Childminder
Childminders care for babies, toddlers and children in their own home, supporting their learning and development.
What you'll do
As a childminder, you will:
- provide inspirational learning activities
- offer safe play activities, both indoors and outside
- plan, prepare and serve meals
- change nappies and make up bottles for babies
- take older children to and from playgroup or school
- record accidents and report child safety concerns
- speak to parents and carers about their child's day
Working environment
You could work from home, at a school or in a church hall.
Your working environment may be physically and emotionally demanding and outdoors some of the time.
Skills and knowledge you'll need
You'll need:
- sensitivity and understanding
- the ability to work well with others
- patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations
- to be flexible and open to change
- the ability to work well under pressure
- excellent verbal communication skills
- a desire to help people
- the ability to understand people's reactions
- to be able to carry out basic tasks on a computer or hand-held device
How to become a childminder
You can get into this job by:
- registering with Ofsted
- registering with a Childminder Agency
Other routes
You can attend an introductory childminding briefing that covers everything you need to prepare to register as a childminder. Your local council can give you information on where to find a briefing.
The aim is to make sure that you understand what is involved before making a decision about whether it's the right career for you.
Restrictions and requirements
You'll need to:
- pass enhanced background checks
- pass a medical check
Career path and progression
Once registered, you could take further training, like a free online course covering child development during early years.
With experience you could expand your business and take on a childcare assistant or become a network co-ordinator, supporting other local childminders.
You might also:
- move into nursery work
- become an early years teaching assistant
- train to be a tutor on childminding courses
Career tips
It's a good idea to do some research to find out if there's a demand for childminders in your local area.
As you'll be self-employed, you might find it useful to learn about setting up your own business and your responsibilities for tax and insurance.
You could either register as a childminder based at home or you could register as a childminder based outside the home. Find out more about registering as a childminder from GOV.UK.
Registration
- If you want to care for children under 8 for more than 2 hours a day, you have to register with one of the following: Ofsted
- a Childminder Agency (CMA)
For this, you'll usually need to complete:
- a home-based childcare course that covers the Early Years Foundation Stage framework
- a paediatric first aid course
- child protection training - safeguarding
- a food safety qualification
You may have to do a basic skills test to show that you have the minimum standard of English and maths needed to support the educational development of children in your care. You'll also need to pass an assessment of your home and any equipment you will use.
Local councils , CMAs and professional bodies can provide pre-registration training to become a childminder. They also have information on registering and further training once you are working as a childminder.
Your first step is to check out Ofsted's pre-registration briefing on becoming a childminder.
You can read about the differences between registering with Ofsted and a CMA , to help you to decide which route to take.
Guides for this industry
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Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0