Childminders Club - my first nvq study day... and I'm miserable.

[lunavix]

It's never hit me just how many limitations there are being a childminder as opposed to the opportunities received by children at a nursery.

I know the key factor is it's in your house, so there's limited space for resources and at the end of the day if they've covered every surface in paint you spend the next week hoping daily scrubbing will get it off... but it's not even just that.

Plus activities.. with a staff of upwards of 10 there are so many ideas bouncing around... as opposed to just little unimaginative me.

And there's so much (legislation and framework in particular) that regulates the early years sector, and I'm a NETWORK childminder and I've not heard of half of it. It scares me that childminders could fall through a loop hole and be providing some seriously shoddy care.

So yes... dh can't understand why I went so enthusiastic and came home so completely bummed out. Probably being stupid I know but while I still want to continue working in early years I've lost a bit of faith in my profession...

what course are you on to make you feel so bad?

Oh Honey - I felt that way, but you can do loads with the children at home

What age are you looking after?
Is it Birth to Three that is worrying you?

If you go on to my website - you can get my number and phone me........there is a way forward honestly

Lunavix – pull yourself together!

As a childminder you are offering low ratio care with one experienced, committed carer in a natural home environment. Your interactions with the children provide them with a fantastic social role model of what good quality childCARE is all about – small family groups of different ages learn so much from each other.
Children who have the freedom to just be, to find a quiet corner of your home to sit and look at shafts of sunshine, or count raindrops on a window, or to watch you as you prepare food or sing a silly song or join in with silly dances as only an unsupervised barmy mum can.
It doesn’t matter how many staff or how many resources you have stockpiled – it only matters that you have imagination and the creative enthusiasm to make wonder objects out of cereal boxes, cushions, blankets, pots, pans etc and to see the opportunities that exist like no other when you have the freedom to decide your own day. Forget the National Curriculum and the nursery manager watching you like a hawk. I wouldn’t swap being able to take off on a whim to the beach, farm park, library, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers or to read a story 4 times over breakfast like we did this morning – because I was asked to and we were having such giggly fun.

I bet they are all dead jealous of you and have gone home wishing they they had their own homes and the freedom and guts to run their own businesses just like you do.

Goosey you said it......that's why we childmind

Too right katymac.
But if it's the nvq3 you are doing lunavix then I do sympathise as I know what an awesome amount of work is involved. I did it last year and needed a long holiday afterwards to get over it
Thereare loads of ideas resources on the internet to kick start your ideas. One of the best compilations I have seen is on \link{http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rtpodmore/themes.htm\this} minder's site

I hate my NVQ I am This far away from having 6 units finished and I have no motivation

Ishyan - the new NVQ3 in childrens care learning and development.

Katy - thanks, the nursery staff (the other 6 people) went away just moaning about the work, I went petrified at the implications for my setting.... It's not the work of the framework that bothers me, it's just I've lost a little faith in having a home setting. Nurseries are just so... aesthetic, and my house can barely fit enough toys and bits to entertain them in!

goosey - I'm not that imaginative! I constantly have to try and source ideas to keep them entertained and deep down I'm positive I'd work better in a team where ideas bounce off each other... I know that the one-on-one is a positive aspect of childminding, but due to being fairly full, some of these nursery nurses have lower ratios than me.

And like I said the amount of coursework isn't overly worrying me, although it is bigger than I anticipated.

It's probably of no consolation whatsoever, but I nearly always come away on a downer after doing any course or workshop that involves me having to produce yet more proof on paper that I'm a good-enough childminder.

Goosey - I love your answer to lunavix (and will have to print it out to keep!!!) It is so true, and we all need reminding of it from time to time. (Do we need to pay you commission for showing it around to all our RL childminding pals?!)

No commission necessary TP - I also have a growing stock of more commission-free, childminder-promoting waffly stuff \link{http://www.freerangechildcare.co.uk\here}

Lunavix - You may feel that you work alone but you are part of a team, the mumsnet childminders club :) :) I have got lots of ideas from other childminders on here and hope I have given a few of my ideas too.
Do you have a group of childminders in your area to meet up with? We have a group who meets weekly for a stay and play session and we are always discussing new ways to keep our mindees occupied or letting each other know of any new discoveries we have made.
I know good nurseries seem to have 'everything' but they obviously don't or parents wouldn't choose us childminders would they?
Don't get yourself down, I am sure you are an excellent childminder and that your mindees are very happy.

Goosey - read it all, I am so impressed with your "waffle"!! I do a vaguely similar thing with monthly newsletters for parents/children which is equally "waffley" but shorter, and includes photos.

Whenever I go on courses or workshops, I tend to be a bit tongue-in-cheek with my description of what I've achieved (trying to downplay it, I guess?) The parents and children love the sarcasm, but I'm not sure whether Ofsted will in in the same way! I just take the Michael out of everything I do really (but I do take it seriously when it comes down to it), but I just want everything to be fun and not paperwork.

Lunavix just read this and while I understand that having limited resources can be downheartening (is that a word?) Having worked in nurseries there is a major downside to it. You are not your own boss!!! As goosey says you have the constraints of a set routine everyday, managers/senior staff, etc etc. And you talk about resources !!! Only the other day a thread was started about treasure baskets and heuristic play. This type of play is the best and the resources are around us every day. To deviate from the normal routine in a nursery takes major planning and quite a bit of paperwork. We as childminders on the otherhand have the world as our oyster. We can go to the park and decided to take a picnic and go for a tresure hunt and search for bugs under rocks etc etc at a whim. We can visit the library, go to a soft play place, meet up with fellow childminders and play or we can have a quiet day in reading , drawing and sticking depending on the mood of you or your mindees.

I suppose my point is, while nurseries have there 'resources' we as childminders have ours too.Just different ones not better or worse just different. Well thats my view :o

Thanks TP - It's that old experienced parent's sense of black humour isn't it. The one that scares the poo out of first time parents and has to be kept in check on initial visits if you don't want them to disappear over the horizon in a rising cloud of dust.
I have this theory that if my paperwork is in order then everything else will follow on seemlessly from that. A sort of parallel to a child development pyramid. But 'they' keep on adding to my paperwork to make me paddle harder.

It's much better to be approached by someone wanting a childminder who I've gradually got to know (at toddler group etc), because then they know exactly what I'm like! It means they've already been forewarned ...