Childminder record keeping

The rule: a framework of your own, and what it says about writing things down

The EYFS statutory framework for childminders, in force from September 2026, applies to every registered childminder in England, whether registered with Ofsted or with a childminder agency (a CMA), and to “childminders without domestic premises”. Its safeguarding and welfare requirements are the ones Ofsted or the agency inspects, and paragraph 3.3 says what they are for: to “safeguard children; ensure the people who have contact with children are suitable; promote good health; support and understand behaviour; [and] maintain records, policies, and procedures”.

The framework’s first concession to a person working alone is about policies. Paragraph 3.6: “Childminders must have and implement policies and procedures to keep children safe and meet EYFS requirements. Childminders solely registered on the early years register or with an early years CMA are not required to have written policies and procedures. However, they must be able to explain their policies and procedures to parents, carers, and others (for example Ofsted inspectors or the CMA with which they are registered).” Any assistants must follow them, and they “should be in line with the guidance and procedures of the relevant Local Safeguarding Partner”. The safeguarding policy still has to cover the five things paragraph 3.7 lists – action on concerns about a child, action on an allegation “against anyone living, working or looking after children at the premises”, how mobile phones, cameras and imaging devices are used, checking new recruits, and safeguarding training – but it can live in the childminder’s head and mouth rather than a folder.

Records are different. The general duty in paragraph 3.94 is the same as a nursery’s: “Childminders must maintain records, obtain and share relevant and accurate information (with parents and/or carers, other professionals working with the child, the police, social services and Ofsted or their CMA) as appropriate.” Records “must be easily accessible and available (these may be kept securely off the premises)”, confidential information “must be held securely and only accessible and available to those who have a right or professional need to see them” (3.95), parents “must be given access to all records about their child” unless a Data Protection Act exemption applies (3.96), and records about individual children “must be retained for a reasonable period of time after they have left the provision”, a period “individual childminders should determine” (3.97).

The records a childminder must keep

With the paragraph that requires each:

1. Information about each child (3.98): full name; date of birth; the name and address of every parent or carer known to you; information about any other person with parental responsibility; which parent or carer the child normally lives with; and emergency contact details, with more than two numbers where possible.
2. The daily record (3.103): “a daily record of the names of the children being cared for on the premises, their hours of attendance, and the names of each child’s key person (if this is not the childminder themselves)”.
3. Your own details and the household’s (3.103): your name, residential address and telephone number “and any other person living or employed on the premises”; the same for “anyone else who will regularly be in unsupervised contact with the children”; and the certificate of registration, which “can be displayed digitally, for example on a childminder’s website, and must be made available to parents and/or carers on request”.
4. The medicines record: written permission from the parent for each medicine, and a written record each time a medicine is administered, with the parent told the same day.
5. The physical intervention record (3.75): a record of any occasion where physical intervention is used, with parents told the same day.
6. The accident, injury and first-aid record: a written record of accidents or injuries and first aid treatment, with parents informed the same day or as soon as reasonably practicable.
7. The complaints record (3.100): “Childminders are not required to have a written procedure for handling complaints, but they must keep a record of any complaints they receive and their outcome”, must investigate written complaints about EYFS requirements, tell the complainant the outcome “within 28 days”, and make the record available to Ofsted or the agency on request.
8. Assistants’ references and disclosures (3.18, 3.21): at least one written reference before an assistant is recruited (not an open “to whom it may concern”), the assistant’s written acknowledgement that they must disclose anything affecting their suitability, and the date their enhanced criminal records and barred list check was received – because an assistant “must not … begin working or volunteering at the setting until they have received” it.
9. The safeguarding concern record: what you noticed, what you did, who you told and when – covered in the early years safeguarding records guide linked below.

Beside the statutory list sit the records good practice and your insurer expect: the risk assessments for the home, the garden, the car and each outing (written down, because an insurer or an inspector will ask after an accident), the public liability insurance certificate, the paediatric first-aid certificate, consent forms for outings, photographs and emergency treatment, and the learning and development records the framework’s section 2 requires (the two-year progress check and the observations behind it). The daily record is your attendance register. A suitable template can help meet the requirement, but the template itself is optional and needs to capture the required information.

Two records a nursery keeps and a childminder does not. The staff checks record in the group framework is replaced by paragraph 3.19: information about identity checks and vetting “(including the criminal records check reference number, the date a check was obtained and details of who at the setting obtained it) will be kept by Ofsted or the CMA with which the childminder is registered”, because Ofsted or the agency does the checking of the childminder, “every other person looking after children on the premises” and “every other person aged 16 and over living or working on any domestic premises where the childminding is being provided” (3.16). And written policies are not required, as above. What replaces them is the duty to tell: paragraph 3.99 lists what must be shared with parents, from how the EYFS is delivered and the daily routines to “how staffing at the setting is organised (for example, whether the childminder has an assistant)”, the key person, an emergency telephone number and the procedures for a child not collected or going missing.

What must reach Ofsted or your agency, and by when

Three duties carry a fourteen-day clock and an offence for missing it. Paragraph 3.11: “depending on how they are registered, childminders must inform Ofsted or their CMA of any allegations of harm or abuse by anyone living, working or looking after children at the premises”, on the premises or elsewhere, and of “the action they have taken”, within 14 days. The equivalent of the group framework’s paragraph 3.79: any serious accident, illness or injury to, or death of, a child in your care, and the action taken, within 14 days, with local child protection agencies also told. And paragraph 3.104: “as soon as reasonably practicable but in any event within 14 days of the change”, any change to the premises, to the people aged 16 and over living or working there, to your own name or contact details, to overnight care, and “any significant event which is likely to affect the suitability” of you or anyone in regular contact with the children.

Ofsted’s significant events guidance is written with childminders in mind. It covers “anyone aged 16 or over who lives or works during childcare hours on domestic premises”, and it wants to hear about events “even if they happen when you are not working with children (in the evening or weekend), when you have no children on roll, [or] away from the registered premises”. Its examples include a child able to leave or missing “for any period”, a child “not adequately supervised (such as being left unattended in a car)”, “a car accident when transporting children” under police investigation, a stolen device holding children’s information, “any incidents of domestic abuse”, and the arrest, charge or caution of anyone in the household. A teenager in the house turning 16 is a notification; a partner moving in is a notification; a new assistant is a check before they start.

Paragraph 3.20 adds the duty that outlives an assistant: “Childminders are required to make a referral to the Disclosure and Barring Service if an assistant is dismissed (or would have been, had they not left the setting first) because they have harmed a child or put a child at risk of harm.” Each notification and referral is a record: the date, what was sent, the reference, and what was done.

What inspectors ask to see, and what they do not

Ofsted’s inspection information for use from September 2026 lists the documents every early years setting must be able to show – paediatric first-aid arrangements and the vetting and employment records of staff – and then exempts childminders from the second: inspectors “do not need to see the DBS checks for those providing childcare on domestic premises, childminders (including childminders without domestic premises), [or] any known assistants and/or household members”, because “these will already have been seen as part of the registration process”. What they may ask for is the EYFS policies (explained, for a childminder) and “other relevant information, such as: referrals made to the local authority designated officer for safeguarding, and their resolution; details of all children who are an open case to social care/children’s services and for whom there is a multi-agency plan; children present at the setting during the inspection (if not shown on the register); records of accidents; … records of any complaints and their resolution”.

Ofsted is explicit that “settings do not need to provide evidence for the inspection beyond what we ask for”, that it does not expect “a written self-evaluation”, and that it does not “require photographic evidence of what children are doing and learning”. For a childminder that means the daily record, the child information, the accident and medicines records and the complaints record, produced from a folder or a phone, and the ability to explain the policies aloud. The inspection is a conversation about practice; the records are what stop it being a conversation about memory.

Keeping them: security, sharing, retention and your own home

A childminder’s records are about other people’s children and are kept in the childminder’s own home, on a family laptop or phone, which is where the framework’s security rule bites hardest: records “only accessible and available to those who have a right or professional need to see them” (3.95) means not the childminder’s own family, not the other parents at the door, and not a shared device with no lock. You are the controller under UK GDPR of everything you write about the children: a privacy notice for parents, a lawful basis, security that fits the sensitivity, and a retention schedule you apply are all yours to have. Parents have access to records about their child, subject to the applicable data protection exemptions (3.96), and paragraph 3.94’s “two-way flow of information” means a parent’s comment goes into the record if they ask.

Paragraph 3.97 leaves the retention period to the childminder. Write a schedule by record type, considering safeguarding guidance, insurance and contractual requirements, possible claims and data protection. A child’s 21st birthday is not a universal expiry date: limitation rules have exceptions and safeguarding records can require longer retention. Review what is still needed when a child leaves, preserve records subject to a claim or legal hold, and record the reasons for disposal or extended retention. Secure off-premises storage is permitted, but it must remain accessible to authorised people and protected from family members or other unauthorised users.

The records that form in messages with parents and assistants

Messages with parents may contain information relevant to care: a change in the child’s health, an update after an accident, a question about a medicine, or a concern raised at collection. Messages with an assistant may record an observation or a decision. Preserve the relevant information, but do not treat a casual update as automatically satisfying the attendance register, accident record or medicines requirements. Permission for a particular medicine must be clear, and each administration still needs its own complete record.

Where these messages sit in a personal app, the childminder needs a reliable way to retrieve relevant records, protect them from household access, and retain them for the required period. A phone lock alone does not establish that the record-keeping arrangements are adequate; equally, using a personal phone does not by itself mean they are inadequate. Assess access, backup, deletion, export and retention, and avoid mixing other families’ information into an access response.

Use a restricted reporting route, with access limited to the people who need the information. A recorded message is not proof that someone has read or acted on a concern: follow the safeguarding procedure, contact the responsible person directly when action is urgent, and use the local authority or emergency route when required. Add the relevant information and decisions promptly to the formal safeguarding record.

The remedy is not to stop messaging parents; it is the best thing about childminding. It is to have the messages with parents, and with an assistant, on a channel the childminder owns rather than a consumer app – on the same phone, with the parents told it is on the record, filed where the childminder can find and keep them for the period the schedule says, and separate from the family’s own chat. The question for a childminder is simple: if a parent asked tomorrow for every message about their child from last month, could you produce them without your own family’s messages in between?

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are the EYFS statutory framework for childminders (from September 2026; section 3, paragraphs 3.3 to 3.11, 3.16 to 3.21, 3.75 and 3.94 to 3.104), Ofsted’s early years inspection information and its significant events guidance, the Childcare (Early Years Register) Regulations 2008 (Schedule 1, the information supplied at registration), and the ICO’s guidance for small organisations. PACEY and Childminding UK publish record templates for members; the Department for Education’s childminder guidance explains the differences between Ofsted and agency registration.

This guide is a summary of published guidance for England, not a substitute for it and not legal advice. Childminders registered only on the Childcare Register, and nannies, have different requirements.

Then do one thing: open last week’s messages with one family and count how many of them are a record the framework requires. Then ask whether you could hand those messages, and only those, to the parent or to Ofsted.