really need Childminders point of view

[RogueRebel]

I've been using my child minder (1st one ever) since my oldest DD started school in September.
She goes two days a week before and after school while I work.
She is highly qualified, great with children, and absolutely lovely.

But I have been getting reports from the school that my DD is being picked up late regularly and has now been late for school on one occasion.
Childminder has not mentioned anything at all and didn't bring up the possibility that this would happen at all during our meeting and discussions before the contract was signed. However I didn't ask about lateness I said school times and she explained she knew due to having other children at that school.
I don't want to rock the boat but is this acceptable? or should she be informing me of lateness?

Not acceptable but don't go in all guns blazing right now. Talk to your childminder, let them know school has been in touch and ask about what has caused them to be late. Once you have e facts you can go from there, it may be something that will be fine next term.

Is she dropping off and picking up at another school first?

Just tell her the school has been in touch. It might be that her car broke down one day, or something.

She should not be late on a regular basis.

Definitely not acceptable, but like others have already said, tell her school have been in touch about it and give her the opportunity to explain. If she can't explain and/or doesn't think its a problem, I'd think about giving notice. I hate being late and it really stresses my dc out so I'd never think it was ok to make any of my mindees late.

I really don't want to rock the boat and its almost the end of term, I will leave it for now and reassess if needs be in the new year. she does do at least 1 other school for her children but after she has collected my child it might be an idea to find out about the homework club and discuss a later pick up from the club.

Does she collect other children from the same school? Maybe she collects from another classroom round the corner and by the time she arrives at your children's classroom she 5 mins late?? This is unavoidable. I used to collect one child from reception first (on time) then run round the corner to another child's year 2 classroom and collect them (always 5 mins late) they would just wait by classroom. No real problem. Anything up to 10 mins I think is fine. Longer, then no, not really ideal. Childminders with loads of children from different classes will always be late collecting some, simply because they can't be in two places at once. I would always collect the younger children first.

Agree with Seb, at our school they allow older children to walk inside to the younger one's classroom so that they can all be collected from the same door, you could suggest this if it helps.

You said she collects other children from that school. Do they all finish at the same time? How far away from each other are the classes? I used to collect 3 children from one school and it took ages waiting by each class. By the time I got around to the third class I was always late!

she collects 1pair of siblings from the same school but not on the same day from what I understand, although one of them is in the class next door.

when the childminder is late it is over 10 minutes, for the first 10 my DD and any other children are kept in the classroom with the teacher, after that they are sent to the office for collection.

it is because it is over 10 minutes and regularly that the school have mentioned it. The choldminder is very well known amongst the staff and as soon as I explained I would be using a childminder for 2 days a week they mentioned her straight away.