I enjoy the course but I do wish the tutorials were more frequent as I like the sociable side of things much more than reading books at home. To balance this I go on study days which are often held on Saturdays. Or conferences e.g. NCT conference is Friday 13 June and Sat 14th. This week is the Royal College of Midwives conference (but I'm not going on that), there's an Antenatal Education Conference in Birmingham in October which is jointly organised by NCT and NHS and there are various other workshops you can go on with other organisations where you meet people involved in the field of pregnancy and birth.
Cost of training - if you were to apply to self-fund, I'm not sure exactly how much it would cost. 80% of my costs of training are paid by the NCT because I have done voluntary work for them and been involved with my branch. It is also expected that I will teach for them for a minimum of three years after qualifying. I think this is a minimum of 2 x 16 hour courses per year.
My 20% costs around £160 per year. On top of this there is the cost of books and equipment e.g. a midwifery text is about £25 - the full set of basic set texts is around £130, pelvis and doll are about £100. Then there's travel to tutorials and study days. Hope this isn't putting you off!
In the first year of the course you have to do essays on
Reflection:
a birth experience (one or more of your own)
an experience of parenting
Study Skills - exploring what you have and what you need to acquire to become an effective antental teacher.
These essays are 1500-2000 words and must contain references.
You must do an assessed presentation (to your tutor group usually) about a subject surrounding pregnancy/birth e.g. caesareans, assisted conception. And also one on local maternity services which you then do a written evaluation of. You also practise various relaxations, ice breakers etc in your tutor group.
You have to observe two courses, maximum three, of antental classes and do a summary of two classes you have observed and finally an essay (2500-3000) reflecting on the courses you have observed.
That's part one!
Does it qualify you to work in the NHS? Well, some teachers work with the NHS but it depends if they have any jobs going or want to run NCT-style classes which are really designed to work with the large numbers often found in NHS classes. This sort of thing you might best be talking to someone at NCT HQ about or your local hospital/parentcraft teacher.
There is career progression with NCT - you can go on from being a teacher to an advanced teacher (I think they are able to assess others) and then on to tutor. There's a study day about this soon but it's a bit beyond where I'm thinking at the moment!
There are opportunities to work with all sorts of groups - some teachers work with refugees, some go overseas and consult on projects in Russia, etc. Some, such as Mary Nolan, now write books on antenatal education and speak at conferences, etc.
Is it difficult to get on? Well, they took me!!! Erm, difficult to say. There are areas around the country, I believe, where there are no tutorial spaces left and I suspect that might be the biggest hurdle you run into.
The idea of the course lasting a maximum of seven years is that you have time to get over your own experiences - it isn't consdiered appropriate for you to debrief your own experiences on your class and allow those experiences to colour your teaching.
The course is also designed to fit around your family. Since I started training, with all intention of banging through the course ASAP, I find out my daughter had achalasia and it knocked me for six. Although at times I feel like I need a kick up the bum to keep me on track, I also appreciate that I'm not so worried about getting an essay in that I can't care for DD properly. Some people have 'time out' when they have a child (very common for people to test their new-found knowledge by having another baby LOL).
If you want to know anymore (like about part two of the course) feel free to contact me offlist at nct dot nottingham at care4free dot net. Replace the dots with . and the at with @
HTH