Childminders drop off / pickup between school care

[How08]

How much does everyone pay (or charge if you're a childminder) for school runs and what's the breakdown please?

£7 for mornings and £21 for evenings including snacks and evening meal.

8-9am and 3-6pm.

Do you not pay extra for them to take them to school then or is that included in the price you said ? How much extra is it ontop of the basic hourly fee they charge. Thanks

I am a childminder and this is what I charge parents.

@ScrewedByFunding I feel your username ❤️

I charge £6ph (but min 2 hours afterschool).

I've just newly qualified and joined a WhatsApp group for childminders with same agency and asked what people charge so I can get a rough idea and not a single person would tell me. I wouldn't mind if I was near them and trying to take their business 🫣 how can you price it you don't know going rate

I pay £6 morning and £18 evening until 6pm (but most parents pick up by 530) - no evening meals and I don’t think they get breakfast/snacks anymore but in fairness she has held her prices for 4 years

that includes drop off and pick up.

We pay 21.50 for after school (and pick up by 5.20), and 7.50 per hour during the day.

Ours charges £5.25 per hour, evenings are 3-6pm. No evening meal, just a snack (usually a piece of fruit, or a cake on a special occasion). She's open until 6pm (we pick up a bit earlier).

Ah they're making me write it down as an extra charge ontop of hourly rate. I can't put zero (it's all done on an app) maybe that's where I'm confused if people just charge normal hourly price and not extra to collect and drop

One of the downsides of going with an agency. Personally I dont understand why you wouldn't want to register with Ofsted and choose how you run your own business.

We pay £6 an hour. We send snacks and collect before meal times.

DN is the 6th child I've used a CM for and I've never paid extra for a school or nursery pick up.

CM's have always said they only pick up from X or Y school/nursery, but it's never been an extra cost.

If you're with a "not large" agency like me, then you can just set your hourly rate for pre/after school times or use a flat rate for pick ups. I opt to use my hourly rate.

Could it be it’s asking for your fee for before/after school care as a fixed amount? Although you will have an hourly rate for during the day, I guess you’ll have a fixed price for care from 8-8:50am including drop off and breakfast, and 3:15-5:30pm including pick up and tea (for example)

🤣 nearly didn't get that. Yes that's the one. Oh, see it's not very clear to me, unless I'm just a bit thick lol. So what it's asking me if for a flat rate? Because all it says is what do you charge for a morning drop off etc

You do get to run it how you like, im new and just navigating it. It's app based so I guess all fields must be filled. Like sparklemonster said, you can apparently choose flat rate or hourly fee when doing contracts. (I didn't know this) ... I've had no issues with going through an agency so far. To me it seemed like the easier option as all the training and what I'd expect was all in one place. I can move to Ofsted if I ever wanted, no penalties. 😀 But to get my foot in the door I chose this path.

It's not explained clearly, I agree.

I set my after school rate at £15, but I've never applied it in my invoices, just use my hourly rate (or funded hours) as parents pick up at different times so they're only paying for the time they use. You could set them to be the same rate if that's more helpful for you e.g. if your hourly rate is £6 and your after-school period is 3-6pm, you could set your pick up rate to £18. Does that help?

it would depend largely on where you’re based

Yes brill! You've been really helpful thankyou x