Courses for nannies.

[Blimeygirl]

So I'm sure this question has been done to death on here!

I was previously in a job that involves lots of cpd (continuous professional development) time. Now as a nanny I really want to keep up this mentality as I think it's really important to keep skills up to date. I asked my dh about this and he said to do courses that really interest me (such as Makaton training) rather than just ones that tick boxes (food hygiene and the like) as I have quite a high level of qualification but not nanny based!

Firstly what do you think about doing courses that might me "expected" of a nanny such as good hygiene or the like?

Secondly what courses would you recommend doing?

Thirdly would they need to be weekend courses or on my day off or could I ask for time off in lieu for a days training?

Thank you in advance!

I study in my spare time out of interest, rather than for CPD. So I'm learning French and I'm currently doing a free online course about paleobiology (my charges are interested in dinosaurs, as am I!). I am signing up to a BSL course in September too.

If I were to go down the route of CPD type things, which I will at some point soon (still recovering from the last courses I did ), I'd go for food hygiene, more advanced first aid training (I have 12 hour paediatric), more in depth child development research, Child protection, etc.

What do you have already? Have you come from a childcare-related background or an entirely different field? The normal things to get first would be a Level 3, 12 hour first aid and child protection imo. I think I'm missing something.

www.mnttraining.co.uk/index.htm are a good company to do courses with.
www.pacey.org.uk/ have free training for members and other things, I haven't had any experience with their courses yet but they were the childminders association before being pacey so they must be okay.

Oh, and I'd say it has to be done in your own time really, though some employers will be okay with you taking time off. I work a weekend day so my employers understand that for my first aid training I do need a day off so I either take it as holiday or work a different day instead.

There are online courses but I prefer in person courses, finding them at weekends is tricky.

I really should do some courses but I don't know what to do.
Have done Maternity Practitioner, have done EYFS but it was online so no practical. Would like to do Forest School but my council only offers that on a weekday.

Pixie- I love going on interests! Wonderful to follow charges interests! I'm really tempted by bsl or Makaton! I use Makaton at the moment with one of my charges hence my interest!
I come from a teaching background but I have also done my first aid but do I need my level 3?

Cindy- I adore forest school and have been in a school that adopts it and it was fantastic! I also prefer face to face training!

I think the only courses that would be expected of you as a nanny is a childcare qualification (even a basic one so that you can be Ofsted registered) and a first aid certificate. Food hygiene is probably useful as is fire safety, but I've never had anyone specifically want/ask for either of those.

MNT training has a great selection of courses that can be done online/in your own time. I also prefer face to face learning, but there just isn't a lot of choice of things that fit around work etc. I like MNT because the choice is so wide.

Whether you can do training within work hours will depend on your job. Unfortunately a lot of nanny employers (and lots of nannies) are not particularly bothered about CPD and don't see it as their responsibility to encourage or facilitate it. I'm lucky in my job that they have given me time off for training and have contributed financially to any course I've done. I do keep this to a minimum though obviously and don't take the piss! If I do any training that is not specifically relevant to my job (e.g. maternity nursing when their children are all older) I do this in my own time and pay for it myself.

Have started an online Child Nutrition and Cooking course, it's American but so far (have done first 1h20m) it seems very relevant. It is video based with frequent quiz sections. Available from coursera.org

Paediatric first aid is the one I ask for.

I also sent a new mother's help on the MNT babies course and it was amazing. We'd employed her on a 6 month contract (new baby and 2 other children) she has a nursery nurse previously with HND equiv and she's now a very in demand maternity nurse.

nannynick I've completed that course, I really enjoyed it.

I looked at forest school training for a while as I was a scout leader as well and whilst I love it, I decided against it as I have joint issues affected by the cold and figured that it probably wasn't a good idea as most training courses started in September But where I am courses are readily available and very good.

However, with being a scout leader I had so many people interested in me the last time I was actively looking for work. I had a couple of families who were willing to totally rework their schedules to fit in with hours I had available, it was really odd to be so in demand! I got my first job based on the fact that I was an outdoors instructor at the time too. So generally, people love things relating to the outdoors.

You may need to get a basic childcare qualification for ofsted registration, IIRC the teaching qualification is seen as different for ofsted's nanny purposes? It might be worth contacting ofsted as it would be a PITA to be looking for work and then get asked by a family to become registered only to discover that your qualification isn't covered. If yours wasn't okay, there is something called Common Core Skills which is really easy and simple, took me a night to do it, and that is enough for ofsted. The fact you're a qualified teacher means parents with older kids will like you!

nannynick is that course good? I have it on my schedule but the dino one is taking me double the time that I thought it would so I've not even started that yet!

If you've already got a degree and a teaching background, you could do your Early Years Teacher qualification. You could browse Open University courses, to see if anything interests you.