Any Early Years Officers (Scotland) here?

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My LA is advertising for Apprentice Early Years Officers, which is a 2 year 'work based training programme' where you ultimately gain SVQ Level 3 in Social Services Children and Young People.

The salary for qualified EYO seems to be higher than I expected - £26,242.46 - £29,245.89 on a 52 week basis. Is that right, or am I missing something? I don't see any mention of it being pro-rata for term time etc. For some reason I was under the impression that EYOs were on lower salaries.

If anyone has any experience to share - either of life as an EYO, or specifically about EYO salaries in Scotland/Fife - I'd love to hear it!

That salary is correct. Obviously it will be pro rata if you go part time but a full time 52 week position will start at £26,242. A term time position would be pro rata’d for 39 weeks plus the annual leave you accrue. The apprenticeship salary is 50% the first year and I think 80% the second.

The Fife apprenticeship route sounds good, someone at my work did it and gained lots of experience and is now an EYO. I went via college route and gained the HNC so there are other options. One thing worth checking for the apprenticeship is the number of credits you gain. Someone on my course did the apprenticeship but had to pick up HNC modules as they wanted to eventually go on and do the degree. This may not be relevant to you but thought I would flag.

I would suggest maybe volunteering in a nursery to get some experience first (if you don’t already have any), it’s fairly full on and in hindsight I wish I’d got a little experience before starting the course.

Thanks for your reply @Sail0r!

This is what's confusing me though - you mention that the salary is correct, and a term time role would be pro rata'd for 39 weeks + AL .... but I thought that state nurseries (attached to primary schools) were only open during term time? Is that not the case anymore? All of the EYO vacancies I've seen on the Fife Council website state 52 week basis but seem to follow normal school terms.

Local authority nurseries often offer both term time and 52 week places to the children. Some are 52 week only but there are still lots of term time, 39 week, places too. Once qualified you can then select to work a term time contract or a 52 week one. I imagine the apprenticeship is 52 week contract as there will be lots of learn but once qualified you can chose the hours you wish to work. So for example if you then went term time full time, the salary would be something like £22,242 (roughly as I’ve not done the calculation) whereas full time 52 weeks would be the full £26,242. Hope that makes sense!

All the EYO posts advertised by Fife council will be for a Fife council nursery (attached to a school) or a nurture centre. There aren’t many advertised at the moment as they are filling them through the generic interviews which recently took place

Some School nurseries now offer 52 weeks for children. The sessions in Fife are 8-12.40pm then 1.20 to 6pm but they are open most of the year. So where the term time kids were off two weeks at Easter there the 52 week children were in. There is also another model of 2 very long days and a half day but I’m not sure of the times.
I have worked in early years for a long time and I still get a lot of reward from my job. However 1140 hours has been terrible for children. Behaviour has dramatically worsened as they are in too long, it’s not about quality anymore it’s about quantity. How many children can they squeeze in. There’s never enough staff to be able to do your best, never anytime to do anything and you are constantly chasing your tail. The 52 week children can be in most of the year so some never get a break.
we’ve had a a few pay rises these last few years so the salary is a bit better. I am term time but could never do the 52 weeks.

The apprentices we’ve had have all been term time but maybe that depends on where you are placed

Sorry I don't know anything about the training.

But I have a friend who is an Early years officer on a 52 week contract. She works in school nursery in term time and in school holidays she covers holiday clubs or the family centre provision. It suits her for the increased pay now her kids are grown up

Ah thank you all so much - I understand now!

The apprenticeship is definitely term time only, as they drew attention to that on social media as being a benefit for those with young kids.

My kids are late teens now so I'm not in need of a term time only role particularly. Good to know there are options!

Hi, I know this is post is a couple of months old now. Just wondered if you applied and how you got on?

Also, wondered how you work out the pay for 39 weeks as I'm curious about how much you would get paid every 4 weeks.

I did apply and wasn't shortlisted - c'est la vie!

I worked out the pay as FTE amount / 52.2 * 39 to get the pro rata annual salary, then divided that by 12 to get the monthly. I think you do accrue annual leave in addition to the 39 weeks so you'd be paid for that too, but I decided to go with the 'worst case scenario' pay of 39 weeks only and didn't factor in AL pay for my budget planning.