Linda has been looking after my son full-time for over 3 years, since he was 6 months old. My son looks forward to going to Linda's every morning as he knows each day will be filled with interesting things to do. He has built up a very strong and trusting relationship with her and the rest of her family, who treat him like one of the family.

Linda goes above and beyond her duty as a childminder to engage the children in activities and experiences. During term time, activities often include visits to the Children's Centre for play mornings, 2 different toddler groups, meeting up with other childminders to play, softplay centres, the book library and the toy library, a variety of local parks, walking the dog, exploring the woods, Buchan Park, Tilgate Park, arts and crafts at home, baking, exploring letters and numbers in fun ways, etc.

In the school holidays Linda takes the children on the train to the beach (she has a car but the train is much more fun!), to local farms, to the steam railway, to various organised activities with the childminding group (e.g. sports days, picnics, pond dipping, etc). When my son has been the only child in Linda's care, she has even taken him swimming! None of these activities have cost anything over Linda's very reasonable hourly rate.

Linda instills the importance of good manners and sharing with the children and has helped me (when I have asked for help) with ideas for dealing with my son's occasional challenging behaviour when he went through the 'terrible twos'.

I would not hesitate to recommend Linda as a childminder and would be happy to chat with any parents thinking of leaving their child in her care.