Sophie
Childminder in London: Lewisham
Usually responds within 24 hours
Female Member since Jan 2015 Last Updated Sep 2024 Last Login 28 Oct 2024
My Summary
Brockley Childcare
About Me
Hello parents,
I'm Sophie, an English/Cantonese speaking childminder registered since 2015, rated 'Good' by Ofsted in 2023.
I live with my husband and my two primary school-aged children. My home is located in Brockley, 7 min walk to/from Brockley station (Crofton Park station 13mins, Nunhead station 16mins)
I offer babies and young children a safe, happy, nurturing environment in which to play, learn and socialise. I incorporate maths and introduce as much diverse English vocabulary through everyday play opportunities such as in conversations, the use of books, rhymes, and library sessions.
I have a variety of play equipment and resources in the home to cover a wide range of learning, as well as being a member of the Lewisham Toy Library should I need additional items. The children and I have regular visits to playgroups and in the past I have been quite proactive within my local community, approached by the librarian to lead Baby Bounce sessions at New Cross Learning library (I did this for about 6 months) I started up monthly Cantonese Baby Bounce sessions at Crofton Park Library/Manor House Library, which ran for 2-3 years.
I have a good-sized garden space, the majority of its usage is in the summer holidays when regular playgroups have closed for the holidays. We have used it for simple gardening/growing projects, water and paint activities, and releasing our living butterflies. We visit playgroups with good outdoor spaces such as Besson Street Gardens, Telegraph Hill Playclub, and Ivydale Children’s Centre. We also visit Honor Oak Recreation Playpark and it’s great for a nature/listening walk on route there are also plenty of questions from the older 2’s-3 year olds on those walks involving the physical environment around them.
The settle-in period in my setting is 1 week, although the settle-in period is fairly flexible for the first 1-3 weeks, following this the majority of new children have a good understanding of the settings routines by the end of week 2. The children know when it is snack time they sit nicely on the floor/go to seats, at circle time the children sit on the mat for story time and share the props around with each other when we sing nursery rhymes, and when it’s time for the school run/going to a playgroup the (older) children know to put on shoes and I help with fastenings on shoes, while the younger ones may reach and point for their coats and hats.
We go out daily, mainly to stay and play. During the school holidays, we take visits to soft play in Deptford, Lego play sessions at Deptford Lounge, and nature sessions at Deptford Creek, Ahoy! At Greenwich Maritime Museum, Mudchute Farm, Cello story sessions at the Ivy pub, and my favourite sessions have been visits to Docklands Museum to join in with the storytelling sessions and Mudlark sessions.
I work independently, so my setting numbers are quite low compared to most childminders; 1 adult to 3 early years children is what I normally have. I can have up to 6 children in total, with 3 being early years age group and 3 older children (with discretions to siblings). Currently, it is my own school-aged children and the early years age children that use the setting, bearing in mind these numbers may change over time.
I include one simple hot meal during the day, usually lunch such as Spaghetti bolognese, filled jacket potatoes, coconut chicken with sweet potato on rice, etc. Breakfast is typically Weetabix, porridge and toast. The tea menu are finger foods such as sandwiches, crumpets, homemade quiche, and savory muffins. Snacks are usually oat/corn cakes and fruit.
My setting and routines are best suited for babies & toddlers up until the term after they are 3 years old.
I am open 45/46 weeks of the year with my own holidays/settings closure mostly taken during the school holidays (ie. at Easter, Christmas, and 2 weeks at the end of August)
Parent testimonials, Ofsted report, insurance details and certificates can be viewed at the time of a parent visit, thank you.
My Experience
I have over 17 years of experience working in early years, working in different settings in the past, which has given me valuable knowledge and experience working with children. These settings have been a mix of nurseries and children's centres, but also include Holiday clubs and primary schools, in various roles such as a Play Worker, Supply Teaching Assistant for Primary aged children as well as an Early Years Educator/Nursery Nurse.
I have just finished being contracted as a DfE Childminder Mentor (The Mentor programme ran for 1 year) which consisted of online peer-to-peer meetings to support Childminders in the wider region the aim was to bring up children’s development and learning standards, in the impact of COVID-19 on children’s learning.
I have been a parent support group representative for Greenwich Chinese School since 2022/2023, as well as being a support assistant for the Y2 Cantonese class teacher in 2023/2024 and will continue for the first term in the 2024/2025 academic year as support assistance in Cantonese class and continue being one of the parent support members for as long as possible.
In November 2014 I started to volunteer my time to lead a Cantonese nursery rhyme time at Charing Cross Library, then in 2016, I started a monthly Cantonese nursery rhyme group session at Manor Library, Hither Green. In October 2017 I expanded the group to Crofton Park Library up until October 2018.
I then continued to reach out to local Cantonese families and founded a monthly Playgroup at Honor Oak Community Centre in May 2018 which ran for 2 years. This playgroup involved cultural play activities, stories, and songs for the children of Cantonese and non-Cantonese-speaking families to share conversation and play together.
I have volunteered my time at the local Scouting (Beavers) group and I was a parent representative for the Beaver Section in 2022/2023. I led the Baby Bounce at New Cross Learning Library in Spring 2023 and continue to do so on an ad-hoc basis, sharing children’s nursery rhymes when I visit with my childminded children.
Outside of childminding, I enjoy visiting museums, crafts, and exploring Minecraft. My dream would be for in the future to deliver after-school coding and STEM sessions, but in real life, I have zero coding experience (except when I am helping my children) so this is unlikely to become a reality.
My Qualifications
Before working with children I took interest in design, and arts and crafts, so much of my qualifications reflect this area., such as BA (Hons) Textile Design, A’ Levels in Art & Design, Photography and Textiles, and NVQ in Pattern Cutting.
EARLY YEARS RELATED TRAINING includes but is not limited to:
DfE COVID/Mentor training
DfE Understanding child development
Maths is everywhere
Supporting children’s emotions in early years
Introduction to Schemas and Maths in the early years
REAL training (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy)
Level 2 & 3 in Children's care, learning and development (Which means I am a qualified early years practitioner/(in old terms; Nursery nurse)
Making music with babies
Babies- What's so different then?
Level 1 Making sense of autism
Mark-making Matters! Developing early writing skills
Food hygiene awareness
Prevent
Child protection/Safeguarding Children
Paediatric first aid
Enhanced disclosure and barring (DBS)
Other training includes:
Solihull Approach training
Involving in I can Chatterbox sessions
Giving a talk on Re-Usable/Real nappies
Makaton
Treasure baskets
ECERS-R /ITERS-R (Early childhood Environment Rating Scale)
Schemas
I also participate in lots of online webinars that aren't certificated and my interests in these are neurodiversity and communication.
My Availability
Open 4 days a week, until 5:30 pm. My availability is from September 2024 for limited days Wednesday and Thursday. January Spring 2025 for 4 days, not including a Friday. Feel free to enquire at other times, as at times my availability may not have been updated, thank you.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before School | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Morning | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Afternoon | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| After School | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Evening | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Overnight | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Last Updated: 04/09/2024 | |||||||
My Fees
- Childminding from £8.00 per hour
Calculated as a daily rate of £80.00. This includes admission fees to playgroups or museum sessions, lunch, tea, and snacks. Anything specialist the foods, the parents will need to provide themselves.
Childcare vouchers and Tax-free childrencare vouchers are accepted, as well as Government funding accepted across the ages.
At age 3, on-roll children usually move onto a nursery setting the term after they reach 3 years old.
My Local Schools
- I provide drop offs at Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Temple Grove Free School
My Ofsted Inspections
The inspection grades below have been obtained from the Ofsted website based upon the registration number the childminder has provided to us. You should verify this information yourself prior to using the childminder.
This member has chosen not to display their Ofsted inspection ratings on their profile. We recommend you check their current registration status and read their latest inspection report before using them.
My Documents
- Ofsted Certificate (added 22/11/2022)
Reviews
Below are the latest reviews for Sophie. Please note that reviews represent the subjective opinions of other Childcare.co.uk users and not of Childcare.co.uk. Parents must carry out their own checks and references on childcare providers to ensure that they are completely happy before enaging in the use of their services.
Our daughter was looked after by Sophie from the age of one. We chose Sophie as our childminder because she has excellent communications skills and provides a varied and stimulating environment for children in her care. She has been a brilliant, steady support over the last year and our daughter enjoyed every minute of being there. Sophie does a great job at developing children's learning and development through experimentation, positive reinforcement and consistency. She has a wide selection of toys and takes them out on daily excursions to playgroups and other child-friendly places such as the Horniman museum. Our daughter struck up a bond with Sophie's own children – who play a part in her welcoming and caring setting. An added bonus! Sophie is completely reliable, a fantastic communicator (we enjoyed hearing her daily reports) and her manner with both our daughter and us always impressed us. We would not hesitate to recommended Sophie and we all miss her already!
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Sophie looked after both our children, our eldest Niko from aged 1-3 and then our youngest Tomasz joined him from 7 months old to just passed 3 years old. She provides a warm, fun and safe home with lots of educational toys and also took them to different activities almost every day. She is very competent with children, especially toddlers and shows real care and though towards them. She notices how they are doing both emotionally and developmentally and would often offer helpful suggestions with any problems I was struggling with. She is adept at standing firm with kindness.This meant we felt very good about leaving them in her care, especially early on when they were pretty young. We found her a pleasure to communicate with- she is clear, trustworthy and flexible when needed. We feel very lucky to have found her when we did, she really goes the extra mile as a childminder.
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We briefly used Sophie as a childminder for our 14 month old baby. Due to personal circumstances we had to change to a childminder in a different area. However, we were absolutely delighted with Sophie's care and sad to say good bye to her. She was clear and prompt in all her communications with us. She set us up with a very thorough and gentle settling in process. I loved her approach to childminding and her kind, loving way with our son. I highly recommend her. Our son will miss her.
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Sophie has looked after both of our daughters over the past 3 years and we and they have always been very happy with the care they received. Sophie's childcare setting is really well set up for kids of all ages and the girls have been kept busy with a variety of activities from crafts to outdoor play, songs and trips out in the local area. Sophie provides a really lovely environment for children and both our girls bonded really well with Sophie and her children. They are always excited when they arrive at Sophie's and Sophie made sure that they settled in really well. I can't recommend Sophie highly enough!
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