4 year olds in full time school

[Polly2]

Hello - I am a Childminder from South Wales and I was unable to speak to my allocated Inspector due to holiday, when I rang my local CSSIW office a week ago, but was told by another Inspector that I was not allowed to class my two four years olds as over five until they are five!

One is a child already on my books and the second is a new contract ready for September. I have now lost two other contracts for all day care as they needed me until 17:00 and because we are only allowed three under fives, I couldn't take them on as I have a three year old daughter.

I have nobody on my books during the day and only two school runs now because they've said NO!

This is awful Rachel I really hope we have some clarification soon

[tulip0803]

We need to have clarification quickly but unfortunately the wheels at CSSIW go very slowly

[Mel_Johnson]

There seems to be no consistency. I spoke to my inspector 2 weeks ago and she said I was fine to count my 4 year in full time school as an over 5. If this is not the case I will be over my numbers in Sept.

[manjay]

There seems to be no consistency. I spoke to my inspector 2 weeks ago and she said I was fine to count my 4 year in full time school as an over 5. If this is not the case I will be over my numbers in Sept.

This is the message that is supposed to have been relayed to all CSSIW offices. It is what my local office are advising minders. Unfortunately the change process is with DCELLS at the moment who are the organisation that produce the NMS documents. Can't completely blame CSSIW for this one

[brightstar]

My inspector told me yesterday that they were advising all Childminders to write to CSSIW confirming if they had under 5's in full time school. She also advised me to register an assistant to stop myself going over my numbers. But she was really vague about it, I think she knew about as much as I did. As children here start school the term before their fourth birthday I will be losing a lot of money, especially if I have to pay an assistant.