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Setting up a playschool

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  • 10-10-2011 9:39am
    #1
    Akrasia
    Registered Users Posts: 22,423 ✭✭✭✭


    Hi everyone.

    My wife has just been told that her job is being made redundant.

    She was thinking about setting up a little playschool with her friend.

    Does anyone have any experience in setting up a new playschool?

    Her friend has fetac level 6 early childcare qualifications so she would be the primary child carer while my wife would be an assistant but they would be business partners and split everything 50/50. My wife could do a level 6 course over the course of 9 months through distance learning.

    Right now is probably the worst time of the year to start a playschool so we'd be aiming to start for september next year.

    Does anyone have any tips? any warnings, any suggestions anything at all would be really helpful.

    thanks


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    #2
    silja
    Registered Users Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭silja


    Would they get premises, or do it from home?
    What age kids? Depending on age and how many, they will likely need to hire staff. Familiarise yourself with employment law.
    Did they look into the neccessary insurance?


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    #3
    Moonbeam
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,953 Mod ✭✭✭✭Moonbeam


    The local childcare committee and the hse are the people that you need to talk to.
    Costs can be high and unless it is a very big preschool with more then 1 teacher then profits are not that high.
    1:10 would be the preschool ratio of kids to teachers work that out x the ecce rate and that is the monthly income less insurance,heat,electricity,toys,games,books..etc


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    #4
    Akrasia
    Registered Users Posts: 22,423 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    silja wrote: »
    Would they get premises, or do it from home?
    What age kids? Depending on age and how many, they will likely need to hire staff. Familiarise yourself with employment law.
    Did they look into the neccessary insurance?

    We've already seen a premisis that looks perfect on a 1 year lease.

    (it's attached to a house and you can rent both the house and the creche for 1000 a month so we could move into the house and if we paid €600 rent a month, it would mean the weekly rent for the creche would be less than €100)

    We don't want to do anything too big, just enough to provide a modest income for 2 people. As they'd be equal business partners rather than employer/employee then we shouldn't get too bogged down in things like holiday pay, prsi etc

    We're thinking that a playschool would be the best option as they generally follow primary school business hours so that we wouldn't need to provide 364 days cover and we would be able to take the mid terms and summers off (save on staffing costs)


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    #5
    Akrasia
    Registered Users Posts: 22,423 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Moonbeam wrote: »
    The local childcare committee and the hse are the people that you need to talk to.
    Costs can be high and unless it is a very big preschool with more then 1 teacher then profits are not that high.
    1:10 would be the preschool ratio of kids to teachers work that out x the ecce rate and that is the monthly income less insurance,heat,electricity,toys,games,books..etc

    Thanks
    We will check out the local childcare committee
    We did some budgeting last night and it does look like the profit margins are very tight but given the availability of employment and the costs of childcare for our own children, even if it worked out as an hourly rate below the minimum wage it would still be worthwhile (a loss wouldn't be nice though)


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    #6
    Cat Melodeon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,617 ✭✭✭Cat Melodeon


    Akrasia wrote: »
    We're thinking that a playschool would be the best option as they generally follow primary school business hours so that we wouldn't need to provide 364 days cover and we would be able to take the mid terms and summers off (save on staffing costs)

    Watch out for that - most working parents don't have the same time off as schools and will be looking for a year-round service. I certainly couldn't send my lad to a childcare facility that closed up as often as the schools do, on the contrary, I'd be looking for one that could take my school-going kids during the holidays.

    Would you consider getting a part-time job in an existing creche or playschool for the next few months to familiarise yourself with how things are done? There is a lot to learn about everything from regulations to the push for a standardised curriculum and professionalisation, and hands-on experience is the best way to learn about that.


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    #7
    Moonbeam
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,953 Mod ✭✭✭✭Moonbeam


    Before you rent the house get a hse inspection on the play school part of it. It would be terrible if they deemed it not suitable for purpose.

    It could work if they ran 2 sessions every day 9-12 and then one 12:30 - 15:30 or some such.

    Ecce for sessional play school is 64.50 x 38 weeks x 10 children = 24513.80is probably what you are looking at for the 1st year. Less insurance and other costs.


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