What are the childcare possibilities in this scenario? Help please!

[wadadlis]

I am a teacher returning to work in September with a 3 year old son who begins school himself in September. Ideally I want to be able to leave the house by 7.30 LATEST to get to work and be able to be home by 6pm, most days probably earlier.

At present my contract is just 2 days per week but as husband been made redundant this may have to increase!

I am trying to explore what my childcare options are. At present I am excluding DH from arrangements because he (hopefully) will be back at work himself and goodness knows where/what hours so can't count on him.

Firstly, what can I do in the mornings? Ideally I'd like DS to be dropped off at school from our house, rather than being dropped somewhere else first. But I realise that might be a pipe dream. School starts 9am.

Secondly, what can I do in the afternoons? His school does off after school clubs til 5.30pm but he is very young for his year and I don't want him doing too much in Reception, certainly in the Autumn Term anyway.

I know there are after school nannies out there, childminders etc. Our house is tiny, there is no way we can have anybody live in. Ideally it would be the same person involved at either end of the day too - does such a person exist?

And how much do you pay them??

I live in north London, his school is 5 mins walk away and obviously I won't need childcare in the holidays...

Any help/advice gratefully received.

I'm a nursery nurse who works in school nurseries and I have a childminder who gives me a term time only contract. She doesn't work holidays, so works out for us. I usually take them between 7.50am and 8am but I collect by 4.15pm. She lives nearer school than me and now my children are older they get to walk in front of her to school and they walk home to hers with all the children who are over 8 to her house. It gave my dd the choice she wanted before I could and my childminder is very flexible so I can change my days if needs be!

Oh and I pay £5 per hour per child.

Thanks Groovee. Really that drop off time is too late for me as work is a 30min drive without traffic. I would miss early meetings and most likely miss the start of the school day too, it would only take one small hold up in the traffic to ruin my day!

But interesting that it's a childminder doing both ends of the day. That would be ideal.

anybody else got any brainwaves?

A kind of mothers help = where she would come into your home at 7.30am - take child to school and pickup at end of day and take child to your home .

Would suit an retired person - I know there is a family near me that uses a retired teacher to do this - goodness knows where you would find such a person !
How about advertising in local shop /post office for help required - often see postcards needing this type of help.

My CM does school drop off and pick up, she works between 7am and 6pm, so covers most times really.

It is possible. I childmind but want to work Term time only. Because I'm looking after teachers' children I accept that I start work at 6.50- the trade off is school hols. Good luck with finding the right person

We have a mothers help who comes to our house in the morning at 630 3/4 days z week depending on working week. She does a few odd jobs around the house until DD gets up then gets her dressed and takes her to school/plays with her beforehand. We use after school clubs until 530.

I advertised in the Job Centre. It is free and they give you lots of advice on things like CRB checks, tax thresholds etc- they also checked that we were getting the right 'calibre' of person ringing us and set up interviews. I advertised for someone with great references who was experienced with small children and prepared to start early! I got a lovely retired dinner lady who had 2 grown up daughters of her own. She was crb checked and is a First Responder (highly qualified first aider.) She had been with us for three years and sometimes does evening pickups instead if mornings with some notice. We pay well because the role is important to us and I wanted the right person-,£100 per week for roughly 9 hours. She has never called in sick or been late. Definitely worth it.

My childminder could start at 7.30am if I needed her to, but That would mean me being too early for work and I usually get in work for 8.05am at one job or 8.20am for the other nursery. (I'm based in a few schools)

Wow, I would never have thought of advertising in the job centre, that sounds like a great idea. Can't believe anybody would agree to starting work so early, but clearly there are people out there who will.
Thanks to everyone for your help, much appreciated. Food for thought.

I start at 7.30 three days per week & finish around 6-7pm, and do the school run. I also do Term time only contracts as I have cared for a number of teachers children and I prefer the school holidays to be quieter. I think you will find there are quite a few CMs who are prepared to do early starts.

I am a childminder and I start at 6.30 am for one of my parents who works at the hospital.

I have her child 3 days a week and she goes to nursery 2 days a week. If she is working on the days that her dd goes to nursery, she is dropped off to me at 6.30 and I take her to nursery at 7.30.

I charge a slightly higher rate for this, there are some cm's around that will do this

I'm a childminder who offers term time contracts. I start at 7am and close at 5:30. I actually prefer this as I generally pick up ad hoc work through holidays and it means I don't loose 'full time' pay for my holidays. I also have a couple of children 1 day per week to keep me ticking over through the holidays so it works out quite nicely (they also start later so it's very nice to even get a bit of a lie in!)