FAQs for registering with @Home Childcare to start your childminder business
Starting a childminder early education business
Read our Frequently Asked Questions to prepare for your Question & Answer session with one of our advisors. It’s a good idea to write your questions down beforehand.
Just in case you’ve got these FAQs in mind…..
Our start-up package, priced at £275 (usually £600) for a limited period only, includes the start-up training, support with the start-up process, 1-2-1 business planning sessions, our suitability checks, food safety training, telephone & email support and a 2 hours registration visit at your home.
Our training is delivered as a mixture of recorded sessions and live webinars and comes complete with your own mentor who guides you through the start-up process. Other start-up benefits include a free profile web page to advertise your vacancies and a toolkit of essentials such as policies, contract, risk assessments, plus lots more.
We are one of the most established agencies which means you can depend on our quality and experience. As Ofsted says, the agency is focused on "getting it right for children above rapidly increasing the numbers of educators". For this reason, we are not nationwide.
Once registered, you will benefit from our full support service which includes a personal mentor to provide guidance and support, all of your enrolment, invoicing, credit control and childcare funding administration support, marketing support, annual inspections, legislation updates, continuous regulation, plus loads more!
Our 'Foundations' full support service is covered by a £100 per month membership fee that covers all your support for the first 100 hours of childcare you deliver. Additional hours are charged from just 75p per hour with pricing tiered so that the more hours you do, the lower the rate you pay.
Our full service package subscription runs for a minimum 18 months and provides you with all the support you’ll need to make your business a success. After which you have the flexibility to choose a package that suits you.
Our full support service includes our core quality improvement service designed to support through the journey of evolving as a Good or Outstanding educator, providing the highest standard of care and early education. It includes a personal mentor, 2 visits per year, on-going CPD training (at no extra cost), annual inspections, email & telephone assistance.
In addition, you also receive our ‘back-office’ business support which is acts as a 'helping hand' with the running of your business. It consists of online marketing assistance (paid ads to help fill your vacancies), administering the early education funding, enrolling and invoicing parents and lots, lots more.
As a community interest company, our social mission to remove the barriers that prevent suitable, capable people from registering as childminder educators. That’s why we designed our full support service to help you launch your home-based childcare service and reach parents looking for childcare. We want to empower more people to set up and run professional childcare businesses in their own homes.
Our on-going quality improvement support is designed to support educators to be the best that you can for children you care for. This is precisely why we provide more face-2-face support, than other agencies. We understand how important is to see you in-person, thus enabling us to observe you with children and provide specialist advice about your early years skills and knowledge.
Our educators come from a range of different backgrounds and careers such as: teaching assistants, social work, nursing, retail, HR, nursery professionals, elderly care, as well as parents and grandparents.
The ideal person is someone who:
- Loves being with children; you get a buzz helping them learn and develop
- Happy to provide care in your own home, and can create a nurturing, safe place for children to thrive
- Would love to do something for yourself; you like the idea of having a childcare business at home, but would rather have the full support of an expert company, who are only a telephone call away, and can provide everything-under-one-roof service to help you grow and develop
- Specifically likes the idea of having a company who provides extensive start-up and on-going business support to help you set up and run a sustainable business
- Understand early years is the most important stage in a child’s life where high quality childcare can enrich children lives and have a positive impact that lasts a lifetime
- Understand good levels of English and Maths are essential for delivering the early years curriculum and running a business
We are simply here to provide support to help you be the best childminder you can be, assisting you to provide amazing early learning experiences for children and to help you understand the mandatory requirements of your role. That’s our main job! And our business support ensures you can simply focus on the part of the role you enjoy the most, giving children the best start in life.
Your income is derived from the number of children you care for each hour. It could be as much as £22 - £28 per hour, as an average depending on the ratios and number of your own children at home with you during the day, and whether you provide before and/or after school wraparound childcare.
We help you to find parents looking for childcare by providing marketing assistance, enabling you to have good numbers of children on roll.
Our full support service safeguards your income by making sure parents continually pay your fees.
Got a question? Fill out the form to get in touch!

"They help us to build confidence and knowledge to be a good childminder, whilst always pushing for that outstanding grade."
- Neusa, @Home Childcare registered educator
Would you like to be part of a professional home-based childcare community?
@Home Childcare is an Ofsted registered community for professional childminders. We provide a range of ‘umbrella’ services for suitable people interested in setting up an early education business in their own home. We call childminders, educators, in recognition of their specialist role caring and helping children to learn and develop.
We operate in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Birmingham/West Midlands areas.
