AD – This post is in collaboration with childcare.co.uk a site specialising in bringing families and childcare providors together. The site is trusted by over two million users and offers a range of childcare providers from babysitters to nurseries.
With everything going on right now and routines being a little bit disrupted i am sure there are keyworkers who have been looking for alternative childcare arrangements as their own nurseries or schools may be closed. childcare.co.uk is a site that can help families in all kinds of situations. Usually the site would probably be used when parents need to go back to work after maternity/shared paternity would be coming to a close or when allocated government funding comes into place for three year olds to attend nursery. it was interesting to see that babysitters could also be found, as well as school tutors, through the site too.
I have two children that have very different needs due to their age gap. evie is a school aged child but currently too young and not mature enough to stay at home for prolonged period of time. If i didn’t work from home this site would make finding a childminder for after school an easy process. I also have an almost 19 month old that currently doesn’t qualify for funding but in an employed position i would need to look for nurseries or childminders that offered all day hours. A childminder that had space for both my children would be my preferred person to look for.
I have had a look around myself as I am hoping we will be moving by the time Felix is due to have some allocated funding for nursery and a site such as childcare.co.uk could be really helpful in finding a place for him in a new area. The site is easy to use by simply inputting what service you are looking for and including a postcode. a quick search for ‘babysitters’ for example informed me there were around 109 registered users on the site and looking at some of the profiles most were child minders, day nannies or those studying for childcare qualifications. You can see the price per hour underneath the photo provided too. I think this will be a really handy tool to use when we do move and need to find childcare places for Felix so that he can start his early years journey and meet some friends.
During this time there might be a lot of reasons people are looking for childcare providers but i found tutors to be an interesting one and something parents might be considering for older children whilst they are off school but want a bit of extra support to help them with additional learning that parents are finding hard to teach and encourage. For example, one result pulled up an experienced ks2 teacher which would be suitable for evie’s age, and all of the electrionic qualification certificates where there to see too. During this time it might be worth messaging a tutor to see if online or e-learning classes via video message apps would be a service they offer.
As a mum that works from home i currently am able to provide all the childcare for my children but when evie was young i was working full time and needed a nursery that would allow for long work days so using a site like childcare.co.uk would have really helped here. Even though i plan to continue to working at home as felix grows older i still want him to make friends and learn in a new setting having access to things that we don’t have. I think a childcare.co.uk will help me find a great early years setting for him when the time comes.
Leave a Reply