Childcare numbers

[Jenny82]

Hi,

Am new to this forum :-)
I'm just about to send my application to register with Ofsted and just wanted to clarify something I read on a previous thread.
I have 2 under 5's of my own who both go to a childminder one day a week.
I had intentions of keeping this going as a) they both love it there and b) I anticipated that this might be one day a week that I could have three paying EYFS children.

On the rare occasion that my childminder could not have my 2 (it's not happened yet!) it would obviously mean that I would be over my quota.
On such an occasion, If my husband, fully DBS checked, took a day off work to be home for my two only (and any activities I had planned outdoors did not factor in my two), would this be acceptable to Ofsted do you think? I'm looking at it from the basis that we are both working and one of us would have had to take a day off in such instance in any case but it so happens that my work is at home.


Does that makes sense? I'm obviously not going to do anything that would jeopardise my registration and will clarify all this with Ofsted at the registration visit but helps to have a bit of an understanding in advance!

I'm finding some of this a bit of a minefield!

Thanks

[sarah707]

It's about responsibility - it's easy to show that you are not responsible for your own children when they are out of the house - much harder when they are on the premises regardless of whether there is another adult looking after them or not.

I do know of one occasion when a childminder's husband was looking after her children while she had cm children - the inspector actioned her for being over numbers - I can't remember the full story it was a while ago but I'd advise against anyone doing it ....

[Jenny82]

Thank you for your comment.
Useful to know :-)

[mama2three]

maybe you could consider registering him as your assistant to cover those times when your chldren are home? can he take time off at short notice? what if one of your 2 was sick and needed to be home , or the childminder was?

[moggy]

...and consider how quickly husband can get home if the children are sent home in the middle of the day for some unexpected reason- no time to 'book a day off work'.

[bunyip]

It's about responsibility - it's easy to show that you are not responsible for your own children when they are out of the house - much harder when they are on the premises regardless of whether there is another adult looking after them or not.

I do know of one occasion when a childminder's husband was looking after her children while she had cm children - the inspector actioned her for being over numbers - I can't remember the full story it was a while ago but I'd advise against anyone doing it ....

This tallies with my experience, back in the The Olden Days (how much can change in a mere 4 years ) when you could call Ofsted, ask a question, and they occasionally said something different from "refer to EYFS".

I needed to know if my wife could be responsible for my grandchildren when they were here, so it wouldn't count against my number of minded children. Ofsted ruled that I would still count as being responsible for them, even though MrsB was here.

This was a big contributory factor in me eventually deciding to get MrsB listed as my assistant.

I also considered it hilarious (Mrs B failed to see the funny side) that the only logical explanation for this was that the official body in charge of childcare assumed she couldn't cope on her own with the grandchildren, and that I'd be too distracted worrying about her inability to manage.