Open University Early Years certificate

[TwinSetAndPearls]

I work in early years and although I have my teacher training I need a specific early years qualification. I didn't want to do NVQs as they didn't appeal and I don't want to ahve to go to college every week as I already have a lot of evening commitments.

I have opted to do the OU early years certificate as I am already doing an OU degree and I thought it could run alongside it. I was also advised by my OU tutor that it would suit me better than an NVQ.

I am slightly worried about my workload as I am starting level 3 next year in my psycholgy degree and am about to start chilminding. I have also been struggling a bit lately healthwise but i need to keep my career option open.

Has anyone done the course before? Is it hard? is it a lot of work?

I can only speak from the view point of someone who is currently doing the level 3 NVQ (almost finished). I have attended college once every 2-3 weeks during term time for the past 7 months and have found the workload to be very hard going (not difficult mentally, but reasonably challenging and very worthwhile)- just immensely time consuming, and fitting it in with the demands of being a self-employed childminder hasn't been easy at all. I couldn't imagine trying to do two NVQ's at once and still being able to function 100% as a childminder - something would give and the care and attention I would give the children would probably go first!
I would be interested in any replies myself as I want to do something else after this NVQ but not sure what.

I know someone who is doing an NVQ in childcare and she said excatly the same thing - what is expected is easy but it is time consuming. Endless ticking of boxes.

I am loathed to interrupt my OU degree as they take long enough as it is, I need to do the childminding to pay our bills and I want to keep on my other job so I need a qualification. I am also thinking of moving from secondary education to early years but lack any formal qualification. So i need to do all three.

Twinset - I've done the Early years certificate. I enjoyed the course and didn't find it particularly hard even though I did it E123 and E124 in the same year - I think the OU recommend taking 2 years over it. If you are working in an early years setting, it is very much reflecting on your own practice and improving on it.

Thanks PoofieWuddle that is what I was hoping to here. If I didn't have everything else on I would do it in two years.

What kind of setting were you working in?

I was working in the nursery class of a school for 2.5 hours per week while I was doing the course. I was also doing the NCFE level 2 for Teaching Assistants course at the same time. I found I didn't need to spend as much time studying as the OU suggested. The only problem with doing E123 and E124 in the same year is that they use the same reference material ie videos and it was sometimes hard to remember which course was which - not a major problem though.