Nanny with school age children

[BaaaaaaBaaaaaaBlackSheep]

We have 3 year old twins who start school (nursery) in September this year.

DH and I both work full time so we will obviously need wrap around and holiday childcare. We currently have a full time nanny which works really well for us and the children adore her. We will shortly be moving house to live near the school the children will be attending, and this means we will have to change nannies (the new house is too far from our current nanny's home for her to commute).

So my question is: is it feasible to recruit a nanny to work full time during the school holidays, and part time during term time? To start off with the term time hours would be 8-6, less morning sessions in school. Over time, the hours in school would increase to a full day (9-3). We would however still need a nanny to drop off and pick up during term time, and then care for the children full time during the holidays.

Do any of you work to these sorts of arrangements? And if it is an hourly rate, do you effectively pay or get paid for the hours the children spend in school? Would a nanny expect to earn the same amount for working 8-6 five days a week as they would for working 8-9 then 3-6? I know that the opportunity for someone to earn during those hours of 9-3 is slim to non-existent, so is it possible have an arrangement whereby the amount paid per month was the same (to smooth out the payments) but that recognises that the weeks during term time were significantly less demanding?

Or does this all sound like more of a nanny/housekeeper role, so that during the school hours they could undertake tasks in the home?

I'd be really interested to know what arrangements you have, and what works/doesn't work. We always try to be very fair employers, but at the same time we don't have an endless budget...

Thanks

We have done this. I have one child in reception class and one in the nursery pre-school so the younger one only does 3 hours a morning, from 9-12.

I have a part time nanny, three days a week, to cover the 3 days I work. We need care from 8-6 in holiday times, and 12-6 in term times, so we averaged this out on the basis that there are 39 weeks in the year when the children are at school/nursery and 13 weeks when they are on holiday.

Our nanny's wages are calculated on 39 weeks working 18 hours a week, and 13 weeks working 30 hours a week - 1,092 hours over the whole year. She then works these actual hours so does long days in the school holidays and short days in term time.

For paying her, the hours of 1,092 over the year are averaged over the 52 weeks, giving an average of 21 hours per week, and she is then paid this as a monthly salary so she gets a guaranteed and regular payment each month. Its much easier to do this as it means we don't have to change the payroll information every month with the agency we use to calculate the salary and tax and NI for us.

In theory, our nanny's holiday should be taken in the same proportions - so 3 weeks holiday in term time and 1 in holiday times, but actually we take all our holiday when the children are on holiday as well, so our nanny has 4 weeks off in holiday times. It works well for all of us.

It didn't work for us as when we reduced her hours she then found another job. Scared to do it again (and third child) so currently paying 3 full days even though I don't need but will change to au pair.

Yes, you can try to recruit a nanny to work full time during school holidays and shorter hours term time. It depends if it suits anyone locally, it might but it might not. It may suit some older, someone who has their own children, someone who for whatever reason does not need to earn as much as they could earn if they did a 50+ hour week. Many of us nannies on Mumsnet do not work a 50+ hour week these days, we have part-time, flexible hours jobs.

Are there other options to consider, such as a childminder? The hours you need 8-6 fit well with that. Perhaps keep options open and look at what provision there is locally - advertise for a nanny but also consider other options.

When you children are doing morning only sessions, then could nanny do some housework, children's laundry inc bedding, cooking, shopping, have a but of paid free time?

You need to keep in mind that the nanny is on call... if a child needed to come home from nursery/school, would you collect them? Children are ill, have a minor accident, the school may not be open (things I can think of which have happened: snow/sewer blockage/heating issue/teacher strike). You need something to cope with that happening... either you/your partner or someone else being available to collect the children.

Having a fixed number of hours per year like Kitty does sounds a good way of doing things if you can find a nanny who will accept that. As Kitty says, holiday entitlement may be tricky and may result in the nanny getting more holiday than minimum entitlement. However that happens in full time jobs as employers may take more holiday themselves than the nanny is entitled to have under law.

If you look at things as a yearly salary, not as per hour, then I feel things could work out for both you and the nanny. It's when people look at hourly rates and being paid but not physically working when I feel unrest occurs.

Thanks very much for sharing your experience and insight. Really useful.

I have being doing a role very similar to this for the last two years. I lived in so the salary was adjusted for that. My weekly salary was an average of the whole year, however I worked full time during the school holidays and did drop offs and pick ups during term time.

I did all nursery duties, and ran errands for my boss during the day. There was a significant amount of downtime during the day that my boss preferred to pay me for in the event that the children were ill, or home from school for whatever reason.

I recently decided to live out, and was interviewed for a bunch of these type of jobs, however parents only wanting to pay for hours worked ie. 7.30-9am, and then from 3.30-7pm term time. Which didn't work for me at all. The general consensus amongst agents is that these are some of the hardest positions to fill.

I think NannyNick is absolutely right that a yearly salary is far better than an hourly rate.