Katie's Reviews

Dream childminder

Joanne is an incredible childminder. She is warm, calm and approachable and my little one was instantly comfortable in her home from his first visit.
Her setting is great; safe, clean and bright, with a great selection of toys and books, that the children have free access to.
Joanne sends regular updates and pictures during the day and my little one always looks happy and relaxed. Her communication and openness make asking questions easy, and I am always reassured she has the right approach.
Joanne was so flexible with settling in and I really felt that she had my little one's best interests at heart and had a great approach that worked for him, which was very reassuring right from the start.
Now my little one is settled with her (which happened so quickly!) he runs in every morning and is happy to see me go. He loves his trips to the playgroups and parks and gets on well with the other children Joanne minds. He comes home happy each day, tired from his many adventures. It's clear she creates a great atmosphere for all the children and that they feel safe and cared for with her.
My little one sleeps and eats well with Joanne because he is comfortable and happy, and her communication in ensuring this has been fantastic.
I can't recommend her enough.

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by Katie about Joanne (Childminder) on 25/04/2026

Unreliable and unprofessional

I would be very wary of using Jemma if you need reliable childcare for work as her policies and approach are not suited to a longterm and reliable service. Her sickness policies are vague and not practical, wanting us to keep our child home if he had a cold and she had an event coming up. She has no direct child care experience, and she struggled to manage normal early years behaviours and wanted my child collected early while I was at work. Gemma prioritises her own family commitments over her childminding commitments. Gemma summarily ended our agreement with no notice via whattsapp my first week back at work, having reassured me all was well hours before.

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by Katie about Jemma (Childminder) on 25/04/2026

Response by Jemma on 26/04/2026:

Dear Katie, Thank you for your review. I am sorry you felt you had a negative overall experience and that you felt the need to write a negative review months later rather than coming to me direct to reflect on your experience.

I am child led and nuturing in my approach and well advertised as such, unfortunately  this seems not to have been well suited to your needs.

All my policies and procedures are all child focused and written based on the principles and requirements of the EYFS and using guidance from experts at childcare.co.uk. My policies are clear and transparent, provided to parents in advance of contracts commencing and available to anyone on request.

I am an experienced and fully Ofsted registered childcare provider with 20+ years of experience working with children and families including extensive direct childcare experience. I am educated to degree level and have undertaken a wealth of training and qualifications particularly around child development, trauma informed care, theraputic models of care, transitions and attachment.

I am sorry you felt my communication was poor. I pride myself on excellent and thorough communication with parents and give regular updates to childrens wellbeing in my care. I am a professional and communicate as such however I know you felt that my record keeping was too detailed and and 'too professional' and you did not have time to read the daily summaries. In my experience most parents like to have a detailed account of what their child has been doing and how they are adjusting especially during the settling in period.
I am clear and transparent that the settling in period is for everyone and that the settling in plan needs to be adaptable to the child's needs. Unfortunately you were not responsive to this or my request that you or your emergency contacts collect your child early one day when he was very distressed and unwell.

This is a child focused settlng and while the needs of children come first, good working relationships and communication with parents is also of utmost importance as this leads to children feeling safe and nutured.

I recommend settling in periods usually take place over 4 to 5 weeks in order for children to have the time required to process and slowly build a sense of safety and comfort with a new caregiver. This is based on my extensive knowledge and experience of attachment theory and supporting children's transitions. However you requested this take place over 1 week due to your work commitments. This was against my better judgement but I wanted to be flexible and so agreed on the basis it would be adaptable if your little one wasn't managing and that we would keep in regular communication about this. You had alternative care on standby for this reason. You not collecting your child when they were inconsolable and visibly unwell was a clear example of not respecting my professional judgement.

My approach is to listen to a childs communication of distress and preserve the trust and attachment relationship above all else and this is not in anyway a reflection on my skill or ability to offer comfort or manage behaviours, quite the opposite in fact.


My experience in working with you and your family has been a valuable lesson to me not to scarfice my princples which are well founded in research and to trust my intuition and instincts so I thank you for that. I'm sorry that terminating the contract within the settling in period which is well laid out within the contract caused you inconvenience. I did offer to continue providing childcare until you made alternative arrangements but this was declined.

I am compassionate to the challenges of returning to work and entrusting your child's care to another, its a massive step and that is why I want settling in periods to work in everyone's bests interests. I can assure you this decsion was not taken lightly in anyway but ultimately this was not going to be the right arrangement for anyone moving forward and I do need to feel the service I offer is valued, respected and that parents are on the same page and aligned with the values of the care I offer.

Your little one was a pleasure to care for in the short time he was here and I wish you all the best in finding the right setting for him and your family. I imagine you already have done so given his time with me and my setting was now some months ago.

For any parents reading this review I ask you to reach out and discuss further any queries or concerns you may have and take into account my other glowing reviews where you can see that I pride myself on good working relationships.