next steps – Childminding Best Practice

February 12, 2023February 18, 2023 Jennifer Business tips for childminders, Childminding humour, Marketing

How NOT to receive a “Thanks for Being A Great Babysitter” Mug this year

Last updated 12/02/2023

A post on Facebook broke my heart the other day from a childminder who had been given a mug for Christmas that said “Thanks for being a great babysitter”. Upset, insulted, underappreciated, and angry don’t begin to describe the range of emotional responses from other childminders. Of course the parents didn’t intend it as an insult. But it would be really hard not to take it that way. How can you make sure you aren’t the next victim of a ‘thanks for being a great babysitter’ mug?

Get paid in advance

Babysitters are paid when you get home tipsy after a night out. This allows you to round their pay up (or down) depending on how generous you are feeling at that point in the night. In most cases this is a terrible business model for a childminding business. Ultimately it gives parents the power to decide how much they can afford to pay you this week/month based on how much money they have left.

In my opinion, childminders should insist on being paid in advance, ideally one month in advance. This is how most nurseries are paid; why should childminders do things differently? If you offer flexible hours, why not charge a flat rate upfront, and then offer refunds or charge a surplus at the end of the month? This allows you to be flexible but doesn’t leave you entirely at the mercy of parents. Put yourself in charge of the money.

Get a contract in place

A written contract signed by both parties keeps things formal right from the very start and sets the professional tone of your relationship with the parents. You are not offering “casual care” like a babysitter. A contract shows that you offer a regular service for a set number of agreed hours.

If you allow parents to use your service too flexibly, to sometimes use you and sometimes use the grandparents or the church summer club, in other words if they can come and go as they choose then they hold all the power in the relationship. Set up with a proper, written contract from the very start. Parents should feel you are doing them a favour if you occasionally allow them to break their contracted hours with prior mutual agreement. A written contract shifts the power to you, rather than giving it all to the parent.

Offer “Exceptional Educational Programmes” in your living room

No, I’m not kidding. At their own homes with their own parents, small children ‘play with blocks’. At your setting they are ‘engaged in mathematical play’. Parents and babysitters let their children ‘paint’. You offer ‘messy play’ as a ‘structured activity’. Yes, of course it’s the same thing. But your attitude towards it, and what you call it in front of the parents alters the parents’ perception of the activity and their perception of you as a caregiver.

A few well-placed educational posters will transform your living room into a ‘highly stimulating learning environment’. Throw in some themes and make sure the parents know what you have planned. This week we are exploring ‘stranger danger’ with the children, or learning some Polish as part of our ‘diversity awareness programme’.

“Blocks are part of our educational programme”.

Practice saying this a few times in front of the mirror so you can say it to parents with a straight face!

Show off your knowledge of child development

When new children start at your setting, wow the parents by making some starting point assessments on them within the first few months of them starting. Dazzle parents by casually dropping some of the characteristics of effective learning terminology into your conversation!

Be an authority figure

Many childminders were parents first, and not only that, they were most likely parents who were good at it, and who enjoyed it. You certainly don’t go into childminding if you were one of those parents who spent the first year tiptoeing around your baby in case you broke it, or second guessing every disciplinary decision you made for your toddler! You were probably one of those parents who had most of it under control and took a lot of it in your stride. Otherwise you were probably unlikely to choose a career that means looking after other people’s children as well as your own!

Whether you were a parent first before you became a childminder or not, most likely you have more experience than many parents in dealing with children. You have probably potty trained a child before, whereas they haven’t. Whatever the issue, you have probably seen it, done it and had the t-shirt vomited on before!

Share your knowledge about healthy eating, exercise, first aid, food allergies, special educational needs. Often you have that little extra experience than they do to reassure parents that everything is normal, or have that little extra knowledge about ‘the system’ to point them in the right direction of the speech and language support in your area for example. The more that you act like an authority figure, the more this role will come naturally to you. Ultimately parents are often happy to take advice from their childminder, but nobody takes parenting advice from a babysitter!

Publicise your successes

Don’t be modest. Make sure that parents are aware of all the great things you do because their children won’t tell them anything you want them to! When the parents come to collect the child it is hugely important not just to tell the parents what the child ate and how he slept and what his nappies were like… it is also a brief but crucial opportunity to show the parents all the great things you are doing with their child. Put up photos where parents will see them. Some childminders use daily diaries. Newsletters are a great way of spreading your success stories. Babysitters don’t write newsletters.

Treat parents as if they are valued customers of your business

Babysitters don’t ask for feedback on their service. They don’t evaluate and reflect on ways to improve the service they offer or ‘treat parents as partners’. They don’t send home questionnaires about ways to improve their service or offer parents a chance to help plan for their children’s time. They definitely don’t have a plan in place for their continual professional development. Good childminders do all this stuff, because we are childcare professionals.

“Subtly” remind parents you are a childcare professional at all opportunities

“During today’s fire drill we ….”

Enough said.

Parents and babysitters definitely do not do fire drills!

Don’t become a victim of a bad mug. Always remember the childminder’s daily mantra (to be chanted on the school run): I am not JUST A BABYSITTER. I am an Ofsted-registered childcare professional, paediatric first-aid certified, DBS checked, potty-training certified, heathy-snack provider, licensed double-buggy driving CHILDMINDER.

Childminding Best Practice Newsletter

Sign up for the free Childminding Best Practice Newsletter here I will send you best practice ideas, childminding news, EYFS tips, outstanding ideas, stories from other childminders, arts and crafts project templates, new products, and links.

About Kids To Go

Kids To Go was established in 2008. Products include the Ultimate Childminding Checklist and best practice resources promoting diversity, safety and childminding in the great outdoors (Forest Childcare).

www.kidstogo.co.uk

May 25, 2021February 2, 2022 Jennifer Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL), Childminding Inspection Tips, Inspection, Official document links, Planning for childminders

What is new for childminders in the Sept 2021 EYFS Framework?

Lots of childminders have been asking for a guide to the new September 2021 EYFS Statutory Framework. I have done my best in this article to pull out what I think are the most important points for childminders.

The information in the Educational Programmes Section of the EYFS has been expanded

The biggest change to the new EYFS is the expanded descriptions of what is included in the educational programmes descriptions (ie the Learning and Development areas). I don’t really think this information is in any way ‘new’ or a surprise. But the expanded areas are written explicitly into the EYFS so you should use it as your guide when planning your curriculum. As a childminder it is up to you how you design the curriculum for your setting but you MUST make sure that you are addressing each key point of each learning area. Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters are designed to help you to do this so make sure you read them when you design your curriculum.

Communication, Language and especially vocabulary have been identified as the most important learning areas

Communication and language are vital and the EYFS states that ‘the development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development’. The other thing that is really stressed is ‘extending vocabulary’ across each of the seven areas of learning.

The Early Learning Goals have been rewritten – but MOST of their content remains the same

The level of development that children are expected to have reached by the end of their reception year in school is defined by the early learning goals. As most childminders are not responsible for assessing the learning and development of reception aged children, the goals have always remained mainly in the realm of school reception teachers. Despite the EYFS making it clear that ‘the ELGs should not be used as a curriculum’, it is still useful for childminders to have in mind what the ultimate aim of some of the activities we do with children is heading towards.

Some of the key changes are:

Communication and Language: provides more focus on extending vocabulary
PSED: self-regulation is included
Literacy: comprehension is included
Mathematics: a new focus on understanding patterns

The role of self-regulation is recognised by making it an early learning goal

Children at the end of reception year should be able to ‘show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly.’ They should also be able to ‘control their immediate impulses when appropriate’ and ‘give focussed attention to what a teacher is saying’. These are all important parts of the characteristics of effective learning that you should have been teaching the children all along, but the fact that they have now been recognised in the ELGs shows the increased importance that is now being placed on the notion of self-regulation. It is truly vital that as childminders you are encouraging children to sit still and concentrate on tasks sometimes, especially on tasks that are not always of the child’s own choosing, so that they can practise a skill that is vital to their success in school.

Balance is the key. Your curriculum and how you teach it is up to you but as children grow older the focus should change from the prime to specific areas of learning and development

It is up to each childminder to plan their curriculum which is in a broad sense what you want the children to learn while they are with you from when they are babies until they start school. The new EYFS says ‘Practitioners need to decide what they want children to learn and the most effective way to teach it’. There are several key points here. Firstly, it is up to you to decide the right balance between adult led activities and free play time given to children. Secondly, as children grow older you should spend more time ‘teaching’ them and less time just letting them have free play. Lastly, the focus of your teaching should gradually move away from the ‘prime’ areas (language, PSE, physical development) and include more focus on the ‘specific’ areas (mathematics, literacy etc.)

Assessment remains important but physical evidence of this assessment is not

Before you throw away your learning journeys and the pages of next steps: STOP. The EYFS is still very clear that ‘ongoing assessment (also known as formative assessment) is an integral part of children’s learning and development. What has changed in the new EYFS is the emphasis on the ‘professional knowledge’ of the childminder. When doing the ‘assessment’ part of the planning – implementation – assessment process, ‘Practitioners should draw on their own knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgment and should not be required to prove this through a collection of physical evidence’.

Ofsted is making it clear that they do not want to see data. They are not going to look at your learning journeys with random snapshot photos and hundreds of ‘next steps’ written out because that sort of data is often meaningless. You still need to assess children and be very aware of exactly where each child is in their learning and development. But you no longer need to feel you have to ‘prove’ the observation.

When you do assessments you should:

Focus on what is useful
Establish starting points
Use the checkpoints in Development Matters as checkpoints, not checklists
Involve the parents
Take the attitude of inclusion: every child can thrive

You must promote oral health

The new EYFS makes it clear that you ‘must promote the good health including oral health of the children you look after. This is an addition to what was previously there and is in response to the growing problem of tooth decay in young children, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The basic message you are hoping to teach to children is that too many sugary foods are bad for you, and that you should brush your teeth.

Planning activities to promote oral health into your curriculum does not have to be complicated. Suppose you look after a child from a home where you know the parents very rarely brush his teeth? You can make an enormous difference to that child’s oral health if YOU brush his teeth after he eats lunch with you. You are teaching him a skill he needs that will hopefully become a good habit. Furthermore, you are ensuring that his teeth are, at the very least, being brushed once a day while you look after him. And if you really want to do your bit towards helping him even more you can gently encourage the parents to help him at home, perhaps with a take home reward chart he can use each time he brushes his teeth at home?

Specific activities and resources for promoting oral health are available in my Be Safe Be Healthy pack.

Non-prescription medication does not need a doctor’s note

GPs have been finding that providers were requiring parents to get prescriptions for non-prescription medications. The new EYFS makes it clear that providers only need to have a prescription for prescription medication. So a child does not have to have a prescription for the Calpol for you to give it to him. Nothing else has really changed. You still need to get permission in writing for every medication (including Calpol) and you can only give prescription medicines that have been prescribed by a doctor, dentist, nurse or pharmacist.

In practice all childminders should have both a long term medication permission form (for Calpol etc) and a short term medication form (for antibiotics), a written record each time a medicine is administered to a child, and a way to ensure that the parent is informed ‘on the same day or as soon as reasonably practicable’. While the EYFS does not specifically state that a parent must sign your ‘medicines administered book’, I think this is a good, tidy, more traceable method than relying on a Whatsapp message.

Are you putting infants down to sleep properly and safely according to the EYFS guidelines?

The new EYFS includes a link to the NHS guidance on reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. What this means for childminders is that how you put a baby down to sleep while they are in your care is no longer at the discretion of parents – so please make sure you are familiar with the details in this link – there’s more than just putting babies on their backs.

Cyber Security for Early Years – are you doing everything you should be?

This page is full of practical information that childminders can use to check that you are doing everything you can to keep you, your setting and your data safe from cyber attacks. The site reminds you that “For Early Years practitioners, cyber security also plays a role in safeguarding the children in your care.” The link to this page was included as a footnote in the new EYFS.

Are you supervising children while they are eating?

To me, this has always been absolutely obvious: of course you must supervise children while they are eating – what if they start choking? However, maybe not everyone was getting this, so this requirement has now been spelled out in the new EYFS. You MUST supervise children while they are eating so that rapid action can be taken if needed to save them! So does this mean that you have to literally keep them in your gaze at all times – what if you have to pop back into the kitchen to grab some ketchup. Please rest assured that ‘supervised’ is clearly defined by the EYFS. “Children must usually be within sight and hearing of staff but always within sight or hearing”.

Recommended menus and food preparation advice for early years

This series of example menus and associated guidance has been developed to support early years settings (such as nurseries and childminders) to offer food and drink in line with current government dietary recommendations for infants and children aged 6 months to 4 years. It also includes food safety, managing food allergies and reading food labels. This guide was included as a footnote in the new EYFS.

You should not vape or use e-cigarettes around children (or smoke)

The new EYFS makes it clear that as well as providers not allowing smoking in or on the premises when children are present that staff should not ‘vape or use e-cigarettes when children are around’ either. This addition is in line with Public Health England’s advice on use of e-cigarettes in the workplace.

Those are the key new points of new release of the Sept 2021 EYFS. You need to read the cited documents and make sure that you are following the new guidelines before they become statutory in September.

Good luck!

Do you want to improve your understanding of the Characteristics of Effective Learning?

For help putting the Characteristics of Effective Learning into practice including tools, activity ideas, certificates you can give to children, poster and display ideas, CPD worksheets for your setting, examples for your SEF and a setting checklist for the COEL, check out my new Characteristics of Effective Learning Pack for childminders.

About Kay Woods and Kids To Go

Kay Woods has been writing and selling childminding resources through her company Kids To Go since 2008. Her products include the Ultimate Childminding Checklist, the Learning Journey Plus for planning, observation and assessment and best practice resources promoting diversity and childminding in the great outdoors (Forest Childcare). She is the author of the Start Learning book set published by Tarquin and she writes the free quarterly Childminding Best Practice Newsletter.

Lots of places offer help to childminders. I provide solutions.

www.kidstogo.co.uk

July 4, 2019August 9, 2023 Jennifer Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL), Childminding best practice, Inspection, Learning Journeys, Planning for childminders

What does ‘Cultural Capital’ mean childminders should DO?

The first and most important thing to say about “Cultural Capital” – is DON’T PANIC.

You do not need to attend a training course on cultural capital.
Ofsted does not want to see a poster up in your setting labelled cultural capital.
You do not have to start taking childminded children to the opera!

Cultural capital is defined in the EYFS framework as ‘the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens’ and what is necessary to ‘prepare them for future success’. Some children arrive at your setting with different experiences than others. The experiences they arrive with are their ‘cultural capital’. All children have SOME cultural capital when they arrive with you at your setting. But for some, this cultural capital is not enough to narrow the gap and get them ready for school (and for life!). The curriculum you plan for that unique child can make all the difference to his or her future.

Your job as a childminder is to find ways to establish what a child’s ‘gaps in learning’ are, and then plan your curriculum to help the child in the area that he is missing or behind.

As soon as a child starts in your setting you should be gathering information about a child’s starting points to help you understand where they might have gaps in their cultural capital. I recommend using the ‘All About Me,’ forms from the ‘Super Summative Assessment,’ pack with parents to start with and then follow that up with your own starting points a few weeks later. (There is lots more information and advice in the pack so if you have a copy, fish it out and have a look!) For example, parents may write on their ‘All about Me’ form that their child does not know any nursery rhymes. Therefore for this child learning nursery rhymes would be very beneficial.

Reading to children is essential to develop their communication and language

Another key example is communication and language; an area in which many children are currently needing additional support and input. Some children arrive at your setting speaking really well with great vocabularies because they are exposed to lots of words and their parents read loads of books to them at home. Research has shown time and again that this gives them a massive advantage in school and in life. Other children come from much less fortunate backgrounds where they are not read to so much at home and know far fewer words. If you identify talking and vocabulary for example, as a child’s weakness, then your job as their childminder is to find ways to enhance it. In other words, you should make sure to plan a curriculum where you read a lot more and talk a lot more to children whose parents do not read to them at home.

What about the Characteristics of Effective Learning?

The same rule applies right across the areas of learning and development and also applies to the characteristics of effective learning. For example, if a child has not had opportunities to explore their creativity and imagination then this is an area on which I recommend you focus.

Another example is a child who is never given any choices at home and who appears to passively take everything he is given. You can enhance his learning and prepare him for school by encouraging him to make choices and be independent while he is with you.

If you find the characteristics of effective learning confusing, or would just like some more ideas around the topic, look the the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning,’ pack for help and guidance.

Provide a broad and balanced curriculum.

Enhancing cultural capital by gardening with childminding and early years children. — Gardening is one way to enhance children’s cultural capital

I know, it sounds like a party political broadcast soundbite doesn’t it?! However this is really important and part of what Ofsted have been trying to promote. Simply put it means that you need to make sure you are giving children opportunities to learn about lots of different things across all seven areas of learning. It is good practice to use children’s interests, for example, tractors, to help engage and interest them in their learning but if all you ever offer is tractor themed activities they will not learn about other things like dinosaurs, plants, healthy eating and so on. Instead offer other activities that help children broaden their knowledge of the world.

Here is a quick checklist of what you need to do to ‘do’ cultural capital:

Do starting points observations on all new children across all the learning and development areas and the COEL. This will show you the child’s strengths and areas of weaknesses.
Ask yourself what you would do to fill the child’s gaps in learning. Think of a plan for each individual child. What can you develop? What can you encourage? What are their next steps? (Don’t forget to share these with parents.) This is your ‘intent.’
Follow through on your plans. (This is your ‘implementation’ stage.) After you’ve been doing your plans for a while, check that your plans are having an effect. (What has been their ‘impact’?) Has the child started to catch up? Have you broadened their cultural capital from when they started with you?

This blog was updated in August 2023

You may also find these resources helpful:

One way of making sure children are exposed to plenty of new ideas and concepts is by planning around themes. Childminding Best Practice Club members receive a monthly ‘toolkit’ containing loads of planning, crafts, activities and colouring sheets all around a different theme each month. To find out more see the information page here:

Expand children’s learning with the Childminding best practice club

Super Summative Assessment and Gap Tracker Kit

This kit will help you recognise any gaps in children’s learning and also contains all the tools you need to sum up a child’s development and achievements, right from when a child starts with you, all the way until they leave to go to nursery or school. From ‘All about Me’ forms, starting points, transition and report templates as well as sample reports, tips and of course a gap tracker for when you need it.

Super Summative assessment kit

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Confused by the Characteristics? This pack can help. It contains information about the Characteristics of Effective Learning, broken down in a way that is easy to absorb, as well as business tools, printable posters and activities

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING PACK

Childminding Best Practice Newsletter

Sign up for my free weekly Childminding Best Practice newsletter and I will send you best practice ideas, childminding news, EYFS tips, outstanding ideas, stories from other childminders, arts and crafts project templates, new products, and links.

January 7, 2016February 17, 2023 Jennifer British values, diversity awareness for childminders, Planning for childminders

Planning Checklist for Childminders

Last updated 17/02/2023

Is your childminding planning system simple and structured? Do you feel your plans are actually useful to your setting, or just another Ofsted chore? Keep the following in mind when you write your childminding plans:

If you feel you are wasting time with planning, then you probably are.

GOOD planning is not a waste of time. It shows parents that you are a childcare professional – not ‘just a babysitter’. Good planning helps you to stay organised, ensures that you are providing a balanced and varied experience for the children you look after, and that you have the resources you need to offer the experiences you have planned.

Don’t overcomplicate things or you won’t be able to use your system.

Whatever system you are using for your planning needs to be usable by you every single week. The more complicated you make it, then the less likely you will be to use your own system. If the system you are using currently feels too complicated for you to maintain, then it may be time to try a new system.

Involve the children and the parents in writing plans for your setting.

Ofsted loves it when children are involved in the planning for your setting. It’s great to ask older children to help think of activities for younger ones. It’s also nice to ask parents what activities or themes they might like you to explore with their children. Getting parents involved in celebrating festivals that are relevant to the children in your care (like planning to celebrate Diwali if you look after a Hindu child) allows you to tick off the ‘diversity’ and ‘parent communication’ boxes in one seriously-Ofsted-impressing-activity that everyone will enjoy!

Plan to do something NEW this year.

Planning new things is a great way to keep yourself fresh and to keep things interesting for the children too. You might want to celebrate a festival like Diwali or Easter or Eid that you’ve never celebrated before? The Kids To Go free Diversity Calendar could inspire you? Or teach the children about stranger danger, or mini beasts using ideas from the Be Safe Be Healthy Pack. Whatever theme you are planning to do will require a little preparation on your part, so if you put it into your written planning then it is more likely to happen.

Your planning system needs to work for your whole setting AND for each individual child.

If the system you use works for your setting, but does not take into account the needs of different children in your setting, then your system needs a rethink. A planning system must work for your whole setting AND take into account the needs and interests of each individual child.

Learning and development observations must link into your planning.

Writing observations and next steps into learning journeys is pointless if you don’t have a method to put those ideas into your planning. All of the ‘next steps’ you record MUST link into whatever planning system you are using, even if it is one that you don’t write down.

Get the right mix of planned activities and unstructured free-play time.

Children need daily opportunities for free play indoors and outdoors so that they can engage uninterrupted in activities that interest them. They also need you to organise learning activities and outings for them that address the different learning and development areas and characteristics of effective learning. Making monthly and weekly plans will help you to get the balance right.

What are your plans for improvements to your setting, and improvements to yourself this year?

Part of creating a year plan is to think about what new equipment, training and other resources you may want to buy for your setting this year. A formal list of this kind, made once a year, is a great way to make sure you think about your setting as a whole.

It’s also a great time of year to make plans for your own Continual Professional Development (CPD).

You might think about more training you would like to receive? You might think about getting training for special needs children or becoming a Forest Childcare Provider? All of these things directly benefit all of the children who attend your setting.

Your long term planning is a little like a performance review. It is a chance for you to take a step back and ask yourself what you do well in your setting and what could be improved. What could you buy or do differently that would help you to improve what you could offer? If you want to become a Forest Childcare Provider, for example, how would you work in weekly trips to your schedule? How would you make time? What special equipment (outdoor gear, reflective jackets, off-road buggy etc.) might you need?

Childminding Best Practice Newsletter

Sign up for the free Childminding Best Practice Newsletter and I will send you best practice ideas, childminding news, EYFS tips, outstanding ideas, stories from other childminders, arts and crafts project templates, new products, and links.