Childcare Qualifications Help whats the difference??!!

[nanny2012nanny]

Help!!

Best childcare level 3 course to enrol on??
How much?
How long?
Where? When?

Whats the best person to go with ?x

The only one you should be looking at now is the Diploma for the Children and young People's Workforce. The others are no longer taught (DCE, NVQ etc).

MNT training are the cheapest provider, I think, and do it via distance learning, or look at local colleges. They also have a decent reputation.

How long is a piece of string? How easily are you going to be able to arrange access for observations? How good are you at logging what you do and making it fit the tick boxes? How quickly do you read/write?

If you are currently working as a nanny, check with course provider that you are able to do the course. You may need placements in group environment. MNT are worth contacting for the advice as they will have come across nannies wanting to do the course.

Distance learning or local college, depending on which learning environment you feel is best for you.

I would expect it to take 18months-2 years. Not sure what minimum time is, if you look on the CACHE website at the course details I expect it will give the number of placement hours and estimated study hours.

I take it from your name you are already working as a nanny is this right?

Yes working as a nanny,
Have heard about MNT shall look into it thankyou!

You might be able to get grants from your local council for doing it, I know that my local council offer a hefty one too bad I moved after I'd started!

MNT are brilliant. I'm still doing my level 3 with them (nearly 2.5years after I started ) and they have always been fine with the long waits as things have gone tits up a lot recently!

Think twice about doing a childcare qualification via the distance learning route.
I would never employ anybody who did it this way as experience is absolutely essential.

insancerre: MNT require you to be in a job where you are working at level 3 standard, for example, a nanny who has sole charge and has a high level of control over what she does with her charges. They also observe you in practice like a normal Level 3 course would.

However I agree that the ones that claim that they don't need to observe you are ones to be avoided, as that is part of the CYPW. Not many people can afford to work part time (or not at all) in order to do a course, and when some distance learning courses have become just as good as a classroom based course (if not better imo, my degree course was shit compared to my course) it's not worth writing them off completely.

Observations and assessment based on practice are integral parts of the DCYPW. The criticism about being able to pass without any kind of placement or experience was a driving force behind rationalising the qualifications available into one. Not a move I necessarily agree with but it has meant everyone coming out with a level 3 in the last couple of years has been assessed in the workplace on the same things and required to write up practical experience if the same things.

I'm doing mine with N&B training and was lucky enough to get it fully funded via them. I got the funding directly from the training provider not from my local authority. I'm a childminder though so I'm not sure if the same funding applies to nannies. At the time of signing up, I was only looking after one fulltime baby and they were perfectly happy with that so no group setting is required.