Term time only childminders

[Playingwithbuses]

Wondered how it worked if you just want a childminder for term time only if you were a student or a teacher. Do most childminders expect you to pay full year or part rate for the school holidays.
I am looking at starting up as a childminder and although I am happy to take kids full year the thought of having less mindees during the school holidays appeals and wonder if this could be my USP, mind you I don't seem to have a lot of competition locally anyway, but as my kids are older I can pick up from a variety of local schools.

I was always a term time only childminder. Usually to teachers children, it was much better for my children and I used to charge a slightly higher rate and not charge any fees in the holidays to hold the place, it was my selling point.

Sounds promising, thanks for the replies, I am waiting for my application pack to arrive, and I am attending a pre registration course in Sept. I am already qualified as a Nursery Nurse, so again another selling point hopefully.

I have contracts for term time only. I also have one all year round. I prefer this as I have four kids of my own. If they do not use my services during the school hols I do not charge them. However if I wanted to take on kids during the holiday time only I could.

Not sure what most cm do.

Thanks MUM2 thats what I am hoping to get, are your parents teachers? Whats the best way to find them or did they find you?

I have both types of contract, too. It works really well.
I don't charge a retainer although I do reserve the right to do so if I can't fill the place with a holiday child.

In practice, I have never had to charge the retainer and, with most of my term-time parents being teachers, they can recommend me as holiday childcare.

I'm a cm and I need to earn 48 weeks per year, I have 4 weeks holiday unpaid. If a parent wants to use me as term time only, I make it clear from the start that I don't do term time only contracts. Not had a problem with this and a couple of teachers are using me.

I'm a term-time only CM and currently have four children, two parents are teachers, one works in a pre-school and the other works as a TA in a school, so they are not all teachers and lots of people work term=time themselves.

Just make sure you can manage the lean times when no income is coming in, especially the long summer holidays. I manage this by saving a certain amount each month from a second job (evening/weekend).

Thanks, I got word that the training course starts soon, so being mainly term time looks promising. I have another job too that will give me work in the holidays and weekends when it suits me as it is pretty flexible. I just need to work out how I deal with tax credits too, they are used to me averaging as I had two jobs that didn't have regular pay and once they accepted that it was fairly straight forward. Don't know about the whole self employed thing with tax credits though.

Playingwithbuses Non are teachers.

Parent 1 has been with me for quite a while. I use to do all year round at first. When the contract changed I mentioned that I wanted to do term time only, something which we both discussed. Also to reduce cost parent was ok with this.

Parent 2 - I think i mentioned term time only. Parent 2 she only wanted term time.

Parent 3 so far all year round. Little one not yet in school. Starting nusery in Sept.

Parent 4 term time only, ok with this.

Some of my parents saw me at school (school run). I see lots of parents when doing the school run.

I look after Six children usually. It would be too full on to look after six cm and my four all throughout the year.

It also gives me time for my kids and also to catch up on things.

I have had calls to do more all year round but it was not right for me or my family.

thanks for the update mum2bless, i am looking forward to getting going now as it looks like it might all fit in ok with my kids too

Most of my mindees are term time only. I was happy with this arrangement to start with but have struggled financially this summer and need to work harder to find holiday children for next year or save money throughout the year to keep us going through the holidays.

I wish I'd done more research into term time only and maybe charged a slightly higher rate.

I am a childminder, and about half the enquiries I get (for pre-school kids) are for people needing term time only. So yes, I think there is a demand, and if you can afford and want to not work all year round, you will find it works out well.
I have term time only kids, I had expected to find some kids to look after in the holidays, but had no demand at all for holiday care, so if you do need a regular income, don't assume you will pick up work in the holidays.