I need to rant Aaargh - why can't I have a weekend without paperwork

[TheIronLady]

Well here I am again, another bloody Sunday doing sodding childminding paperwork and updating files; I am so sick of this.

I have been doing this on & off since 8 this morning amidst putting washing loads on & the first thing my adult son said to me when he came down was, morning mum, is it a good morning or are you in a bad mood!! this is because I often seem to be grumpy at the weekends because of this EYFS Paperwork....

I thought I had got on top of it but with 7 part time children, it is getting beyond a blooming joke.

I am beginning to feel that I have no life outside of childminding - it's driving me to distraction.

Rant over....

i am fed up with it too. had my inspection early June and i must confess that since then I have not done a thing observation / assessment wise. I also have quite a few part timers which is very time consuming.

so i understand. but cannot help much.

seriously thinking of packing it all in.

Totally understand. It's the same here too.
I keep trying to make my systems easier but still find myself constantly spending resentful time gathering pointless 'evidence' for Ofsted.

All this 'learning journey' crap is demeaning to me and to the children I care for.

Every one of us is on a 'learning journey' every second of every day from the moment we are born until we die.

IT CANNOT BE CONDENSED. GRRRRRR!!!!!

I love the learning journey's, been doing them for 5 or 6 years. It's the risk assesments for every pigging thing that pisses me off, I mean how thick must they think we are to need to risk assess (on paper) every time we leave the house. Are the children straped in the car/pram? of course they bloody are. will we remember to check for glass, dog poo etc and tell children not to touch it, well obviously.
Do I have enough petrol, is my phone charged, do I have numbers for childrens parents and on and on and on and on and on grrrrrrrrrrr

Roll on week tomorrow when I start my new job

I have a 3drawer filing cabinet full of crap paperwork, as well as 2 shelves of files on top of that. I've only bn minding about 8hrs a week thru the hols, so spend longer updating files than I do working

No.4, I had planned to give it up last September purely because of the extra paperwork that I knew the EYFS would generate. I do love my job as a childminder but the problem is I just can't get another job back in the office, I think that I have been away from it for far too long now, tried and didn't succeed and especially in this economic climate now.

When you had your inspection, had you done your planning on paper for the Inspecter to see?

I am due an inspection and I really cannot find the time to plan on paper, I am having to catch up with obs etc at weekends as it is and will not spend any more time on it.

I am thinking of just saying to the Inspector that if I do not have the time during working hours to put planning on paper then I cannot do it. I have hundreds of photos of the children doing loads of different activities so do have the proof. During my working day, two of my mindees do have a short nap if I am lucky but the third mindee usually does not so don't even have that time to put pen to paper. I find I am beginning to feel anxious if they don't all nap, I should not be feeling like this; I am anxious for the wrong reasons and it is because I need to do EYFS paperwork. Of course I do plan for the children to a certain extent (not on paper though) and can tell the Inspector exactly where the children are on their learning journey but for me I see that planning on paper is a complete waste of my time.

So I wonder what Ofsted would say to me if I don't plan on paper as I haven't done so yet, I wonder if they would grade me unsatisfactory? I just cannot devote any more of my time outside of working hours.

I don't know, I feel so helpless in the sense that I feel forced to childmind because I can't get anything else and need to pay my bills like everybody else but want to continue to childmind because this is the job I love but totally disagree with planning on paper for under three's and it's this coupled with the obs and everything else on paper that we have to do, that is just eating up my free time, I really begrudge it.

Thanks for the replies everyone else. I too keep trying to make my systems easier but am spending so much time on this, that I end up not having a life.

Hope you all have a good Monday.

I have a chalk board on the wall with my list of things to do and on Friday (while I wasn't looking) my 10 yr old DD wiped the board and wrote 'Play with DD'. How sweet, but sad is that?

Aah that is so sweet HSMM but yes very sad too. At least I don't have young children of my own to worry about. However, my two grown up children are getting fed up with me being grumpy at weekends and asking them to do more around the house so I can get on with paperwork .

I feel a bit better this morning, had a good chat with the head of our local nursery / children's centre (where I attend the playgroup) this morning; she and someone from the children's centre have given me some good tips on how they do their planning so that was really helpful. I'll see how I get on. One mindee asleep, don't think the other two will nap today but they are resting quietly on their little beds so I am looking at the planning now.