Does anyone do this?...

[heymissymum]

I am thinking ahead and would love my dd to attend the local nursery when she is three years old. It's outstanding and it is next door and it's free and as you all know they attend part time (2-3 hours) each day until they are due to go to school. (being next door is no garuntee of a place at nursery or school which is equally outstanding)

Our current nursery is fab but costs a bomb -

• does anyone share before / afterschool care / nannie to pick the kiddies up from the local free nursery?

• Is £8 per hour fair pair for two (or even three kiddies) the same age being picked up and brought home together from local free nursery?

• I work in the office three days a week and so can pick up on the Thursday and Fridays for mums if we are using the same nursery.

• If there are two or three of you with kiddies at the local part time nursery do you share drop off between you so nannie starts when she / he picks up at 11.30/midday (meaning you only go into office after 9.00 am occasionally?)

any advice, views, experiences very welcome before I get in touch with formal agencies. Just keen to see if this kind of this happens much

terrible spelling - blame it on my hayfever:

I mean *guarantee
*fair pay

I don't do a nanny share and never have done, so can't advise on how it works in practice. However, I can give some general advice.

A nanny wouldn't have any issues with taking or collecting children from school/nursery. When you employ a nanny, you are usually employing them for the whole time, including the time your child is at the nursery.

If you were to use a Childminder, then they would be more likely to provide care only before and after school - however, that's when the children are school aged (10 educational sessions). With younger children, they will take up a under5 childminding place and thus you are likely to be charged for the entire time, as it's very hard to resell the time while your child attends nursery/pre-school.

You need to remember that while your child attends a local nursery/pre-school, there needs to be someone oncall in the event of any issues - if you will be available to collect your child at short notice, then your childcarer will need to be available.

Pay wise, I would expect that for 2 children, £8 per hour would be reasonable. If 3 children, increase to £12. Certainly in my area Childminders tend to charge around £4 per hour. With 3 children, a nanny can work out to be cheaper, as you are more in a position to offer a salary, thus could offer say £10-£11 gross.

As you would be working only 3 days, you could get a 3-day nanny. Sharing that nanny with another family may also be possible.

With children who live near each other, going to the same pre-school/nursery, once the children become friends you do share the school runs a bit. As a nanny, on occasion I used to take another child to pre-school to help out the other parent, and they in turn would on occasion take/collect the child I cared for. When doing this sort of thing, you need to make sure that the nursery/pre-school know who is collecting the children.

Important: You can't do a Nanny Share if there are 3 familes involved. \link{http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00014--g.htm\Care Standards Act} - see 4b for definition of nanny share (sorry, it's a bit complex!) The Care Standards Act does not say that in the event of there being an arrangement between P1, P2 and P3, that such an arrangement would be exempt from Childminding registration. Thus, I conclude that if you nanny share between 3 families, then the nanny MUST be a Registered Childminder, though in reality I feel that Ofsted may have trouble in processing such an application. So avoid having a 3 family spit.

Hope that's of some help.

Where abouts in the country are you? Have you establish what sessions your child would get at nursery - as sessions are not always in the morning.

Nannynick - THANK YOU SO MUCH - this is fantastic advice.

• I am in South London, and looking to have dd attend for morning sessions 9 until 11.30 am. Also looking at details of nursery schools? run by my local borough. There are maybe four in the local area - need to see what hours they too offer and opening times etc.

• Based on your feedback I thinkI am heading in the right direction to share a nanny with another parent to collect the two kiddies.

• Would it also be fair to use the nanny during the school holidays, i.e. we'd be hring her all year round not just term time (but for three days each week!!)

Thanks Again

State nurseries are few and far between, so you are lucky that you have some in your borough. The more flexible you can be about what sessions you would accept, the greater your chance of getting a place. While morning sessions are often ideal, they can be highly oversubscribed with large waiting lists, so if you would accept an afternoon session, make sure the nursery knows that, as it may help you jump the waiting list.

Being in South London I expect you could find a nanny share - population density is higher in your area plus more nannies working in London.

Alternatively a 3-day per week nanny may also work out well for you, especially if you are looking at all year round care.

Yes it's fair to ask a nanny to work during school holidays. You do need to decide what you want the nanny to work before you start recruitment, as nannies will typically either want to work all year round, or term time only - so best to be clear from the start as to what your expectations are.

Initially I would suggest looking for a Nanny Share and also a 3-day Nanny, as that way you keep your options open and with luck will get more candidates to choose from. Local agencies should be able to advise further with specific details about what local nannies are looking for job wise.

PS. Nannies can also be male

I have a nanny-share situation - our nanny works for us 5 days a week, but is shared with another family for 3 of those days. She takes my son to school and my daughter to her nursery sessions and will take the other baby to nursery when she is old enough. We were very lucky to find a family to share with within the same school catchment so that the nanny only has one location for drop off/pick ups at a time.

We found our share via the sharingcare website (there's a link somewhere on mumsnet), but there is also a newer website called something like - thenannysharers, and gumtree.com and nannyjob.co.uk will cost nothing to put up an advert advertising your requirements.
If you are within the M25 area then simplychildcare.com may be useful.

In our situation the cost of having one 2 year old in private nursery, and care for my son before school was equal to paying our share of a nanny to look after them both - and with the nanny we are covered for holidays too. Good luck.

Oh, and if you are thinking about employing a nanny remember that their pay tends to be net - so you have to add on the cost of employers and employee's national insurance and income tax.
£8 per hour net is probably more like £12 per hour after the NI and taxes. There are tax calculators on nannytax.com and nannypaye.com that can help you convert net to gross.

nannys are often willing to do flexi hours especially those with own children, agencies are very helpful. however many childminders in my area pick up from morning nurseries and many cover holidays too.it may be an idea to look on the childcare link website . also some nurseries/playgroups offer wraparound care where they will pick up your child from nursery.so i would look at all options.
it really depends on your area

fantastic again - Thanks all

nannynick thanks for the advise about hours - will let them know I will take am or pm sessions even though I was afraid dd would just sleep there if she went in the afternoon but hey..(registering with two nursery classes at local schools next week - the brilliant one next door / up the road being one of them. Also that very same nursery class gave me a book of all schools and nursery provision by the borough and thats where I spotted five nursery schools in the area - all offer places for 3 to 5 year olds fll/part time. Numbers of children seem big though 60 through to 120, but I am ringing round next week and hopefully going to see a few. In anycase intend to register and see what happens when dd gets to three years old. and you are right nannies can be male or female!!

bluebear thanks for this, are you in the London area too?

mineheadsharon is this the \link{http://www.childcarelink.gov.uk/index.asp\site} you mean? and manay thanks - didn't know childminders work in this way? I had heard that some agencies provide nannies who care with their own children and this may be very useful too. One of the 8local* Nursery Schools (i.e. free of charge) also offers breakfast club, aftershcool club and hoiliday playscheme so I iam straight on the phone and down there next week to check that out.

Really appreciate all this help guys. dd won't be three until next year, however our private nursery costs won't change much when she is three and it costs a bomb believe me - I have looked at other nurseries but costs are very similar so not worth up rooting her as she really does enjoy her nursery. With the local nursery classes the change in care seems justifiable to me as it prepares her for school and spreads attendance over five days not just three as is currently? and though there is no guarantee the nursery class I have my eye on is infact the school I'd like her to go to this would be a very good move if we could pull this off. Also still need to weigh up local nursery school with montesorri teaching offered at current private nursery when they get into the pre-school room but that is an entirely different thread that I need to pursue. If any of you guys have any thoughts/ views on this (montesori teaching) do let me know as I haven't a clue. Plus Ofsted (for what it's worth) is very good at current private nursery.

And finally (promise the thing that made me think about looking for different care was the pre school room at current nursery seems very very small to me especially compared to other rooms I've seen for that age group and the ongoing issue of cost is ever present.

Yes I'm in London too. We had a similar dilemma to you when ds came up to 3 years - he was in a private nursery. We were offered a place at the local school (Free) nursery but in the end we decided against it - the school nursery had 36 children with 3 members of staff whilst the private one had 4 children for each member of staff and a total of 16 children..and we were happy that we kept him in the same place because he didn't get a reception place at that school so he would have had to move to another school anyway.
Now dd is getting to that age she goes part-time to a private nursery but spends most of her time with our nanny. Her name is down for the nursery attached to ds's school (she should get a place in reception there because ds is there already).

One thing to bear in mind is that, depending on your local authority, a lot of areas subsidize the nursery places for over-3's. In my area (west london) this works out at about £100 per month if your child has at least 5 sessions a week (a session = 2.5 hours or so).

Thanks again bluebear - I'll check this out (subsidising sessions) I think this refers to nursery grant I have heard the nursery mention. I hope our three days a week will equate to just over five sessions as she is there am. and p.m.

Goodness me it's such a minefield already?... and your situation proves a point to me given that I want to minimise unnecessary moving and your son's eventual school was not the one in which his free nursery class was offered! The two schools I have in mind for dd are both on my road and are both equally as good as each other, however school at the top of the hill has already told me reception classes tend to fill up before they even reach toward the end of our road so don't count on a place - yikes!! this leave othere and nearer choice and basically when the time comes I'll have to cross all fingers and toes. The nearer one is the one I prefer but goodness knows where we'd end up if not in there? Cheeky question was the school your son went to your first choice (I am taking a leap and guessing it's a local school / isn't private - nothing against private shcools only in our area - South London, a handful of primary shcools (local) are very very good - it's the secondary schools that are the worry).

YES THAT THE RIGHT SIGHT WELL GOOD LUCK I AM SURE ALL WILL WORK OUT WHEN THE TIME COMES.

have a look at simply childcare as it covers all of london and m25 area , its a fortnightly magazine where parents and childcarers advertise[cheaply] and everyone can pick and choose,they are also very helpful on advice so check them out

No problem with your 'cheeky question' - he goes to our third choice school - our first choice was the local 'catchment' school with the nursery that we had looked at, our second choice was another local school which is undersubscribed and had a poor environment but is being re-built at the moment (he got a place at this one and we were all geared up for him going there) - on the first day of term he was offered a place at our third choice school - a very popular, generally oversubscribed school with good resources and ofsted similar to our first choice - we took the place, he just swapped his jumper for the new school one :)
We had put this school third rather than second because we thought we didn't have a hope in heck of getting a place there, but we didn't want to leave the third choice blank, and all other local schools are a trek away.

thanks again bluebear - this has been really helpful. I will no doubt get around to posting one day for advise about school applications - next hurdle of many - if we don't end up with / taking a nursery class when dd gets to three all your links and advise could help me find a nanny for aftersschool and school hols hours