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Paid childcare

Discuss everything related to paid childcare here, including childminders, nannies, nurseries and au pairs.

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Original poster

How do I become a childminder?

3 replies

EdwardorEricCantDecide · 20/04/2011 21:55

What qualifications etc would I need?
I'm in Scotland if that makes a difference.
On average what would money be like?
How many children would I be allowed to look after at any one time?

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pollywollyhadadollycalledmolly · 21/04/2011 16:08

You dont really need any qualifications but there are lots of things that help!

I would say head over to the SCMA website childminding.org which gives you all the info and what to do next :)

You should be able to look after around 6 kids, no more than 3 under pre school age (age 5 roughly) and only one of them can be under the age of 1. The other 3 kids would need to be of school age. This takes into account your own kids too.

Depends what your area charges. Average in my area is £4 per hour. There are people that charge less and people that charge more. I am roughly in line with private nurseries :)

Original poster

EdwardorEricCantDecide · 23/04/2011 16:55

Thanks for the reply
So really not loads of money in it if u already got your own kids, I have 2 pre schoolers.
Was thinking of doing it with a friend, does that mean we'd be allowed up to 12 kids?
We would run it more like a nursery with quite a structured day

OP posts:

pollywollyhadadollycalledmolly · 23/04/2011 19:20

Well i charge £4 per hour for after schoolies 3pm - 6pm = £12 x £60 a week x 3 kids = £180. Thats not including the extra hours when its out of term time.

One full time pre school gets me £170 a week. So not too bad :)

If you were doing it together, one of you would need to be the lead minder and the other their 'assistant' in the eyes of the CC :) You dont automatically just get allocated 12 spaces, the CC will asses your home, square foot of the space the kids will be in and you will also need to show them how you would handle 12 kids i.e where would they all sit at lunch time, snack time etc

Some people like their kids in larger groups that 2 cms could provide, but some prefer to have fewer kids which is one of the reasons they have sometimes chosen to use a cm instead of a nursery/out of school care in the first place :)

P.S Most cms have a strctured day, i have my week broken down into an hourly time table almost lol

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