First drafts of your everyday policies from notes about how you work, and a weekly reminder of which one is due for review

Policies take hours to write and then sit unreviewed. Starting each from your own bullet notes about what you actually do means you edit instead of writing from nothing, and a weekly list of what is due for review means none quietly goes out of date. Policies can matter at inspection and with parents, so the assistant never decides what a policy must say: it leaves a marked gap wherever a rule from the framework or your regulator belongs, and you fill it from the official text.

You will need: a "Practice notes" document per policy, a "Policy tracker" sheet (policy name, last reviewed, next review date, checked by), your own email

Works with: a chat assistant that can read a document and a sheet, run a weekly scheduled task and save a draft. Check your tool's current features. The routine reads the tracker only.

Set it up

1. Pick one policy to start with from the everyday ones: settling in, sickness, late collection, complaints, outings or screen use. Write bullet notes about how you really work: what you do, in what order, and what you ask parents to do. Write about your setting, not about any child.
2. Leave your safeguarding, allegations, online safety and recruitment policies out of this job. The framework says policies "should be in line with the guidance and procedures of the relevant Local Safeguarding Partner" and lists what safeguarding policies must include, so build those from your local safeguarding partners' guidance with your childminder agency, local authority or regulator.
3. Give the assistant the notes. It writes a first draft with these headings: purpose, what happens, what parents are asked to do, review date [DATE], signed [YOUR SIGNATURE]. Wherever a legal or regulatory requirement would belong it writes "[REQUIREMENT: copy from the EYFS framework or your regulator's guidance]" and states nothing itself.
4. Read every sentence against what you do. Delete anything you don't do, and fill each "[REQUIREMENT]" gap yourself from the official text.
5. Ask a named checker (your childminder agency, your local authority early years team, or an experienced childminder you trust) to read the policies you rely on every week. You sign and date each one.
6. Add each policy to the "Policy tracker" with a review date. Set a Monday 8am routine that reads the tracker and emails you a list of policies due in the next 30 days.

The instructions to give your agent

I am a UK childminder in England. From my notes below about how I really work, write a first draft of my [POLICY NAME] policy with these headings: Purpose; What happens; What parents are asked to do; Review date [DATE]; Signed [YOUR SIGNATURE]. Use only my notes, in plain words, in the first person ("I"). Wherever a legal or regulatory requirement would belong, write "[REQUIREMENT: copy from the EYFS framework or your regulator's guidance]" and say nothing about what the requirement is. Do not state any rule, ratio, time limit or legal duty. Do not write anything about safeguarding procedures. Do not include any child's or family's details.