Working In Partnersip With Other Providers

[Beauvink]

I was wondering how may childminders work successfully with other providers, such as nurseries, daycare or even in relation to CAF. How do childminders know from others what the child is achieving and visa versa so that all parties can plan and provide care and education for the children they all have responsibility for?

 

Do some childminders take in their daily diaries for nurseries to fill out?

 

Do some childminders work with childrens centres and how

 

Would be interested to find out how this is working for everyone

[Sue R]

Now I work in Daycare I have very little contact with childminders, but when I ran a Pre-school I had lots of daily contact. The childminders also used our smaller room every second Wednesday pm for their network meeting, so we were able to exchange information readily. It was very informal, with keyworkers and childminders chatting about progress, events, issues etc (with parental permission, of course!)

 

It worked really well for us, some of the childminders also took a turn on the parent rota, which was great. Some who were working towards NVQs also used us as placements at times

 

Any help?

 

Sue

[Guest]

hi

I have worked as a childminder myself but now work as a childrens centre worker. Part of my role now is to encourage more childminders to assess our facilities within the childrens centre.We run a sensory session just for childminders and their children, the ed lead(teacher)is available to offer childminders help with their planning and EYFS.We encourage childminders to come to all sessions such as messy play, stay and play and story time. We encourage them to use our professional resource library too.

We are planning to have a childminders display board in the centre so that the childminders can promote their services/advertise any vacancies they may have. Unsworth

[Beauvink]

Really interesting information from both of you, thank you. Do wonder why some Childminders used the pre-school for their NVQ though - as all unit should have been easily observed and assessed within the childminders home.

[Marion]

We have good links with local childminders (school FSU) sharing information and resources. I'm afraid daycare (other than that in the CC which the school provides QT input to) just aren't interested in working closely with schools.

[Guest]

Marion,

 

I am sorry that your experience with daycare has been so negative.

 

As a nursery manager I work very hard at making contact every term with the other settings our children attend. Over the past year this has amounted to slightly over 30 contacts. We received 1 reply!!

 

Maybe I am just unlucky in my area, but having spoken to numerous other providers the responses also seem to be the same.

 

It would be interesting to see what other peoples experiences are.

[Beauvink]

Thats why i started this, to find out how many actually work together - it will make for interesting research. Really interested to see how settings particularly work with childminders. Only because in a lot of Ofsted reports this has been one area that the inspector has highlighted as lacking.

 

Would really like to know what is working and how you all do it really.

 

Thanks for all the replies so far though

[Guest]

I'm a Childminder and I access 2 local Children's Centres, take and collect children from 1 Nursery, 1 Primary school and have 1 child brought to me by school transport from a Pupil Referral Unit.

 

Lots of information is exchanged verbally at drop-off and pick-up time and I write this up into my daily diaries, which are then sent home to parents. All parents sign to say that information can be exchanged between the settings.

 

The Nursery and 1 of the CC's are on the same site. The staff there run a childminder drop-in session each Tuesday morning and provide a copy of their planning each term to us. This is sent out by post before the term begins. They also provide a copy of the Risk Assessments for the sessions so we're all working from the same starting point. We attend the Parents Forum meetings and take an active part in running our own sessions and requesting training courses that we would like to access. They ran a paediatric first aid course for us - and provided a creche so we could access training during our working day! Fab!

The Family Support workers also run an outreach toddler group at the primary school I cover so they see the children twice a week and get to know them well. It's a great "support network" if I have concerns. We can discuss them informally or I can ask for a second opinion. They also arranged for a SLT to pop in to a session for a quick look at a child I was caring for and helped me to complete the referral process.

 

The other CC also runs a drop-in for childminders and have set up a Network meeting for those working with the EYFS. The first meeting was attended by 3 childminders, my Network co-ordinator, the FS managers from 2 primary schools, 1 Headteacher, the manager of the community nursery attached to the CC and the owner/managers of 3 private day nurseries, and representatives form the EYS team. Meetings are to take place termly and we'll vary the venue - the next is at a private nursery which uses the Forest School approach and was recently rated Outstanding by Ofsted. This Network is aimed at establishing good working relationships between providers and promoting the exchange of information.

 

I have less exchange of information with the PRU. The child has been with them before so they seem to feel they know her already, even though 2+ years have gone by. I have been given great support by my Network co-ordinator and the Childcare Strategy Manager as this particular child, and family, have been left in a tricky position by the education system. She has been "grey excluded" by a local primary school and only attending school 1 hour per day since May 2009. Her Mum has given permission for me to keep my co-ordinator and her manager informed. E-mails are exchanged almost daily as they are monitoring the situation closely. The local M.P. is now involved and it can only be a matter of time before either the lawyers and/or press become involved I've made very sure that I've worked in partnership with the child, the family and my contacts in the Local Authority (within guidelines!) so that I have an Audit Trail showing what, how and why I've taken action since I became involved!

 

I hope this gives you some food for thought for what you're trying to do!?

 

Nona

[Guest]

The Nursery Teacher contacts any setting/childminder if we share a child ( with parent permission) with the idea of getting together regulary. it has worked and i know one childminder finds it really useful. sometimes the home visits are carried out at another setting/childminders.

 

 

in answer to why a childminder had to go elsewhere- when i did my NVQ a few years ago a childminder on my course had to go to a nursery as well as she did not have "right" children and the girl from the childrens centre did as well. dont know exactly why but this is not what the post is about so moving on.

 

 

We also run stay and play sessions which the childminders use in fact sometimes they come with children that we had that morning., and in fact one week we joked about who was going to write the observation up whe they came and asked ofr a magnifying glass.

[Guest jane707]

I am a childminder.

 

One of my local pre-schools was a bit wonky with sharing information last year but has improved this year after their Ofsted inspection picked it up!!

 

I wrote to them, with parents signed permission to share info. I gave them an idea of how I would like to support the child and the input I would find useful such as what he had done / eaten etc so that I could complement activities.

 

However they were reticent to tell me anything or give me details of what the child had done, even going so far as to ring the parents in the evening to tell them about accidents / incidents etc rather than letting me know.

 

NOW they are much better. They have a little booklet they fill in and give me. It doesn't say much but I can pick up things the little one has done and follow them through here. They also display their menu so I can talk to him about what he's had for snack and make sure I don't duplicate it here. The other week they asked me to sign an accident report!

 

It is good to see things moving in the right direction:1b