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As a Koru Kids childminder you’ll be self-employed and have the scope to earn up to £70,000 a year in inner London, depending on how many children you look after and how many hours a week you work.

Being self-employed means you have a great deal more flexibility day-to-day than a regular employee. For example, you can choose when to take your holidays to suit you, you can choose which families you work with, and you can decide where to take the children each day.

Being self-employed also means you have different rights and responsibilities to employees, which we cover briefly here.

Self-employed workers must file a tax return every year and pay their tax as a lump sum after the end of the tax year, rather than it being deducted by their employer through the PAYE system.

To make this as simple as possible, if you need an accountant we can introduce you to (and pay for) Tax Scouts with whom we have a partnership, who will take care of this for you. They will advise you which costs and expenses you can claim back to reduce your tax bill.

We can also provide a book keeping tool to help you keep track of your income and expenses across the year too!

We have made self-employed pensions easy by partnering with Penfold to create a pension specifically for childminders. It's a simple, private pension that you can set up in minutes, and manage online or on your phone—and Koru Kids will guide you through the set-up.

You are welcome to take a break from childminding for as long as you like following the birth of a child. You’ll just need to let the families that you care for know in good time, so they can make other childcare arrangements. When you decide to return to work, let the Koru Kids team know and we can begin to promote you to families again!

Whilst on parental leave, you won’t be eligible for any maternity/paternity pay from Koru Kids or the families you work with, but you may be eligible for statutory maternity/paternity pay from the Department of Work and Pensions.

It’s important everyone has a break! If you work 5 days per week, you’ll have 20 days of paid holiday each year. You will still have some paid holiday if you work 3–4 days per week or term-time only, but it will be adjusted. Don't forget to let parents know in advance when you’d like to take time off.

You won’t qualify for sick pay, but if you’d prefer, you can choose to take paid holiday if you need to close your setting due to illness. This will eat into your holiday allowance of course, but will mean you still get paid for the time you’re ill.

Insurance is another cost you don't have to worry about with Koru Kids. Any self-employed childminders registered with us will be covered by our extensive public liability insurance. We go through this in more detail in our handbook during your training, so you know what it covers and how it applies to you.

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