Best thing ever leaving nursery work!!!!!!!!

[Suna31]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share my experience with you all working in a nursery. I have worked within the Early years industry for solid 12 years. This summer in August 2021 I applied for this role and was offered a interview few days later, I had my interview which I thought went well, 3 days later I was offered the job. I was literally in disbelief. I had graduated 2 years ago in Early Years (Arts). I landed a job that I always wanted to do when I graduated. For those that are interested to know what my new job is, it's Quality assurance lead manager in a primary school in London. I'm working from home in the mornings and onsite for few hours in the afternoon. I get 7 weeks annual leave a year including 2 full weeks off for Xmas. Salary is handsomely amazing and I'm only doing 35 hours a week (10.30-5.30) .

Moving on from that I would never recommend anyone to go and work in a nursery, I've held numerous positions within nursery's and worked for several nurseries. All the nursery and management are the same, don't actually care about the staff, staff poorly paid and over worked, staff not appreciated and nurseries understaffed, extremely long hours with no home life balance.

To look back I would say I will NOT miss working at any nursery at all, doing those ridiculous long hours. And it's the best thing this new job could have happened to me. Going back into education after 10 years and undertaking my degree was the best ever thing I did, it gave me a chance leaving daycare for good and embark on a journey with my new job.

@Willow200
I agree, such snobbery here. How dare a nursery worker snag a good role people aren’t familiar with.

@PrincessesRUs. This too. I have always tried my best at holidays to arrange a decent collection for the staff at DC nursery and at a childminders, many of the staff were struggling and some single mothers. Thankfully most of the parents made a great effort and the gifts/collections were gratefully received.

It isn’t snobbery!! People just don’t see how someone who isn’t a qualified teacher, can get a job telling teachers how to do their job!

Makes me sad to think my kids nursery workers may feel like this. They all seem so happy and caring. Worked in schools teaching for 12 years and never heard of your new role. What does it actually involve on a day to day basis?

@OnceuponaRainbow18 I worked in a nursery for a few months before university. Absolutely loved the children, although it was very tiring work for awful pay. I still think fondly of the children I worked with even though they will be 20-23 years old now and older than I was when I looked after them!

@BrutusMcDogface It isn’t snobbery!! People just don’t see how someone who isn’t a qualified teacher, can get a job telling teachers how to do their job!

Because Quality Assurance requires a different skillset than teaching ?

If it's anything like private sector QA - auditing and reporting, audit prep and gap analysis, POC for all complaints, problem solving and root cause analysis, corrective and preventive action, streamlining processes / implementing new ones, trend tracking, cost benefit analysis, managing and validating stakeholder / customer / service user / external requirements, updating policies, training.... I could go on, and that's not touching on half the manufacturing stuff that would probably be applicable.

I assume the OP has studied some of this and that's why she landed the job?

Quality Managers aren't generally "experts" or "the best of the best" in their field... more like the external stakeholder's representative in the organisation, and the organisation's representative for external stakeholder's. They know how things should be done because they become experts in assessing the requirements. You could be a Quality Manager in a ship yard one day and a care home the next (well, a few weeks to get up to speed on the requirements).

@OnceuponaRainbow18

Most people in childcare do love their job I think or love spending time with toddlers at least.

They do feel unhappy with the wages compared to the level of responsibility. So that would start to erode the happiness over time.

@themental. Hopefully that explanation will calm down the teachers reaction of her new role 😁

‘Handsomely amazing’ - very odd turn of phrase. Does QA work involve report writing? The style of the first paragraph is also odd

I left Early Years 4 years ago and it's the best thing I've ever done. I'd been in the game for 10 years and although I adored the children I worked with, the wages, responsibilities, expectations and just general atmosphere wore me down. I wasn't allowed any time off when my dad was dying, and any time I took off after he died I had to make up. The paperwork was endless, the cleaning, prepping, setting up, putting away (packaway setting 🙄) cleaning again, continual understaffing (always met ratios, but any EYP knows that doesn't mean you're adequately staffed) and the pure contempt some parents treat you with, despite you putting your actual soul into caring for their children, usually to the detriment of your own family, were all deciding factors. All of the issues parents had were with decisions/policies implemented by the owners, but because the owners were never there, unfortunately we were the punching bag. It was absolutely destroying me.

I truly lost the love for it, and I'm afraid once you've lost that, there is nothing to hold you there, certainly not the wages. I didn't leave for hot shot job somewhere else though, I went to work in a chip shop. I was paid more, had no responsibilities and had a laugh every day. The owner actually valued us, customers were nice and I didn't go to bed at night hoping a meteor had landed on my workplace so I didn't have to go in the next day.

The problem with Early years is it's a professional role without the professional recognition most other careers would have with the same level of training and responsibilities. We do many of the same things other professionals do - speech and language support, two year checks, SEN support (to name a few) on top of our primary role to care for and educate children aged five and under. I've already pretty much reached where I can get to in terms of career progression and training within my current work place and despite that I'm still not even making £10hr.

The pandemic showed that along with what we offer the children in our care our job our role is essential to many families so they can work and provide for their families. People are leaving the industry in droves at the moment to move into new and usually better paid roles and this is mostly down to us not being treated on an equal footing to schools and teachers and other professionals. The government also shows its contempt by not funding the sector adequately.

I work in a lovely nursery with great colleagues and a lovely owner manager but in time this may not be enough unless many things improve and a lot of that has to start with the attitude of the government and how people view us as professionals.

I think when a job is low paid it needs to come with more perks.

In nurseries that I have tempt at the ones with staff longevity (10-15 years!) they;

Provide free lunch everyday

Allow occasional early/late finish

Managers help out when things are busy

They are giving out of the room time to do profiles or paperwork

They spend a lot of time in the garden or outside

Managers side with the staff

Have more annual leave days and days when the nursery is completely closed for inset days

Sick children are sent home instead of being given back to back calpol just because the parents have a meeting that day