Termination of contract

[Amanda1228]

Hi there, I’m new to this site so hope some of you can help me.

I currently have a contract with a childminder for my 4 year old daughter. When I started with this woman it was the first time she had ever been a childminder but had all the correct registration and certificates etc. But had worked in a school for a number of years so I thought great, this woman knows what she’s doing. Not to mention she had 3 kids of her own, lovely home etc.

However, I don’t feel the care which my daughter receives is what I was promised and to be honest I’m paying well over he odds for substandard care.
Firstly, she promised a healthy and well balanced diet - my daughter had had Frosties 80% just about every morning she has had her.
My daughter gets dragged along to pick up 2 kids from their home after I drop her off and to drop the childminders own child off at school every day (I know only about the own child when I signed the contract), also to pick them back up from school and drop the other kids at home at night also.
I pay for the childminder whilst my daughter is in school Nursery for 3 hours a day (I’m not sure why as obviously she isn’t in her care but apparently this is he norm?).
Whenever I’m online I see that the childminder is nearly always active on a watsapp while my daughter is in her care.
I was promised days out, baking, painting etc. But I frequently see ‘free play’ on her text she sends me at the end of the day stating what my daughter had been doing for the day. I’ll ask her what she’s been doing and she says watching tv.
The childminders son has frequent hospital appointments (maybe twice a month?) which my daughter also has to be taken along to (which I never knew would happen when signing contract).
The childminder then text me not long ago saying she wouldn’t be doing a ‘daily diary’ anymore as it takes up too much of her time - surely this is a statutory requirement? (Please note - this ‘daily diary’ is a text at the end of the day saying what my daughter has been doing - not what I would call a daily diary).
Finally, due to working away sometimes for my job I booked a week off meaning I did not require childcare (3 months in advance) and I was still charged - being told “I can take holidays where you don’t pay me, you can’t”.

I told her I would no longer be requiring her and would give 28 days notice. However, do you think this is fair grounds to terminate the contract with immediate effect and not have to pay for the 28 days? I don’t want my daughter there where I know she isn’t getting the care I was promised and to be honest which I expect from a childcare provider.

Thank you for listening.

BayHorseNana - A cm is not a grandma and can not look after sick children as they would be in breach of EYFS - to minimise infection risk and to meet all the childrens needs as a Granny you can sit with a child cuddling them and give 1 to 1 but your daughter is not using you as childcare they are not paying 1 to 1 nanny at £10 plus and hour with NI, sick pay and pension on top where they can dictate what is done in a day.
A cm can have up to 6 under 8's in their care without being in breach of Ofsted or EYFS regulations. When your Daughter met the cm she may well have had less but unless it says in the contract or on her registration certificate that she would have less how is she in breach?
Collection and pick ups - if she has to do a school run yes it may take 20 mins each way that is the nature of many cm's work who she collects on route is irrelevant to your daughter unless she is going miles out of her way, why does it annoy you so much do you have to collect your grand daughter from the cm and take her to nursery?
Your Grand daughter is taking up a childminding space who is supposed to pay for it? If your daughter doesn't want to pay either she doenst use the cm and lets you drive every day/finds another or uses the CM instead of nursery.
The CM is not making as much as she is receiving from her clients unlike you she has to pay for courses, insurance, consumables, activities, petrol to and from school and activities, tax, national insurance, member ship to professional bodies, ICO registration, Higher electricity bills, maybe waste disposal (some boroughs charge cms to get rid of nappies) entrance fees, children's food and snacks....from the top of my head but probably more. The average cm is earning under minimum wage as apart from the hours she has your grandchild and other children she will also have to do continued professional development, learning journals, planning, preparing craft, checking risk assessments, cleaning toys, most will work part of their weekend on this as well as evenings.
If your daughter has ot work away from home why do you think any setting should either care fro her at extra fee , loose money by not charging or go over their legal limit your daughter chose her career you choose to support her or not but why should a business support your daughter financially? If you wanted to you could stay at hers and droop to childcare as normal.

BayHorseNana,

I’m not entirely sure what you sought to achieve by jumping on this thread in order to criticise your own daughter’s childcare decisions, but in what way do you think your personal ravings are going to help with the OP's situation?

Also, in an earlier post you assert, "..... less than 50% of paid for childcare, be it CM or nursery is good, to excellent. Which equates to more than 50% of children are getting a crap deal." I think we can just about extract the meaning from the unusual syntax, but i am most curious as to where you get this supposed 'statistic' of 50%. Would you please enlighten us all as to your source?

Thank you in anticipation of your answer.

@bayhorsenana then in that case I stand by what I said - your dd needs to employ a nanny not hire a childminder/nursery - these are two different things. She has hired a CM in the same way that one hires a plumber/cleaner/hairdresser - you ask for a service, they say what they can offer when and how much for and the service user decides whether or not it is acceptable.

Ultimately your DD entered into a contract with the CM and nursery. No one forced her to. She chose to work a job which requires overnight stays and to have a child. It's not the CM responsibility to provide unlimited solutions. Does your dd actually have a problem with the CM or is it just you?

If the contract said the CM would only have one child then she may be in breach of contract. If not, then she probably isn't.

@BayHorseNana

You seem very quick to make outlandish accusations (from a safe distance) about nurseries, CMs and your own daughters' decisions. You’ve made an outrageous statistical claim, presumably in an attempt to lend some credibility to your views.

Yet, when challenged to simply state the source of your supposed 'evidence', you go completely silent.

The fact is, your 'statistic' purporting to demonstrate an overall low standard of childcare in the U.K. , as well as your claims of low parent satisfaction with "paid for" childcare is so far from the truth that one is left with the obvious conclusion that you did not read it "elsewhere" : most likely you just made it up. At best, you may have read a falsified piece of misinformation and were all to ready to believe it, simply because you are unable to accept your own daughters' childcare choices.

Childminders are self employed.. they pay their own Tax and N.I.
Have their own terms and conditions.

So a family use her service..
Childminders are not 'hired'... Or an employee.