Are network childminders any better?

[mamadoc]

I'm looking for a CM for my 8 month old son 3 days a week and 4 yo daughter after school those days too. I've looked on the CIS and childcare.co.uk and come up with some possibles. Some have two stars by their names and it says they have 'achieved accreditation to the childminder network'. What does this mean and will they be better than those who haven't? eg more experienced or more committed/ professional as they've worked for another qualification?

My ideal CM would be loving and caring first and foremost but I do appreciate a degree of organisation and professionalism. I've had one excellent CM in the past when DD was a baby sadly now retired and one rather less good, perfectly nice but very disorganised about money, holidays at last minute etc and it made you worry whether she was also slapdash with the children.

Accredited childminders have a level of qualification which means they can provided "funded nursery early years education"

But it wouldn't be a judgement about their organisation skills; you could look at their OFSTED reports?

Seems to be quite hard to look at the Ofsted reports. There are no names attached so you have to guess from the descriptions who's who and some seem to have been able to opt out of having the report available to download (it says contact the LA to get it)

there is no network in my area, not been for years

accreditation means that the CM can offer funded early years education; I for eg am not accredited because the rate paid is less than my hourly rate and I am not allowed to bill parents for the shortfall, so I have chosen not to from a business P o V.

That is v odd about not be able to download a report from Ofsted website. The only time you cannot download is if they are very new and not yet had their first inspection, or so I thought.

I could be accredited if I want to earn less per child per hour as they can accept funded children, I chose not to but I still have to do everything the accredited childminder does and networks were scrapped in this area so that means nothing. We have a tiered system bronze to gold plus woo hoo!! Really it means nothing.
Visit the childminders, get a feel for them, ask what they do it will soon become clear which ones do daily diaries, take the children out and follow their needs, much more important than qualifications.

I may be being a bit thick but this is what I get for a lot of them:

On this page you can read the inspection report for this provider. To protect the privacy of providers on domestic premises, we do not show their names or addresses.

To find out more about this childminder, contact the local authority: www.familiesandchildcare.org.uk/. They may ask you for the childminder's Unique Reference Number (URN) which you will find above.

You might find that some childminders do not wish to be identified - for example, because they do not have spaces for additional children - so the local authority may not be able to give you their details.

View provider details

Conditions of registration*

*Conditions are restrictions that Ofsted places on a registration. Providers must meet these conditions at all times they provide registered care, as well as other requirements for registration. It is an offence not to meet conditions unless the provider has a reasonable excuse. If there are no conditions displayed then Ofsted has not restricted the registration.

Complaints
This section includes details of any complaints where:

we took action for the provider to meet statutory requirements
the provider took action to meet statutory requirements.
We will not publish any information about a complaint or concern where no action was taken.

Providers are required to keep their own records of complaints, which parents and carers can ask to see.

For further information please visit the childcare complaints commitment page.

No complaints are listed for this provider.

Compliance action
This section includes details of any information we receive about a provider's compliance with the requirements for registration, other than from a complaint, where:

we took action for the provider to meet statutory requirements
the provider took action to meet statutory requirements.
For further information please read Ofsted's enforcement policy.

No compliance action listed for this provider.

No actual report just the above text

consensus so far is that networks and accreditation are not going to help then.
I was hoping to find a way to cut down my list rather than visiting everyone but perhaps I just need to knuckle down to it.

Would you not be visiting just those people who are within a short distance of you, or who are near a school your children might get into when older? Could narrow down by location.

Ofsted's website does not give name detail. It does let you search by distance from postcode - enter in a childminders known postcode and the top entry on Ofsted's list is likely to be the right one.

OpenFamilyServices.org.uk may well give you better info, if your local authority uploads their data there.

I think you're doing it the wrong way round. Most provoke contact me because I'm local/on their commute / collect from the school or preschool they need. Them when they visit I give them a paper copy of my inspection to read at their leisure.

You'll be searching the ofsted site for weeks trying to match people up!

I hope that parents only look at accrediated childminders, as you need to be a childminder for a year before you can be accrediated. I'm new but equally as good as accrediated childminders in practically all areas.

There are different rues in different areas - you can be accredited here the term after you start if you have the right qualifications

Why do you hope they only look at accredited ones then?

Sorry, that was addressed to Littlewillows!

I didn't realise you could be accredited that quick, Whoops! I meant that they don't just look at accrediated, they look at everybody.

OK so I tried to be open minded and not go by qualifications and visited the CM nearest me who would be most convenient for drop offs etc but it was at the point where she said that they have CBeebies on all day that she lost me.

Think I will have to broaden the net a bit...

oooh give her a swerve

I am a bit rabid anti tele for the under 5s tbh

good luck in your search

you WILL know, when you find The One, your gut will tell you yes yes yes (at least that what my families tell me when they meet me and like what they see)

Cbeebies on all day!

Actually it was somewhat worse than that: She said they had CBeebies on all the time but what was actually on when I visited was Jeremy Kyle which quickly got turned over!

yuk yuk yuk

I our area the LA will not 'accredit' you at all. I have been a cm for 4 years, have asked on several occasions and they won't let me do it, I have lost business because of it. The ones that already are accredited are allowed to stay so though

I've only skim read this thread so apologies if I'm wrong but I don't think anyone has mentioned the key thing that is supposed to set a Network CM apart from others - and this is the fact that a CM Network is a Quality Assurance scheme. The NW should have minimum entry requirements (in our area it is to have or be working towards a L3 childcare qualification & be at least 'Good' in Ofsted inspection) and usually has an aim so again in our area CM's joining must agree to either be accredited and/or be a community CM (accepting Social Services placements or similar, plus agree to provide support to newly registering CM's in the area. The Quality Assurance element is supposed to come from the Network Coordinator who is employed to ensure each CM meets the Network standards (ours is an NCMA 'Children Come First' Network so we have to meet the NCMA Quality Standards) by visiting the CM's, providing training, setting goals etc. In practice this is a bit hit & miss eg here we are supposed to get a visit every 6 weeks - mine last one was over a year ago... The NC is overworked with a massive area so they have now introduced a tier system where CM's like me who got OS and have higher qualifications and have always shown themselves to meet standards at monitoring visits and require v.little support are now classed as 'light touch' and just have to complete an annual self assessment for the NC.

Anyway, what I was trying to get at is that for some parents using a NW CM may offer additional peace of mind, knowing that in theory the CM will be checked & monitored more regularly than a non-NW CM who just has their 3-4 yearly Ofsted