GovWire

You should read this guide if you will be looking after children aged between birth and the 31 August following their fifth birthday and you will be doing this in:

• somewhere other than in someones home
• someones home where 4 or more adults will be working with the children at the same time

Who should apply

If you want to look after children in this way, you will need to register your daycare. Only individuals who will have certain roles can apply to register a daycare.

Working on the assumption that your application is successful, you will need to be one of the following:

• the individual owner of a daycare organisation
• one of the registered individuals of a daycare organisation owned by a company or group
• one of the registered individuals of a school which does any of the following:
  • admits children to their register who are not yet 2 years old
  • provides care for children under 2 years old where at least 1 child attends for more than 2 hours a day
  • provides care for children who are not pupils at the school

You can find out more information on registered individuals as well as the registered person and the nominated individual of a daycare.

There are exemptions to the requirement to register.

What counts as daycare

A daycare for children can include:

• a nursery
• a playgroup
• before-school care
• after-school care
• a holiday club

Childminders and other adults working together

You will need to register as a daycare organisation if you are running a childcare business where both of the following apply:

• you are working with 3 or more other adults at the same time
• the children are looked after in someones home, either your home or someone elses

This is known as providing childcare on domestic premises.

An example of this happening is where a childminder expands their business to join with other childminders or assistants. However, 4 or more adults can also set up this sort of childcare without any being registered childminders.

Registering with a childminder agency instead

You can either use the service on this page to apply to register as a childcare on domestic provider with Ofsted, or you can register with a childminder agency.

You can find:

• information on childminder agencies contact information and Ofsted reports
• background information on childminder agencies on the Foundation Years site

Childminders

If you are looking after children in your own home with fewer than 3 other childminders or assistants, you only need to register as a childminder.

If you want to work part of your time as a childminder, and part with 3 or more other childminders or assistants, you must register separately for each. You will need to pay 2 fees and have separate inspections.

Nannies

If you are only looking after someone elses children in their home, you must read the guidance on becoming a nanny instead, as you may not need to register with Ofsted.

Daycare in schools

You will need your schools unique reference number if you want to register a setting that will be in a school.

If you do not meet the requirements

If you do not qualify to apply to register as a daycare, childminder or nanny you might be able to apply to join the Childcare Register.

Information you will need

To register your organisation, you will need to have the following details:

• your name and contact details
• your organisations contact details, including individuals who form part of it
• the contact details of your organisations nominated individual
• details of any previous registration with Ofsted

Everyone who wants to join your organisation in a governance position, such as a committee member, will need to apply to Ofsted.

How to apply

Registering as the wrong type of childcarer may delay when you can start work.

Apply to register

Next steps

When you have completed this application, you must also:

• add a setting to your application for each setting that you want to provide childcare from
• ensure each person who will be in a governance position applies to join the daycare

You will receive an email telling you to complete these steps. It will also have a link to an overview page where you can check the progress of all these connected applications.

Once we have received all of the connected applications, we will carry out an application review.