Raising Childminder Profiles: FIS Updates

This article has been brought to you by Slough Borough Council's Early Years Development Worker, Danielle Mercer, for the attention of all Slough Childminders.

Do you know we have 120 Good or outstanding Childminders across Slough? With this in mind, the Early Years Service will be running a two page article in the June publication of the Slough Citizen to raise the profile of Childminder’s as an excellent option of childcare and early years provision to parents and carers in Slough.  This publication is available to every address within the borough, providing wide reach, impact and influence to families.

The article will promote how good our Slough Childminders are and the many benefits provided by a home-based Early Years childcare offer. We will focus on how childminders: are registered with Ofsted and work within the EYFS learning and development requirements, offer the 30 hours extended childcare entitlement in a flexible way to meet the needs of working families in Slough, and provide a nurturing environment with excellent support for meeting the needs of individual children.

We expect the article will generate a lot of interest and we hope this will support you to fill any spaces you may have, especially as parents start looking for childcare ready for the Autumn Term. Therefore, we would like to ask all childminders to update their information currently held on the Family Information Service (FIS) website, particularly around vacancies.  Last month the website had 18,000 hits, making it a valuable marketing tool to promote your service for free.

FIS have produced some guidance notes for you to register with the site, enabling you to access and update your record as and when you fill vacancies.  To access the FIS Website, click on the link: Slough Family Information Service

If you would like to help us with compiling the article, and would be happy to be interviewed by our Communications Team, please can you email me (Danielle.mercer@slough.gov.uk) to express your interest?  We hope to showcase a day in the life of a childminder, to inform parents how the EYFS is implemented and the benefits of home from home care.

Many thanks

Danielle Mercer