Advice from child minders please

[Lucy88]

Hi

My son is in nursery at present, however I am looking to have a child minder from September when he goes to school. I am seeing 3 next week.

He will go mornings only. What would happen if the child minder was ill - do you still have to pay?

I am not sure what happens for school holidays though. Some holidays, I will take time off and some holidays my ex-H will take time off. As a child minder, how do you work things for school holidays? Do you expect parents to pay for them all and book in advance, or just book the one's the parents need?

If you have to book them all, what happens when the child-minder is on holiday.

Thnks for any advice.

Not a CM but a long-term user of CM's.

Most CM that I have used will charge full price for Holidays.

If you choose not to send your DC,then you pay,if they are sick then you don't usually pay.

When they are on holiday,each CM has their own rules.One CM I had wanted me to take the same 2 weeks off
Mainly my CM's take off the weeks they have as holiday.But you pay when you go.

As for when you choose not to send your DC,and when you go on holiday,the CM would keep those sessions available for you,so wouldn't be earning anything for them if she didn't charge,and she couldn't give them to someone else usually.

If you imagine that you plan a day out in the holidays,and suddenly someone is sick at work and they ask you to cover,you'd assume your DC's place at CM would be available,and it would be if you had paid for it.If it was a casual contract,you may not get childcare when you need it.

Some CM's will be flexible with holidays though,especially if they have teachers children.

It depends

Often a childminder will not charge when they are ill - however each childminder is self-employed so will have an individual contract with you

I do either term-time only contracts for school age children (fulltime school only) or full contracts. If you are on a TT only contract you would not get any holiday care. If you are on a full contract you would not pay for my holiday (2 weeks) but would pay for any week you didn't attend

I also do ad-hoc care so you could book TT only then book the weeks you need in the holiday however the weeks you want might not be available.

But while your child attends school on a Part-time basis the situation is different. Until they are attending F/T they could as an Early Years child & some childminders would need you to pay for a F/T space because of the ratios we are allowed

Sorry a little misleading....

If CM sick: No charge usually.
If your DC sick: full/half charge.

Your holiday: Full price/Half price.
Their Holiday: No charge usually (although I have had one that insisted,because "everyone else gets paid for their holidays at work",true, but I then had to pay twice,when I had to arrange alternative childcare.)

Thank you for your responses

I have another quick question.

Do child minders generally charge by the hour during holiday time or by the day?

they usually charge by the hour BUT have a minimum number of hours that you have to pay, mine says 6 hours.

I charge per hour. If it's only 3-4 hours a day, I tend to charge a higher hourly rate.

Okay here goes I do it this way

like KatyMac re the three different types of care.

If I'm off sick / on Holiday - No fee

If Child off sick - 3 free days per year, then Full Fee for the rest

If child on Holiday I need 2 weeks notice, if notice given no Fee if don't give notice full fee - however most of my mindees have hols same time as me anyway as they get a planner a year in advance, and a lot of mine are TT only so they have hols when not booked in. If a parent wanted more than 4 weeks hols a year I woud charge 1/2 for the extra weeks IYSWIM.

Most of my mindees pay over 52wks so need to know dates when I set the costs for the year, not had many problems so far doing it this way.

For Holiday Club if in the early years age group I charge hourly so the cost doesn't change from TT to H/C. If over 5's I have a Daily, Half Day rate which is a little cheaper than if they paid per hour, but then I'm not running around doing school drops etc so less leg stress . But again holiday club fees are factored into annual cost, if they need any extra then they get an additional invoice covering the extra cost.

With our CM we pay per hour as it's before and after school care, but for the day - such as training days - she charges a flat fee which works out more cost effective for parents and makes her more reasonable than nursery prices.

If my child were ill I would still pay my CM, she still needs to earn.

We only use her in term-time but pay half fees during the holiday period to 'retain' her - but the total cost is worked out for the entire year and then averaged, so she has a steady fixed income, nor does the sum fluctuate for us.

If she is ill, CM has emergency cover in place such as family members and another CM so we still pay her (and she sorts our who she pays) which suits us as it ensures reliable child-care cover.

When she is on holiday, again she always sorts out alternative provision. If she didn't we would not pay.

We pay her using childcare vouchers (again good for us) direct into her bank account