Moving from canada

[Kellyroffey]

Hi there. I'm looking for some advice. I currently live in canada and have been doing home daycare for the last 4.5 years. I am looking to move back to the uk and am thinking of continuing my career. I am an English citizen and have been qualified with a BTEC national Diploma in Childhood Studies 19 years ago! I have always been in Childcare but the last 5 years I've been a stay at home mom doing daycare. I currently only take teachers children so that I am able to have the holidays off with my children. Would that work in England? And what would I charge? I'm looking at moving to Essex or Peterborough.

Any advice would be great :)

Thank you

[sing-low]

Hi Kelly, welcome to the Forum,

If you go to the stickies at the top of this section of the forum you'll find some info about what you have to do to register. Childminding (what we call home day care on this side of the pond!) is very regulated. Even with your qualifications, you will still have to do an intro to childminding course. The process of doing the course and applying to Ofsted can take anywhere from 6 months to a year so you'll need to budget to not be working during that time. There are still some grants available, I think, but if you've been out of the country you may not be eligible.

I suggest you browse the forum to get a feeling of what childminding is like and some of the joys and pitfalls. The looking after children bit will be the same but all the additional stuff will probably be different from what you're used to.

[munch149]

You can pick and choose which children you take on too so working term time only is Definately possible it just may make finding work slightly harder

[tulip0803]

I agree with the advice the others have given about registering. OFSTED will also take a bit longer with your DBS check as they will have to check with Canada as well as uk data bases.

How much you can charge depends on where you move to and what the rate in that area is. You also need to factor in whether you are going for an all inclusive service (food, nappies, wipes provided by you), whether parents will be providing food, wipes & nappies, whether you will provide food for an extra cost.

As munch says working term time only may make filling your spaces take slightly longer.

When registered you will be able to care for 6 children under 8 years, of those 6 no more than 3 may be under 5, and of those 3 no more than one under 12 months. These numbers include any children of your own under 8. You can also care for over 8s depending on space available and planning requirements.

Good luck

[rickysmiths]

Welcome! In order to get ahead in the Registration process you may consider doing the Introductory Course online now. The course known as CYPOP 5 is available from a number of providers. To get more general information you might like to look at the PACEY website. Pacey are a national membership organisation who represent childminders and have done so since the 1960s. They offer a number of online courses and you know they are recognised.

Before you can Register with OFSTED you will have to complete CYPOP 5, a 12 hour First Aid Course and a Child Protection Course. You will have to have a medical report completed by your GP and have a DBS security screening check done.

It might be an idea to look at the OFSTED website where all the requirements are documented.

Also you need to be aware that from September 2014 Childminding in England in going to be undergoing a lot of change with the introduction of Childminding Agencies in many areas. These are proposed to be hubs that cm join for a fee to be provided with support and training. Childminders who join these Agencies may well not longer be regulated by Ofsted but by their Agency who will be regulated by Ofsted. We are all waiting to see what is actually going to happen as we really don't know any more details yet. Best to stay in touch on a Forum like this and groups on Face Book so you can see what the latest information is as it starts to emerge.

Good Luck.

[Rick]

This thread should help

http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/forum/starting-childminding-pre-registration-visits/117176-registering-childminder.html

[wee_elf]

I don't have any more advice to give but I just wanted to say welcome :o x