Amanda J

Brilliant!

Amanda has been such an amazing interim childminder for my little boy for the last year. If I didn't already have my existing one, then she would definitely still be looking after my now 2 1/2 year old boy. During the six weeks our permanent childminder was overseas, my then 1 and a bit year old immediately felt at home and quickly settled becoming part of the family. Due to the nature of my job I needed to find someone willing to have monkey all hours and Amanda was extremely accommodating.
The variety of activities Amanda organises is just brilliant, including outdoor and indoor adventures. She also organises trips with other child minders so my little boy was able to interact with a wide group of children. Over those two months his speech, motor skills and social skills have just become better and better.
I can't recommend Amanda highly enough!! She really is amazing at her job.
One of the best childminders in Acton!!

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by AnneM on 24/02/2023

Great childminder

Amanda has collected my twins from school since they started school 4 years ago. They enjoy their time with her after school, are well looked after, well fed, safe and happy. Amanda is friendly, approachable and cares extremely well for the children in her care. I would certainly recommend her.

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by Josie on 09/02/2019

Welcome Relief

I am glad I found her! Amanda has been looking after my three year old son since September 2018. She gives him breakfast and drops him off at nursery everyday. This is my first experience dropping my son with a childminder as he had been at nursery from 9months. He looks forward to going to her house in the mornings and I have not had any problems at all. She communicates effectively and has a warm welcome.
I would recommend Amanda to anyone looking for a reliable childminder

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by Hello on 27/01/2019

Wonderful childminder!

Amanda has been looking after my son (7 years old) and daughter (5 years old) for the last two years. She collects both from school, gives them tea, and keeps them until I pick them up at 6pm. In terms of the care she provides to the children, this has been exemplary. She is extremely reliable, has always picked up the children on time and has never cancelled at the last minute. I trust her completely to mind my children and they think she is wonderful. They enjoy the meals she provides (especially her spaghetti bolognese!), the films they watch and the activities they do while waiting for me to pick them up. In the two years she has looked after our children, we have had no issues whatsoever and have nothing but praise for her and the care she has provided to our children. Unfortunately, soon we will be moving on, as the children are getting older and wish to attend after-school clubs with their friends. The children will miss her but now others can experience what it is like to have a caring childminder like Amanda. I whole-heartedly recommend her and would be happy to answer any further questions.

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by Parent on 23/01/2019

Glad I found her

Amanda has had my son for 3-4 mornings a week since September when he started his PM sessions at nursery. At 1st as expected he was not keen on going, however once he got to know Amanda and settled in with her he LOVES his mornings with her and looks forward to seeing her.

Amanda has my son in the morning provides him with the option of breakfast. during the day she often takes him out to local parks and play centers. I know my son loves his days out with her because he comes home after school and club and tells us all about his mornings with Amanda. It is very handy that she also gives my son a nice filling hot meal before school this is very important for me as we arrive home quite late in the evenings. My son also has a number of allergies and Amanda has supported me in keeping out of his diet.

I am very happy that I choice Amanda as a childminder as her service is to a very high standard you can see she genuinely cares for the children she has and my son absolutely loves spending his mornings with her.

She is a very nice lady with a lovely home and I feel very comfortable with my son spending the morning with her.

I would highly recommend her. She is great more of a nanny then childminder

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by Monique on 23/01/2019

A waste of time

It has taken me a long time to write this review as I am still getting over how shocking the whole experience was. I have had two previous childminders who were both amazing and when I found Amanda I thought she would be the third.

Amanda looked after my children from September to December and I can honestly say choosing her was the worst mistake I made. Initially she seemed like a lovely lady who was prepared to work with me to offer the best childcare for my needs. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. Before I decided to use her I had discussed with her that I was looking at a 30 hours funded place for my youngest who would be three in October and after some thought she agreed to do so. She also recommended I set up tax free childcare allowance which we were also entitled to so we did.

My first issue occured in the first week my children were in her care as my nearly three year old regressed in his toilet training and had some accidents. I expected this might happen being a new environment but as she has a lot of expensive items in her house it is really not set up for children to have accidents. She wanted me to put him back into nappies but as he had been out of them for four weeks I didn't agree. He soon got past the accidents when he started feeling more comfortable but her approach was quite unsupportive.

I also had the issue that my oldest son (4) wasn't settling very well and in all honestly his behaviour was not good as he was struggling with both starting school and starting with a new childminder. Amanda didn't seem to understand that these changes in his world was causing the behaviours and kept talking to me about him having anger issues. I personally would expect a childminder to have much more awareness of how children can struggle at times of change.

Then came the issue of claiming tax free childcare. She hadn't set herself up on it as we had agreed so we couldn't claim for the first month. I then spent the first month reminding her to do it and being told she hadn't had time on many occasions. She did have a lot going on in her personal life but we didn't want to lose another month of tax free childcare. Of course as the month got close to the end she then tried to do it but as it takes about 3 weeks this was another month we lost. This was a loss of £400 to us and I can honestly say that we didn't really even get an apology for this as she stated we knew she had a lot going on. We clearly understood that she was having some personal issues but believe that should not result in us losing £400.

The final issue that told me that she wasn't the right person for us and our childcare needs was that she then decided she didn't want to register so that we could claim 30 free hours of childcare as she didn't want HMRC looking through her accounts. Obviously she had promised us this before we settled our children but she didn't see this as important and expected us to suck up the cost of her changing her mind. We had many discussions about this as we felt this was hugely unprofessional but she still refused. At this point we decided to move our children as we needed the 30 free hours to ensure that working was feasible.

A few more concerns I had included behaviour of her daughter (22 years old) while we were discussing the whole shambles. She came out of the house shouting at me about it which made me worry about what my children were seeing in the house. Also Amanda doesn't really seem to understand how to work the payments out and accused me of letting her get it wrong. She had decided I needed to pay her for a week's holiday even though this was not worked out in the original payments.

In the 3 months my youngest child was there they did not go on any day trips (except for local playgroups or parks) and I hardly know what he did do as there was never anything written. When I asked I did get some information by WhatsApp but that was not regular.

Amanda didn't even want to make the last day a pleasant goodbye and instead spent her time refusing to give us receipts for the payments we had made. Even though we are perfectly entitled to them she thought we were trying to do something dodgy?? That was very sad for the children as they wanted to say goodbye to her and I felt they should.

Overall a disappointing experience and not recommended by us.

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by Melissa on 02/01/2019

Response by Amanda J on 03/01/2019:

In all my 9 years of childminding I have never come across a mother that was so unreliable with keeping up payments. I had to hand in my notice due to not excepting to do the 30 hour a week free this is when the mother came very bitter and awkward and confrontational outside my house as my daughter over heard her shouting at me also my naighbour came out as a witness. The oldest child of the mother was very rude to on several occasion and also bit me. My home is my home and is respected by all my other children I care for these children did not respected my home weather you have nice things or not their should be respect, the mother slandered other childminder that I know as she would not get her 30 hours free and said she would top them up the mother is very dishonest and would not recommend anyone to take on work from this person as they are very unreliable and and don’t want to pay..

Amanda Johns

Excellent caring childminder

Amanda cared for my 1 year old son for 6 months (he is now due to attend nursery). She provided a really interactive, professional and caring service. Amanda did various activities with my son, taking him to libraries, play groups and various parks, interacting with other childminders and their key children. She has a really warm and caring manner and my son immediately warmed to her as did i. I felt completely comfortable leaving my son in Amanda's care from our initial meeting, I knew that he would be well looked after and cared for. Amanda treated my son as if he was her own and would even call me to check on him if he was unwell. I truly couldn't have asked for a better child minder to care for my son and welcome us into such a loving home. Thank you Amanda for being part of Cairo's care and development in his early years.

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by Parent on 20/12/2017

Great childminder

Amanda takes good care of the children and she is so easy to talk to. We left our one year old with her and after two weeks she was saying bye to me every morning, because she was so happy there! She even used to say "Manda, Manda" during the weekend.
I had pictures almost every day and she took the kids to the library, playgroups and days out. My daughter learnt new things, new words and was very well looked after, we were really sad when we had to move far from Acton because we had someone we trusted taking care of our daughter. I would highly recommend Amanda.

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by Parent on 28/07/2016

I would highly recommend Amanda

Maisie has been with Amanda for four months and I am very happy with the level of care she is receiving.

When I collect Maisie at the end of the day she is always smiling and seems very contented. This has made my transition back to mork much easier. Amanda provides Maisie with an engaging and caring environment, initiating good opportunities to enhance her development.

I would highly recommend Amanda!!

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by Parent on 18/02/2011