Do any of you lovely childminders provide only before/after school care?

[twinky]

Because I'm finding it impossible to find this for my own children and I want to know if I'm daft for considering doing it myself? The local school club is hugely over-subscribed and our only local childminder is intending to retire at Christmas. I know I can't be the only mum in this position and have been mulling over the idea of becoming a childminder who only provides after school care. Or am I being a bit naive about the whole thing?

I used to, but I found that after paying for fuel and after school snacks I didn't have much money left. It is also disruptive for my smaller mindees. Local schools started opening before and after school clubs and I ended up doing school runs for individual children.

Once I got to a natural contract break I stopped doing it. Doesn't mean I'll never do it again.

If you register as a CM you will need to change your contents and car insurance and register with Ofsted, take a first aid course, child protection training and get public liability insurance. The registration process can be quite long and boring.

However ... if you do less than 2 hrs per day, you might not have to register ...

I'm registering to be a CM partly because like you there are very few childcare options locally (but also becuase I've had a enough of my job ) and although I need the extra cash of full time work, 2 CM's in my village only do term time and are both full. One charges a slightly higher rate and doesn't get paid during the holidays, & the other charges less

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure you'd even need to register if you are either lessthan 2 hours a day OR have over 8's - I'm sure someone here can advise.

I am very flexible, have one after school mindee who only "earns me" £40 per week and have another who I drop off/pick up from nursery but only charge for the hours he is with me not the full hours he is away from mum iykwim.

I also only charge half price when the parents don't send mindees to me be it sickness/holidays or just a unexpected day off.

Means I am pretty unsure of what my wage will be every month and I am not earning as much as other childminders but I don't care! I love what I do and it works for me and my working parents.

I mostly do before & after school care, although I do also have a baby for a couple of days a week. It suits me very well - I love having a house full of children - and my own children love having friends round on a regular basis, it's been great for their own social skills. It is a ridiculous faff (and quite expensive) getting registered but once you've done it you're free to organise your work in whatever way best suits you. It's not particularly lucrative, though! You might want to bear in mind that by only offering before/after school care it could take you a long time to make back your start-up costs..... But if you're looking to do it long-ish term and you think there might be other rewards beyond the financial (in my case I find that doing before-school care gets us all up and organised in the mornings in a way we definitely wouldn't be otherwise), then go for it - I'm sure you'd be very popular!

If you only want to do after school care you can cut down costs a little as you wouldn't need to register on compulsory part of register only and would not need to deliver eyfs I was told by an inspector when I was debating it that your inspection is a lot simpler too.

Its perfectly feasible to provide just before and after school child care. I know several childminders who do this and it works perfectly well.

Thankyou so much everyone for your responses. It's been quite encouraging and I've sent off for an information pack from SCMA. I will probably be back soon to plague you all with more questions.