Registers

[popperdoodles]

Morning. Was wondering if someone may be able to answer a quick question for me. Do parents have to sign your register? I know the ncma attendance register (which I use) has a box for parent to sign each week but I was wondering if it is a requirement that a parent sign your register. It's just that when my own dcs went to nursery/preschool I never had to sign anything every week. I have to say although my register is correctly filled in out in every other way I am a bit behind with parent's signatures in it. I don't see why they have to sign it and as such it has got forgotten a bit What do you reckon?

I ask the parents to sign the children in & out each day in a separate diary

This is for child protection & health & safety reasons - so that I (& anyone who needs to) knows exactly what time the children were in my care

HTH

Well, here's another Ofsted inconsistancy (sp), many minders in my area are told that it doesn't have to be signed by parents, yet some (including myself) are told we have to . Sorry that doesn't really help does it?

Thanks. Well I have my ofsted next week, hence the question really. I might as well get it signed up to date just incase but will ask her when she's here if it is necessary. A friend of mine last week had her inspection and was told we didn't need written risk assessments WTF, yet I know plenty of others who have been told we definately do!

Its mainly for your own benefit that they should be signed by parents (says she who is months behind on getting parent's signatures herself).

Without signatures its only any use for your own personal record and cannot be considered proof of the child's attendance/absence, its your word against the parents that the child was present at any particular time. Whereas if both parents and childminders have signed the record, they can apparently be useful to refer to in situations like resolving an invoice dispute or in child protection issues, defending yourself against complaints such as going over your numbers.

I haven't spotted anything in EYFS to say it has to be signed. Mine are supposed to be signed weekly but I'm always behind. Even when I've remembered to hand the parent the sheet and pen, they've sometimes been so busy chatting to their child or me that they've absent mindedly put it down without signing!

The attendance register has to be signed and is very very important to at least some inspectors.I RECIEVED A LETTER SOON AFTER MY INSPECTION SAYING I HAD BREACHED A REGULATION AND OFSTED COULD HAVE PROSECUTED ME they even put on the internet that i had breached a regulation
Everyone had signed but one childs time was recorded as half an hour before school or one hour and after as 2 hours or two and three quarters and so on apparently this is potentially a crime Registered childminders have to record the exact time of arrival and departure

Problem is - each inspector has a different idea abotu hwo to interpret guidlines.

One I have had wasn't bothered by the fact I had honeysuckle growing in my front garden another insisted I rip it down almost there and then!

Given noone ever went in the front garden without an adult and even then onyl to walk up or down the path I didn't se the issue myself.

IMHO - its best to do exactly whats in the NCMA books - if there's a space for sigatuire use it and fill in every box - I figure they have our best interests in mind and will make sure we cover our arses so to speak.

Get parent sto sign EVERYTHING!

Well I had my inspection and hadn't had time to get signatures up to date. She didn't say anything. She looked at the register and said nothing. I do record in and out times accuately and I sign it myself, this seemed good enough for my inspector.

I record the children's time of arrival and departure, but the chances of getting parents to sign it are slim. One child is picked up by a foreign aupair, who never even speaks to me. What about the children we drop off at school? How do their parents know what time we got there? I haven't been pulled up on it yet, but I'm sure my time will come.

Marney, which regulation did they say you breached?

EYFS says the legal requirement is to keep:
"a daily record of the names of the children looked after on the premises, their hours of
attendance"

I can't find anywhere that mentions a parent signature is required.

P.40

popper - just goes to show doesn't it that Ofsted can't even be consistent so How do they expect us to be??!!!

It isn't a requirement, but a cm round here was told by an inspector that it was considered 'good practice' to get signatures, to safeguard ourselves. Trouble is, 2 of my mindees are picked up and dropped off at school - can't exactly whip out ncma attendance register in the middle of the yard!!

It's not a legal requirement for parents to sign registers. You do have to record actual hours of attendance - when child A arrives and when they leave, that day. It's not good filling the contractual hours in or doing it a week at a time in advance - the idea is to have a record of when you were caring for that child, so that if something awful happens you can say "no look - child A was actually picked up at lunchtime that day". It's for that reason as much as recording how many children you had with you (only really daft people who are over their numbers actually record evidence of it).

Without an accurate record, some people seriously don't know which children or even how many they were caring for on a particular day. If someone needs to ask you about a specific incident that happened on a day in October, maybe in half term, would you know which children you had with you? What if one was off sick, another was on holiday, and another had switched days at the last minute?

Marney were you recording children's actual hours? What does the thing on your report actually say - is it a recommendation or an action? And was it before or after September 2008?