Childminder rated as requires improvement?

[Friendslover]

My DS is 13 months, he is currently in a nursery but hasn't settled well. I think he will be more suited to a smaller home environment where he can put a bond with one person (never see the same person at drop off at nursery).

I visited a childminder today who seems lovely, chatty, warm & friendly. She has her 2 year old DD there. She mentions an 'incident' with her child biting another & being ofsted inspected (reported to ofsted but bitten Childs Mum) ofsted then dropped her rating from good to requires improvement & recommended that she attend a behaviour management course to manage bad behaviour effectively.

I then looked up the ofsted report & it states that an uninformed visit took place & the childminder was found to be in breach of adult-child ratios (too many children), was ineffectively dealing with bad behaviour. The childminder never mentioned that she had too many children, just the behaviour part for which she hasn't attended recent workshops for.

I understand that children argue/fight & do bite on occasions & like I said I do like her & my son seemed to take a liking to her too.

Just wondered would this put you off? Should I be asking her any more questions?

I do believe (reading between the lines) that this has had a detrimental effect to her business & did actually feel a bit sorry for her!

Would this bother you?

Sorry should have added that the ofsted report stated 'numerous' incidents of biting, childminder told me just one.

I would not use her as she has been dishonest eater by knowly breached ratio putting money before the welfare of children and then lied to you. I would not trust her to look after my child.

The biting wouldn’t necessarily put me off as it can happen anywhere when there are groups of children of the same age and if the Childminder is willing to engage in behaviour management courses. But going above the adult-child ratios would put me off as she is directly ignoring ofsted regulations.

Agree with others. The biting wouldn't put me off - some children are biters and it can happen anywhere, but she clearly knows about ratios and chose to ignore that, then didn't mention it to you (when is an omission a lie ???) and tried to imply the person that reported her was doing so because of the biting incident.

Thank you for your thoughts. Had meant to say she has attended behaviour management workshops not hasn't!

No the biting didn't put me off, I also have an older DD so I know what children can be like!

But yes I am concerned regarding the adult/child ratios & the fact I wasn't told by her. It does worry me that she comprises child safety.

It would put me off that you didn't get the full story regarding the ofsted rating from her. We visited a childminder, who we'd heard great things about, but she had a requires improvement rating. We'd read the report, and when we asked her about it she mentioned a couple of things that were on the report that resulted in that rating, and what she was doing about it, but there was one thing she didn't mention, and that's what put me off (it was that during a visit to the park there had been a brief period of children not being appropriately supervised). It worried me a lot that she hadn't mentioned that when we were discussing the report, especially as she said she was happy to talk about it and be as open as possible. Seems daft not to bring it up when reports are so easily accessible to parents.

So at the least I think you need to ask her about your specific concerns from the report. I would be concerned about the ratios not being kept to.

The fact she was selective with the truth would ring alarm bells for me. Ofsted will change me out and do an unannounced visit in cases such as these but they would only downgrade like that in serious circumstances it’s happened to me before after an accident and after the visit ofsted were assured it was a freak accident but still got compliance because my register wasn’t fully completed. I did not get downgraded. In your case it seems that ofsted must have found much more serious issues that need immediate rectification and the simple fact the childminder played it down would mean for me that she hadn’t learned her lesson. To be over her ratios (to the point they downgraded her) is such a basic (but serious) breach.