Registering your nanny with Ofsted

[snickersnack]

Has anyone asked their nanny to register with Ofsted and taken them through the registration process? I?m very interested in your experiences ? at the moment my childcare vouchers pay for dd?s nursery but when she starts school in September that obviously stops. Ds won?t start preschool until next September, so there?s a period of a year or so when I won?t have any tax relief on childcare unless I get our nanny to register.

As I understand it, the costs are about £135 to register, £60 or so for insurance, £140 or so for the CCS training. Is that it? She has an up to date first aid certificate, and an NVQ 3 in childcare. I assume we would pay the registration and CCS costs, and she would pay the insurance (I assume she has to, as if we pay it would invalidate it as we are the ones who would benefit in the event of a claim). Given the vouchers save me £88 a month, it does seem to make sense to do this.

So, my questions:

How long does the registration process last? I?m assuming she?ll be with us for a while longer, but am hoping to sell it to her as something that will make her more employable in the future if she finds another job.

How intensive is the training? I?d much prefer her to do the online modules as if she attends the weekend course I?d feel obliged to pay her for those days, which makes the whole thing much less economical. But equally I can see she might not want to spend hours each night studying.

If she has the NVQ, does she still need the training? I?m completely baffled by the information. Am having a very dozy day.

Yes it's generally accepted she needs to pay the insurance - well done for spotting it!

The registration is renewed yearly. It should theoretically make her more employable but that's a bit up in the air....

The training (if she has an NVQ) is pretty simple stuff. I would think, not entirely sure, that the NVQ3 will be on the list of approved qualifications. You can check the lists here and here

Thank you, that's very helpful. So even with the NVQ she will still need to do the training?

I shouldn't think she'd need to do training if she has NVQ3(that's better than NVQ2, isn't it? - I believe NVQ2 is the basic they expect).

The registration process has been pretty grim for us - I've another thread with our travails on it, you could search if you really wanted - but it MAY be because we applied at the absolute height of the teething problems.

My big recommendation would be to get yourself familiar, via a largish glass of wine, with the Ofsted website and the 'guidance' available there (which will maybe give you some clarity on the training issue too) ... as it is an extraordinarily concatenative process - step then another step then another step - and between each step Falls The Shadow (ie you go into limbo waiting for letters, which then arrive without their enclosures)

PS - our nanny has an Australian Early Years (basically, nursery-school-teaching) diploma, and we have completely assumed that will satisfy the training requirements. I will be hopping if, after all this, they say it's not good enough.

PPS - when it was SureStart, they had a list of training considered adequate, which was a nice helpful way to do it. Ofsted, instead, has a list of areas to have been trained in (the "Common Core" so-called) and you have to see if the training you've done ticks the boxes. I am really sure, as before, that an NVQ3 would do it.

If it's on the new (searchable) list then it's considered okay. If it was on the old SureStart list it's probably okay...

And if it's okay then no extra training necessary!

If she has an NVQ3 and paediatric first aid then she won't need any additional training. It'll just be £103 for the registration, £36 for the CRB (you should pay) and £60 insurance (she should pay).

Right, this is all sounding both more straightforward (she has, I think, everything she needs bar insurance) and less straightforward (the Ofsted stuff is an absolute nightmare).

I think I'll suggest she and I sit down one night when the children are in bed and navigate our way through the registration form together with a large glass of wine.

Final question (you've been v helpful, thank you so much) - all those record keeping requirements...does she need to have policies on not smacking my children etc in case Ofsted decide to inspect her? This really is red tape gone mad - I feel like a Daily Mail editorial fulminating against the ridiculousness of the nanny (ha ha) state.

I don't think, as a nanny (aka "home childcarer" in Ofstedspeak) she needs to have written policies - I think she just needs to do a tick in a box on the application form that says she won't smack. (But they keep changing the application form ...)

Also - re costs - the cost of our nanny's CRB is being picked up by Ofsted (again this is because she is in the "home childcarer" category and I have it in writing that this is policy) so we just had to pay the registration - which we paid, not her - that is common, by the way, that parents pay reg'n fee, but it isn't yet the settled norm.