NB: the Club Med hotels with childcare, ski school and kids club also usually include the price of everyone's lift passes and morning and afternoon ski school all week too. Their standard kids clubs and ski school tend to cover ages between 4 and 17 but several resorts have a Petit Club for ages 2 to 3 and/or a Baby Club from 4 months to 23 months where there may be an extra charge for this more specialist care.
Emily is head of childcare at Hotel Val d'Isere:
"If you are looking into putting your child into childcare whilst on holiday, look into whether their childcare staff are already fully qualified (i.e. if they have an NVQ or diploma in childcare). They will all have to be CRB checked if it’s an English based company so it’s worth looking at that – though if it’s a French company they might not have the same regulations.
Typically (depending on the company), each age group will be broken down.
You have your 0-3’s which are going to be your non skiers. They obviously won’t be up the mountain all day and generally speaking - depending on age - they will be going outside and doing things like snowmobiling and a bit of sledging. A lot of it will be focused inside as well, as it can be quite cold out there for them.
Next you’ve got the younger skiers, which can be your 3 year olds but usually between 4 and 5 is when they’re first going to be getting their ski legs. Things to look at are whether your child going to be able to handle a full day of ski school, or if you just want them to do mornings and then put them into a kids club in the afternoon. And then you move up into your older age range who’ve probably been skiing a few times before and would probably want to do a full day of ski school."