Kitchens

[mumofone]

anyone not have theirs registered? I decided not to but my mindee likes to come in mine and swing on the stair gate grrr!

[loocyloo]

I have my whole house registered because then I can go anywhere and not worry about it.
But I use my kitchen for eating and messy play, plus the playroom is off the kitchen as are the back doors to the garden!

I would be saying no to swinging on the stair gate regardless of where it was and how old mindee was.

[blue bear]

Better to have the kitchen registered in my opinion,you can still choose not to use it during minding times but if a child didgo in it and have an accident or whatever you are still covered by your insurance.
As to mindee swinging in the stair gate tell them no.

[FloraDora]

Definately register your kitchen, for all the reasons Blue bear says but also because the kitchen doesn't need to be a scary place where accidents happen.
As a home based nursery / childcare at home setting the kitchen is a really important part of our enabling environment. We use it for cooking and baking activities but a favourite thing to do is for a LO to pull up the step to reach the side and just watch my DH make lunch, he includes them by giving them something to hold or chop they stay a few minutes only sometimes and then walk away and often take their experience into another play activity, pretending to chop up the pine cones or snip the straws and present it as lunch.
One LO ( just turned 4) loves to swap the herbs and spices on our spice wall ( in little metal pots on a magnetic wall) then challenge my DH to spot which ones he has moved-(from about 30) he is slowly learning about alphabetical order being helpful and not just that DH is amazingly fast at spotting it!
We have two low side shelves of cookery books and a folder with fav recipes/ photos - another LO loves to look through these books and brings us photos of her favourite meals/ cakes made at home to add to our folder.
We love coffee and have various machines to grind the beans , make the coffee and froth milk etc... The 4 year old also likes to watch all these machines and press the buttons and copy the noises- a Barista in training, he is expert at shaking the chocolate through the stencils .....then I pop a lid on!
We have an old rocking chair in there for me to sit on whilst DH is cooking dinner - they all love to sit on it and watch what's happening in there and watching food cook through the oven window - it's cool touch on the outside so no issues if they get closer. Excellent to watch cakes and bread baking.
I RA and train children in what you can and can't touch....

.Mrs O watched a 20 month pick the fruit they wanted for snack from the low shelf fruit bowl, take 3 chopping boards out of low cupboard( they have a small green one each) and tell me I needed to get the knives when it was snack time.

It is a good room for children to learn in from daily activities.

[moggy]

You can not 'register' or 'not register' any particular areas of the house or garden.
You used to- it used to be stated on the certificate.
BUT no longer.
It is all registered and you need to RA whether you can use it or not.

Sarah put me right on this a while ago I was still thinking about the old days when you could say 'the garden/kitchen' is not part of the setting. But that is no longer possible, is it? The certificates are all generic so no where to record that info anyway!

[Mouse]

You can not 'register' or 'not register' any particular areas of the house or garden.
You used to- it used to be stated on the certificate.
BUT no longer.
It is all registered and you need to RA whether you can use it or not.

Sarah put me right on this a while ago I was still thinking about the old days when you could say 'the garden/kitchen' is not part of the setting. But that is no longer possible, is it? The certificates are all generic so no where to record that info anyway!

That's how I thought it worked. I didn't think you could chose not to register one part of your house. You used to have to say which parts were registered (usually the whole of downstairs, the upstairs bathroom and X number of bedrooms, if any). I've never known anyone not register their kitchen. I would have thought it was very difficult to guarantee the children will never be in the kitchen. Does your certificate specifically say your kitchen isn't registered?

[mumofone]

You can not 'register' or 'not register' any particular areas of the house or garden. You used to- it used to be stated on the certificate. BUT no longer. It is all registered and you need to RA whether you can use it or not. Sarah put me right on this a while ago I was still thinking about the old days when you could say 'the garden/kitchen' is not part of the setting. But that is no longer possible, is it? The certificates are all generic so no where to record that info anyway!

The inspector which rooms I'd be using for minding at my pre reg and I believe (id have to check) that recent OFSTED reports still say things like "the whole of the downstairs is used for minding" etc...

[mumofone]

The inspector which rooms I'd be using for minding at my pre reg and I believe (id have to check) that recent OFSTED reports still say things like "the whole of the downstairs is used for minding" etc...

Oops should say the "inspector asked me"

[moggy]

The inspector which rooms I'd be using for minding at my pre reg and I believe (id have to check) that recent OFSTED reports still say things like "the whole of the downstairs is used for minding" etc...

Some reports say things like this, some do not, it is just to give the reader an idea of what kind of setting it is.

It is only the certificate that counts for registration and they no longer give specifications of areas registered.

The inspector will ask at pre-reg to get an idea of your plans. I cannot see how or where an inspector can record and inform the public that a room/area of a setting is not allowed to be used for minding... it used to be the case but it was actively removed a couple of years ago.

[FloraDora]

I think the registration inspectors ask so that they then can check that you have thought about RA and have a peep in, not as moggy has said, to specify registered rooms as it is up to us to RA any area the children use.
I thought you had registered sometime ago and had stipulated the rooms.

[moggy]

Mumofone, if you are under the impression that you cannot use your kitchen for mindees because of what you said to the inspector at pre-reg I think it would be best for you to contact Ofsted and ask for some clarification from them. I am sure they will reassure you that you can use all areas of your property as long as you have RA them.

[mumofone]

Mumofone, if you are under the impression that you cannot use your kitchen for mindees because of what you said to the inspector at pre-reg I think it would be best for you to contact Ofsted and ask for some clarification from them. I am sure they will reassure you that you can use all areas of your property as long as you have RA them.

Thanks moggy I didn't know this. I will definitely look into it and find out.

[lisbet]

I was registered in Jan '13 and said to the inspector that I wasn't going to register two rooms. She replied that now the whole property gets registered and the childminder risk assesses and chooses which areas to use.

You could review your risk assessments and note that now you will use the kitchen. That's an example of evaluating your childminding provision and when it comes to writing a Self Evaluation Form you could list it as a way that you have improved your setting: "Risk assessed kitchen and made any necessary changes so that it could be start being utilised as part of learning environment (cooking activities, sensory activities, developing children's awareness of health and self care, as well as care for the environment*)."

* Taught by repeating 1000 times: "Feet on the floor!" and also said inside your head as "Get off the blumming stair gate!" :rolleyes:

[hectors house]

I originally asked to not have my daughter's room registered as she was going through a "goth" stage and I definitely didn't want to have to open the door to show Mrs O!

I have a stair gate into my kitchen, mindees rarely come through the gate as my dogs stay in there when I'm working, (and my husband refuses to have cupboard locks) but very occasionally I let the older mindees in to do some baking.

[rickysmiths]

My mindees are always in my kitchen as it is part of a kitchen dining area that runs form the front to the back of my house and the playroom opens onto the dining area. The room is 24 feet by 14 feet and just an oblong space with a pine kitchen table in the kitchen end and a Teak Dining table in the other end. The children eat all their meals at the table, cook and watch me prepare their meals. I have 12 large under counter drawers down one side, the sink and double oven at the end and a door (into the hall) and the a tall cupboard, an American style fridge freezer and another tall cupboard. None of the drawers or cupboards have locks on them, all cleaning stuff is in the Utility room. Ofsted were fine with this when they inspected me in 2011 when it was only all a year old!

For all my minding career even the first 10 years when I was in a flat the kitchen has always been used.


I think they just register the whole house and put the responsibility on us to RA because of the cost of them coming to visit every time we needed a change. Now if anything goes wrong it is down to us.

When I moved to this house 10 years ago Ofsted had to visit and look before I could work from it. Now they don't do that either. If you move you notify them so they can send you a new Cert but you just RA the new house.

It is all down to cost.