Recruitment advice sought for large family - e.g. when to recruit, term time nanny?

[LongStory]

My mum has been a wonderful nanny to my children for many years, but sadly that situation has to come to an end and I am rather nervous about recruiting a nanny from September. We have 5 children including 3yo twins, one of whom is your stereotype 'explorer' toddler nuff said, and live in London Zone 4.

I would really welcome some thoughts from nannies and other parents on things like:

• when would be the best time to start advertising for a September position?
• ideally it would be 3 days a week, live-out, for just 36 weeks of the year (DH working in a private school so he's around a lot of the time) - is it realistic to offer a position for those times?
• I'm thinking that £100 net for an 11 hour day would be a fair rate as the four youngest all go to the same school and my 11yo makes his own way to school and back.
• it's very important to me to be reliable at my work so I need someone who's not going to let me down at short notice.

Perspectives very welcome on anything else I should be considering and any traps I should avoid....

London nannies can want more salary than that but you may find some who will be happy with that figure, especially the further out you are.

Recruit now. For a July start job, I had already had interview by this stage. I may be unusual but nannies already in employment may need to be giving a terms notice.

Term time only can work. You need to provide paid holiday. See other message threads about how to calculate that for term time only workers.

Consider who it is who may want to work termtime only - a nanny with thieir own child perhaps?

Local, local, local - your nanny would be live-out and you want reliability, so recruit as locally as possible so there is not too long a commute time/distance.

Consider practical things like how nanny will transport children - would you provide a large car?

Agree a GROSS salary, Never NET.

Thank you guru nannynick! I actually have a local interview set up for Friday with a nanny with her own child in yr 5. But I'm wondering whether that would be realistic - e.g. to bring her daughter here at 7am, or what happens if she's ill? Maybe I need to up the salary.

What area are you in?
I'm a nanny who has worked with large families looking for a part time live out position.

Kind regards

Tavvy

Did you read Is £10 Net/£13 Gross the standard for nannies in London now message thread. Certainly looking at that the salary is possibly around the right mark but if you are finding a lack of suitable applicants then maybe consider increasing it a bit.

You say that your four youngest all go to the same school... so there are not children at home all day. Some nannies may not like that, as when the children are at school they will be doing a fair bit of household duties I would expect. Mind you, it does suit some nannies and as you have found already it may well suit a nanny who has their own child.

What happens if the nannies own child is ill is something you need to discuss. Depending on the illness - they may just have a cold - they could perhaps come to work with mum and lay on the sofa most of the day. Have a look through past messages on this board (use advance search to search by keyword and limit to just this board) to do with nanny bringing own child to work.
Some message threads that I have found:
Employing a nanny with her own child
Nanny with own child
Nannies baby is ill, she can't come tomorrow, do I still pay?

You may need to start a new message thread to ask other people on here specifically about what things they have found crop up when having a nanny who brings their own child, what they have done to resolve those things.

Thanks guys - well I'm up on nannyjob and childcare.co.uk, plus got a print for the local boards... this has really helped me thinkg through things and get ready for interviews! Tavvy Zone 4 is a very big place, but I'm in E17/E11 border if that helps.