childminder contract

[madcyclist]

What advice have you got for me regarding the contract for a childminder.
How do holidays work out?
What happens when she wants to go away?
And when we want to go away?
Do we pay her for both stretches of time?
What if she is ill and can't take dd, do we still pay her?
This is all very complicated, it would be good to get an overview of what everyone else does. Thanks for the input, I'm a newcomer to all of this and it is a bit daunting.

HI there
We have a childminder for 3 days per week and this is how it works out.....

Holidays - slightly odd for us as i am a teacher..we pay her half in our holidays. Any extra hols, we have to give 4 weeks notice of and pay half
When SHE is on hols, we pay her nothing (2 weeks during the summer hols)
If she is ill (hasn't been yet) we pay nothing

She has also provided us with an emergency childminder - a friend of hers - should there be an emergency during the day or if she is ill and we choose to use her...

HTH

Hi - contact your local council's children's information service - CIS - (find it by going to
www.childcarelink.gov.uk) and this will give you the contact number as well as numbers of any childminders locally who are currently registered - should be updated monthly. The CIS will be able to send you free guides on childcare including how to choose a childminder, what to ask them and also might give info on contract. In terms of hols/sick leave, think it's completely up to you both to work out, we had a brilliant childminder for 2 yrs she was never sick (we didn't pay if she was) and gave advance notice of hols, only downside is most want full school hols (12 weeks) off (unpaid).
Other tip I'd give is to go on local recommendation if you can - CIS are good for general information on childcare but IMO actual choice of childminder better by word of mouth.
hope that helps.

Our childminder uses a contract that I think was supplied by the council that she is registered with. She has two options, for £105 a week per child you pay all year round including 4 weeks holiday for her whether or not you are on holiday. Those who take that option tend to coincide their holidays with hers. She always takes them during the midterm or other school holidays so if you have older children it fits in. The second option is for £125 a week you only pay for the weeks that you are there plus 3 weeks holiday for her. We do the latter as we travel quite a bit and it works out marginally better. Our childminder is never sick. And she always tries to work out any gp appointments around when the least amount of her kids will be affected. Although her official hours are 8-6, she is very flexible on times and we often don't pick up the kids til 6:30. She does all our nighttime babysitting (which we pay extra for), which is convenient, because we just leave the kids there without having to pick them up and feed them dinner before going out. She is also great about taking the kids even if they have a cold, fever etc. Our ds is 3.5 and has been with her since 11 mo. and she has only sent him home once (when he was vomiting).