[Radical_childcare] minutes from meeting Monday 1 June

[butterflea at riseup.net]

Hi all,
attached and below are the minutes of Mondays meeting.
The next meeting is June 22nd at 7 in the playground at London Fields. We
thought that we should change the time of this meeting just to facilitate
the attendance of people who may work or be busy during the day. It is not
intended to be a permanent change of time.
una

Notes from radical childcare meeting, Monday 1 June, 11:30 at London Fields.

It was a small meeting but productive meeting, with 4 adults and 2
children in attendance.

Actions from previous meeting
Legal info – Jon found out lots about legalities of providing childcare.
Have pasted the documant he made below. But basically we could provide
childcare for up to 2 hours for children who’s parents are not on-site or
nearby, and for up to 4 hours if childs parent/gaurdian are on-site or
nearby.
Home Education Groups - Gemma fed back about home education groups in
Hackney, Harringey area. Could be worth linking up with them. Info is
pasted below.
Feminist Fightback – Anna had fed back details of our last meeting to
Feminist Fightback, they are keen on getting involved with the group. Also
keen on sorting toy box for meetings etc.

Agenda Points
Safer Spaces
Toy / resource bank
CAIC conference 20th June
Climate Camp
Any other business


Safer Spaces Policy
We spoke about maybe drawing up a safer spaces policy for the group to
ensure that the group works in a safe and comfortable way.

Toy / resource bank
We would like to be able to get together a box of toys, resources etc for
this group and other groups to use. A good location to store them would be
LARC. Lots of people meet there, and as far as we can tell there is
nothing available for children. There could be 2 boxes, 1 with general
toys, etc that could be taken out whenever children are there and another
for use with particular activities ie with paints, materials etc, which
could be used at LARC or taken to events. Basically build up resources for
people to use when putting on kid-friendly events, creches etc. Jon will
try to get to LARC meeting to propose this, or contact someone from LARC
collective to see if they would be up for this. London Anarchafeminist
Kolektiv have a box of toys, Una will see if they could be added to this
resource.

CAIC Conference (Campaign Against Immigration Controls) , 20th June.
Jon will be running a creche/kidspace for this event. If anyone would like
to help out, please contact him off-list.
This led us to talk about catering for children of different ages. Older
children are not going to want to do the same sort of things as the under
fives. The conference is about immigration. It would be good to maybe do
activities around this topic. Perhaps having a child talking about their
experiences of being a migrant to this country would be good.

Climate Camp
Emily sent an email to the list saying that no-one as yet has taken on
organising the kidspce for this years climate camp. We talked about this
at length and although we would be up for doing it, some of the concerns
raised were – Climate Camp this year is back in the City of London (we
think – Can someone please confirm this?). After what happened on April
1sts camp in the city, we would be concerned about police violence,
childrens safety etc. We would not like to be responsible for organising a
creche at a city camp, but a kidspace with activities etc for children and
adults would be cool. But if climate camp will be somewhere else (like
Kingsnorth for example) then its a whole different ball-game, cooperative
childcare / creche etc would be possible and easily acheivable. We need to
check what the plans for climate camp are, where it will be etc, what
climate camp means by kidspace etc and then see how we feel about it –
Anna will check this, or can Emily clarify?

Any other business

We also spoke about some specific things that we might be interested in
organising around, such as the extreme genderisation of kids toys (pink
blue syndrome etc) and the Welfare Reform Bill. Will speak further at next
meeting about this.

We also thought it might be a good idea to get a list of people together
who are willing to sometimes do childcare, and also a list of people,
organisations who would be willing to do workshops, crafts, kids politics,
etc.

I think that was all. If I’ve missed anything out, please feel free to
correct, ammend etc.

Next meeting will be Monday 22nd june at 7pm in the playground in London
Fields. We decided to change the time of the next meeting so that people
who work during the day can attend. Hope thats ok. It is not meant to be a
permanent change, but just an attempt to include different people. If this
time is problematic for people please let the list know and we can discuss
changing it.

Jons Document on legalities of providing childcare

Legal stuff on Childcare in the UK



Normally if you are providing childcare to under 5s you must register as
an “early years childcare provider” which means you must be Ofsted
inspected and meet tons of legal obligations as set out in the “Early
Years Foundations Stage” material.  However, under certain circumstances
“mobile crèches” do not have to register and (shockingly) there are no
specific legal guidelines for this type of childcare!  Obviously other
laws still apply (such as health and safety regulations) but nothing that
is specific to providing childcare.  All the professionals I spoke to
(several at the Department for Children, Schools and Families and another
who works for Tower Hamlets council) strongly urged following best
practice as set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage literature when
providing this type of childcare.  This includes lots of very sensible
things like adult to child ratios, health and safety, getting CRB checks
done and providing different types of play opportunities for children etc.
but it is not legally binding on “mobile crèches” when they qualify for an
exemption.

The following is taken from the snappily titled Ofsted publication “Guide
to registration on the Early Years Register: childcare provider on
domestic or non-domestic premises”:


You are exempt from registration if you:
 care for individual children for two hours or less each day even
if your provision is open for longer than this period; an example is a
crèche attached to an adult learning centre where the crèche may be open
all day but parents leave children for less than two hours while they take
part in an adult learning session.
 intend to offer care for the early years age group on particular
premises for 14 days or less in any period of 12 months, but you must
notify us in writing at least 14 days before you start providing care on
those premises; examples include short-term crèches to support a
conference, or a holiday playscheme running for two weeks in school
holidays.
 care for individual children for four hours or less each day and
the care is for the convenience of parents who intend to remain on the
premises where the provision occurs or within its immediate locality. In
this type of provision there is no long-term commitment to provide care
for children. Examples include a shoppers’ crèche or a crèche attached to
a sports centre or an exhibition where children do not attend every day.
 provide an open access scheme for children; an open access scheme
allows children to leave the provision unaccompanied. Open access schemes
may not provide care for children in the early years age group.
 provide education under a home education arrangement for a child
who is of compulsory school age and the care you give is incidental to the
education you provide. A home education arrangement is where a child of
compulsory school age receives full-time education not in a school, and is
partly or wholly educated by someone who is not the
child’s parent.
 provide care for children in a hotel or guest house between 6pm
and 2am and you care for the children of no more than two clients at the
same time (baby sitting arrangements).
 provide care for children of two sets of parents wholly or mainly
in either or both of the sets of parents’ homes. Registration as a
childminder is required if you look after the children of three sets of
parents in any or all of the parents’ homes.
 provide no more than two types of activity from the following list:
-	school study support or homework support
-	sport
-	performing arts
-	arts and crafts
-	religious, cultural or language study.
This exemption only applies if you care for children who are aged three
and over; and children aged under five do not attend for more than four
hours in any one day. Any care provided is incidental to the activity (it
is not the main focus of your provision).


(source:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Guide-to-registration-on-the-Early-Years-Register-childcare-provider-on-domestic-or-non-domestic-premises)


The most important parts of this list are the first 3 which seem to say we
can run a crèche for up to 2 hours without parents on site, up to 4 hours
with them on site (or very close by) or for longer (but no more than 14
days a year) if we notify Ofsted first.  Under all these circumstances we
wouldn’t have to go through the laborious process of registering with
Ofsted and making sure we meet lots of legal criteria.

The only other stipulation is that no one who is either on the Childcare
Disqualifications Register or who lives with someone on the register can
work with kids.  Looking at the legal mumbo-jumbo it seems like you’d know
about it if you were on the list as the offences are all to do with
seriously harming or having sexual relations with children.

The Childcare (Disqualification) Regulations 2007 and The Childcare
(Disqualification) (Amendment) Regulations 2008 can be found at:
www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20070723_en_1 and
www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/pdf/uksi_20081740_en_1


For more info:
Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) – website was crap.
Phone no. is 0870 000 2288 or 01928 794446   9am to 5pm.
Or speak direct to Patrick at the DCSF (who was actually helpful!) on
02077838149
www.ofsted.gov.uk

Gemmas email re Home Ed

Hey,

I have researched a little bit on Home Education groups in Hackney, as
this would be a useful resource/possibilities of linking up/mutual
interest etcetc.

One main nationwide resource is www.education-otherwise.org which is a
charity to support home educators and has lots of legal info/helpline.

Adventures With Education (AWE) is a voluntary association in Hackney:
www.awe.gn.apc.org (email: adventureswitheducation at gmail.com they meet
every tuesday during term time 11-3 in shoreditch adventure playground,
London Mintern Street, N1 (Old St/Liverpool St tubes). Their meeting place
(shoreditch adventure playground) sounds like it has great facilities, and
so might be a possibility for us to meet there also, obviously not on
tuesdays, but maybe every third monday as we are now etc).

Haringey Home Educaiton Club (HHEC) www.hhec.org.uk (email:
contact at hhec.org.uk) they meet alternate wednesdays 12-4 but dont have a
set venue, just moves around week to week. website lists things of
interest in the area, eg. the Kids Collective Community Film Group which
meets 10.30am saturdays (i think this is what kelly was refering to in the
last meeting?)

I havent' contacted them both yet, will put it to others on monday and can
contact them on monday after meeting if we want to.

I have contacted Education Otherwise regarding us doing a childcare
collective in the area and if they know of any other local home ed/similar
groups. I have also asked them for more information/opinions on how the
governments push of the welfare reform bill will affect home educating
parents (especially single parents recieving benefits that want to home
educate), and other issues relating to our autonomy of our children's
education.

This was E.O's reply to the latter:

http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/welfarereform.htm

I'm also lobbying the Social Security Advisory Committee, the Department
of Work and
Pensions and talking to MPs and sympathetic peer in House of Lords. Could
still be
bad outcome though.

Fiona
Chair EO Government Policy Group
home educating lone parent on JSA with home educated 16 year old



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