usable floor space

[Memina]

Hey all,

My brain is fried after a screaming baby sucked the energy from me!

I've measured my current floor space and it's just under 30m2

Two adjoining rooms

Rm 1 = 4mx2.5m
Rm 2 = 3.2mx1.6m

So can someone help me work out how many children I can have in the space based on 3 working together.

Thanks
M

[Mouse]

I get room 1 as being 10m2 and room 2 as 5.12m2, so just over 15m2 in total.

The requirements are:

Children under two years: 3.5m2 per child.
Two year olds: 2.5 m2 per child.
Children aged three to five years: 2.3 m2 per child.


You could have 6 x 2 year olds, or 2 x under 2 and 3 x 2yr olds. The maximum number you could have would be 6x 2-5yr olds, less if you had uner 2s.

[Memina]

Thanks mouse

Maths has never been my strong point! So do we work it out? Multiply length by width?

[Memina]

Whats confused me is that as the rooms are open plan and lead onto eachother why cant I add the two lengths together and multiply it by the two widths?

SCRATCH THAT DUH!!!! I was making the room twice as wide. Oh dear think its bed time. Lok

[Mouse]

Yes, length by width.

Room 1: 4m x 2.5m = 10m2

Room 2: 3.2m x 1.6m = 5.12m2

Add them together to get total floor space of 15.12m2

[Mouse]

Whats confused me is that as the rooms are open plan and lead onto eachother why cant I add the two lengths together and multiply it by the two widths?

SCRATCH THAT DUH!!!! I was making the room twice as wide. Oh dear think its bed time. Lok

Once you've got an idea in your head it's hard to see round it!

Tiredness & baby brain don't mix well with working out sums!

[Memina]

Oooo one more question pls....

This is the play area we have so where I mainly set up activities but my whole house us registered so do I take into consideration the other rooms when working out ny usable floor space?

[Mouse]

You should take into account the rooms you usually use for childminding. EG. if the children never use a particular room, you wouldn't count it. You don't count bedrooms, hallways, bathrooms or kitchen.

The idea is that each child has sufficient space to play, so your house might be big, but if you only used one room for childminding, you couldn't really count your whole floor space.

But, I don't know exactly how Ofsted view it.

I have 2 cm friends. One has a lovely big house. 3 big rooms & a conservatory. Ofsted judged that she had enough space to work with 2 assistants & have the maximum number of children. She gave Ofsted the impression that she used all rooms, but only actually uses 1 and it's very cramped.
The other friend has a house with 2 rooms downstairs. The total floor space was sufficient for 3 EYs children, but when Ofsted inspected her they pulled her up for only using one room, which didn't have sufficient space for 3 children.

If I were you I would count any area that is used for childminding, but it might be worth giving Ofsted a call to see what they say.