Wednesday December 4 2019 | the times times2 Got a degree? You could be a childminder

With Teach First he persuaded college These businesses are classed as “B Corporations”, which means they must balance purpose and profit. graduates to work in inner-city schools. Wigdortz says of starting Teach First that it helped that he was an outsider. Now wants to transform “Sometimes being an immigrant makes things easier. I was very naive childminding, he tells Helen Rumbelow and I hadn’t grown up in the British class system and the British political am told I need to wait a few you get a good education or you don’t system. I didn’t feel tribal about minutes for Brett Wigdortz to have a lot of life opportunities.” anything. I just saw it as a problem arrive. OK, I say, I’ll take a seat. The benefits of high-quality pre- that needed to be solved.” Then I panic. Looking around, I school education are proven. But in In the same way I think it helps that realise I am in a north this country it is infamously expensive. he is a man. Tiney is recruiting above start-up office so cool and In London 25 hours a week at a the average number of men as populated by young people that nursery or with a childminder costs an childminders, aided by Wigdortz and there is no other option than to average of £758 a month. Factor in a its 50 per cent male staff. The vibe of Iswing in a hanging chair. I sway and full-time job or another sibling and its marketing and website is for the wonder, could this be the hippest the cost quickly feels bankrupting. tech-literate professional man or childminding agency in the world? However, as Wigdortz was to find woman who probably has a young Wigdortz arrives. He ticks all the out, something odd is happening. The child, but may never have considered “start-up founder” boxes of trainers, a UK market for formal childcare was combining that with childminding. deep American accent and a name like valued at £5.5 billion in 2018. The While the men are gradually a tech entrepreneur in a sitcom. We population is growing, mothers are increasing in numbers in primary retreat to a room built entirely of working more, demand is booming. school teaching and nursing, in chipboard, where he tells me his story. Despite that, supply is falling. Between childcare the Daycare Trust estimates Wigdortz was a man with a familiar 2016 and 2018 the number of that there are fewer than 3 per cent problem. His family had three children individual nurseries declined by 20 per of them, the same proportion as in and two working parents — his wife cent, while in the five years to 2018 the Norway 30 years ago (Scandinavia with a career as an all-hours number of childminders fell by 27 per has unsurprisingly upped those paramedic — and often no one was cent. Harried parents scrabbling for ratios since). You could argue that left holding the baby. Like everyone nurseries won’t need a report by the Tiney’s ability to attract men into new to the parenting game in the healthcare consultancy Laing Buisson, childminding will be a marker of the UK, he was in for a rude shock when released this year, to tell them that it is success of its rebranding. “It’d be so he looked at our childcare market. estimated that the UK has a shortage great for more men to do it,” Wigdortz It manages to be super-expensive, of one million childcare places. What’s says. “It should be totally normal.” super-hard to get hold of and not so going wrong? The few men who have signed up to fit for purpose, like some kind of “I started thinking,” Wigdortz says. Tiney so far have mostly been those designer handbag. “I want to do something else that who would like to be stay-at-home However, Wigdortz was not any could create change and help children, fathers; some are single parents. That’s normal dad. While at home he and and I got more fixated on this one not the case for Ezra, 40. He works in his wife were stressed by cobbling Gotproblem. In Britain a it’s definitely degree? a You could bethe music a industry, childminder but, since the birth together nursery, au pairs and major problem, but it seemed every of his 18-month-old daughter, was childminders, at work he was the going to cut back to look after her two founder and leader of Teach First. and neither did parents. So Tiney his mother was a teacher and his Below: Brett Wigdortz days a week. That way he could share This organisation lures the brightest trains its workers in “cohorts” that father was in marketing. He and his care with his wife, a clinical graduates into giving two years of stick together and groups them in brother were cared for by two sets of psychologist. He remembers looking their youth, energy and optimism to The thing we small neighbourhood collectives that grandparents. A generation later and after his elder child in a similar way, teaching inner-city children. meet at least weekly. In addition, they childcare had become a headache. but being put off by the lack of men Teach First had an improbable want people to are in daily contact with headquarters, It was his wife who decided to cut when he took her to playgroups. “It start. Wigdortz was 26, working which supplies them with training her hours to accommodate the felt like I was intruding on such a on secondment to London for the realise is these and a checklist of educational play children, who now range in age female-dominated space,” he says. American management consultants are educators activities to complete each day. between six and 13. Would he have Ezra was attracted to Tiney because McKinsey, when he saw an intractable It aims to recruit an elite group of considered it? “Yes,” he says firmly, he saw on the website that the leader problem in our urban schools. With no country I went to, it was the same. Is childminders. Wigdortz brought with while also mumbling something about and other staff members were men. background in education and only a there a new way to solve it?” him a woman who was the head of his wife being “more caring” than him. He would not have considered few weeks living in Britain, he thought He thinks he can revolutionise selection at Teach First for 11 years. He took six months of leave from childminding normally, he says. At he had the idea to fix it. He was childminding. When I first heard So far they have had 500 applicants Teach First after the birth of his third Tiney he will be trained with a couple brilliantly young and naive. “It would this, I thought it was a terrible idea. and selected 100. This, he says, is child, during which he was the of other men and will remain all be really difficult,” he says, “but I Childminding, despite some great the core of becoming a trusted brand primary carer for all three, with no connected to them for support, as well thought, going in, it would be easy.” individual practitioners, has a pretty for parents. If Wigdortz can make other childcare. “I loved it.” as with his local chapter of other Teach First is now the largest poor image. It reeks of “second best” childminding aspirational, he may Wigdortz says that men in a similar Tiney workers. It would have been graduate recruiter in this country. to nanny or nursery, cheaper than have pulled off the rebranding feat position to him could now, via Tiney, easy for him to feel isolated as either a Wigdortz is also the co-founder of either. A depression hovers over the of his career. It starts with the very earn £30,000 while staying at home stay-at-home dad or male childminder , an international field, with many childminders word “childminder”. looking after their own children. otherwise. Also, doing it for only two organisation that replicates the model abandoning ship. Then I realised, “The branding’s not great,” he That’s his earnings estimate for a days a week, he would have felt too in 53 countries. It is a model that has that’s the point. Or rather, that’s the says. “I don’t even like the word childminder in London, caring daunted by the paperwork to become been copied across the police, social low point — like urban teaching ‘childminding’, that doesn’t sound like for three children with “a registered as a childminder. services and the prison service. Some before this — at which Wigdortz likes an educator. It doesn’t sound like couple more after school”. “I’m still working in my normal traditionalists in the field say that to come in to start afresh. someone who’s leading children. It “It’s the equivalent of a career most of the time,” Ezra the idea is little more than flashy “That’s what got me excited about sounds pretty passive.” teacher salary,” he says, says, “but this made total sense rebranding; others believe it is a Teach First, something we can really What’s better? but with the attractive to me. I love all the training; as revolution to change lives for ever. grow and make system change,” he “We’re calling them ‘tiny home- bonus of being your good as I thought I was with Now in his mid-forties, Wigdortz says. “That’s what we’re trying to do nursery owners’ or ‘tiny home-nursery own boss. Tiney says children, I think I want to develop wondered if he had a second big idea with this.” leaders’,” he says earnestly. I say that that it will take two more. I also like the fact that in him. Could he do a whole-sector The Tiney concept is to form a sounds terribly clunky. months to train, mostly children are seeing a positive revolution for the age group that you hybrid of nursery and childminder, “The thing we want people to realise with online courses, role model, to go against all the could argue need it even more — the or a string of “tiny” nurseries that is these are educators. They’re not just followed by a five-day stereotypes in the media.” infants in the years before they get to combine the high-quality curriculum minding children, it’s a very active sort intensive course before Wigdortz is older now. school? And in doing so help stressed of an institution with the attention of role. So if any of your readers can a childminder starts and Unlike when he started Teach working parents like himself. So Tiney, and family setting of a domestic home. come up with a good word for it . . .” there will be inset days for First, he knows this won’t be easy. It his childcare service, was born. The two main issues, when they Please, Times readers, save the world continuing training. Tiney might even be harder, now that “To me it’s this very simple civil interviewed childminders and parents, from “tiny home-nursery leaders”. gets a cut of their income, of he has to dash home at six to pick rights issue that no one’s talking about was isolation and paperwork. When Wigdortz was growing up in course (up to 10 per cent of up the children. in such stark terms,” he says. “Either Childminders didn’t like the isolation, New Jersey both his parents worked, the fees charged to parents). tiney.co

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