Does anyone do this?...

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.

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

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).

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.