Full fee for the day. What happens if nursery shut in hols or needs to close unexpectedly. If im responsible for picking and dropping off then its full fee. Hope that helps x

It depends on how you work the rest of your contract too.
I charge the full rate.
I have a simple policy. If the place is available the parents pay for contracted hours whether they use them or not. If for any reason I am not available I do not charge.

That means that if I'm off sick or on holiday they do not have to pay out twice but if the place is there and they choose not to use it they pay for it.

You could end up losing quite a lot of money if a few parents chose to do this.

I charge the whole day

I charge full fees.

It is higly unlikely you would be ablr to fill a space from say 10 till 1. And even if you did manage that, what would happen when the pre school is closed? My local one is part of the school, so is closed all the same holidays and inservice days etc so the child would still need to come to me for that.

So charging full fees is the norm.

I charge full too. Pretty standard and there's no way I could afford to be paid less for those hours, especially when I know I could fill the day with a full paying mindee instead.

Just been going through my handbook. Here is my bit about preschool/nursery (thanks to Shoshe who provided it ages ago!):

Early Years Age Group in other settings

A child is counted as being in the Early Years age group, by Ofsted, until 31 August following their 5th birthday, or when they are in full time education i.e. at school for 10 sessions a week.

A child who is at pre school/nursery is in the Early Years age group and if they are with a childminder before and after pre school/nursery, and require a fulltime space during the holidays, are taking a childminder?s full time space. As such you are required to pay for the time that they are at preschool/nursery, as I am unable to fill the time that they are at pre school/nursery.

Thanks everyone, sounds like Im being too soft then!

i charge full charge as its a space I cant fill for the time th child is at nursery.. not sure why anyone wouldnt tbh!!!

As a parent I paid (as I would expect to) in full for the hours DS wsa at pre-school. The CM dropped him off and collected him, therefore having to take other children out in all weathers etc. when I'm sure she would have preferred to stay in, and was available if he needed to be collected for any reason - I was usually some distance away during my working day. The space won't be filled by someone else as everyone else has said, so why on earth should the CM lose out.