How long?

[Nikadi]

Originally Posted by SamHill

I agree with the above, but it may also be to do with your starting point. If you have been doing a job for a while you should hopefully have a really good grounding in the health and safety, communication, equal opportunities, working with the children etc and the more "theoretical" stuff such as formalising the Acts relating to children and childcare, and the child development theorists may be what requires more concentration, so you may be able to cover that stuff quite quickly.

Sam

Exactly what I was going to say in regards to the comments about rushing. I may only be 19 but in the past two years I've had over 1000 hours* (easily) working with children and young people in a variety of settings and age groups:
Nurseries (2-4), Reception classes (4-5), at PGL (mainly 9-11 but a full range of 7-20+) working with children during the day doing activities (mainly watersports and height based activities, so I've dealt with my fair share of nervous/terrified children! Also at night as the 'night watch' which meant dealing with homesick/upset children and horny teenagers. And now I'm a Nanny with two kids aged 8 and 11.

In regards to theory I've covered a lot to do with dealing with stressed/nervous children, also a lot on child protection in the setting, the phys and mental dev of children I covered in the few months I was at uni at the end of 07, etc.

Never doubt the knowledge of somebody just because of the time it takes them to do a course I'm only doing this because I have no formal qualies in childcare and therefore I can't get a well paid job! :laughing:

Sorry for being so defensive, but really, it's dependant on the person, and nobody knows of that persons experience and situation until they are told about it! And I've had a lot of people telling me that I'm not going to get this done properly even though I've done a lot of the course already just in different circumstances and what I haven't done I can't wait to learn!

* Before you doubt my maths here, I spent 5 and a half months actually working for PGL, that's 22 weeks. I worked at least 42 hours a week (though usually it was nearer 45-50 depending on how many extra duties I got given!) 22 weeks*42 hours is 924 hours. And that's just at PGL, not counting my 100+ hours with nursery aged kids, the same for reception classes and the three months I've had working as a live-in Nanny!