How to Choose a Private Tutor

Choosing a private tutor can be a daunting task. It can be difficult to find a private tutor initially that is within your budget, and that offers the level of tuition you need, so once you have found one you will want to ask them the right questions to make sure they can deliver.

When you meet a prospective private tutor, you will want to ask them the following questions:

Are you DBS checked?
Your prospective private tutor may already have an enhanced disclosure, as many work with children or vulnerable adults in their ‘day jobs’. However, there are many that won’t have one. It is of course important to remember that DBS checks are not a guarantee of somebody’s safety to be around others in this way, but it’s a very important thing to look out for – especially if the private tutor is for a child or vulnerable adult.

How qualified are you?
There are no legal requirements for whom can provide private tuition. However, most agencies require that any private tutor on their books must be qualified to at least degree (or HND) level in the subject they wish to teach. Who you hire is of course down to you, and it may be cheaper to hire a private tutor who is in the final year or two of their degree – they will almost certainly have the knowledge and skills to teach to GCSE level, and they will be more affordable. In every case it is important to be sure that they are familiar with the current syllabus, too.

How much experience do you have?
Plenty of years of experience don’t always guarantee that a private tutor will provide a better service. However, as a general rule, the more years of experience they have, the better. Make sure you ask for references to see what their previous clients had to say about their tutoring skills, reliability, and results.

Do you have any teaching experience?
Being a master at your chosen subject is quite a different thing to being a good teacher. However, this does not mean that a private tutor without a PGCE will be a poor tutor altogether. It is better to look at their references and successes to judge what kind of a tutor they will be.

What are your terms?
You will need to know what the private tutor’s terms are for situations like missed sessions and lateness. Most private tutors will charge their full rate for sessions that are cancelled without very much notice, simply because they will likely not be able to fill the slot if not given enough forewarning. Also, you will want to find out what their policies are on keeping up with the student’s progress. The private tutor may wish to set up regular meetings, either in person or on the telephone, to let you know how things are going (this is of course assuming that the private tutor is for a child).

How to Find Babysitter Jobs

Finding babysitter jobs can seem like a daunting task when you’re first starting out. Babysitter jobs aren’t generally advertised on social media or in newspapers and other publications, so it may seem like a challenge to begin with.

However, there are many ways that you can take the initiative in finding babysitter jobs. It may take some time to build a reputation locally, but we all have to start somewhere!

Advertise locally

However, there are many ways that you can take the initiative in finding babysitter jobs. It may take some time to build a reputation locally, but we all have to start somewhere!

Advertise locally

Babysitter jobs may not be advertised in local papers but babysitters offering their services certainly are! It usually costs very little to put a small ad in a local rag, and although you may not get a great deal of business immediately, people will soon get to recognise your name and ask around about you. Keep your ad short and snappy, and be sure to provide at least two methods of contacting you (phone and email, for example). You could also advertise in shop windows – many newsagents will only charge a small monthly (or annual) fee. With so many local social media sites it’s a great way of getting your business out there and making contacts and it’s generally free! It’s also good for people who are happy to recommend you as well.

Make business cards

Business cards are very cheap nowadays, and some websites will have offers periodically where you can get a number of basic business cards for free. These can come in very handy if you want to share your contact details quickly – you may bump into an old family friend in the street who mentions that she’s been let down by her babysitter, for example, and you’ll need to be able to pass on your information easily and quickly. Business cards will also give you a more professional image, if they’re well-designed.

Offer your services at unsociable times

Helping out a family who are looking for a babysitter on New Year’s Eve, for example, can be a great way to get new, long-term clients. People are often desperate for babysitters on special nights, which would give you more chance of finding work – and the pay will be great too! Yes, it does mean sacrificing your own night out, but it may well be worth it when you gain long-term job prospects.

Word of mouth

Nothing is more effective than word of mouth for spreading news of your services. Be sure to conduct yourself in a professional manner, offer a fair rate (if you are just starting out you wouldn’t charge as much as somebody who had been babysitting for years) and tell as many people as possible that you’re babysitting now and always looking for babysitting jobs. Happy parents will be eager to let others know how responsible you are and how much their children love you.

Take a first aid course

Many night schools offer cheap first aid courses, and you may even be able to attend a basic one for free. Having a first aid qualification – especially paediatric first aid – is something that will put you above any other babysitters a family may be considering. After all, the number one priority of parents is to make sure their children are safe, and knowing that they’re leaving their precious ones in the hands of someone who can deal with an emergency is often a deal-breaker. Check out some of the ones we have suggested Training for Nannies – Nannyjob

10 reasons to hire a nanny

Thought about hiring a nanny but not convinced? Here are 10 reasons to take the plunge.

Beat the morning rush. You can leave your children to get up at their own pace and even you’re your nanny sort breakfast for them while you get ready. No more turning up to work with snot and porridge on your jacket.
Calm evenings. If you want, your nanny will do bath or dinner or both, meaning you don’t have to pick up the children from childcare, get home and do the whole evening routine.
No time off for sick children. Nannies will care for poorly babies and children that childminders and nursery won’t take.
A strong, secure attachment. It’s vital, particularly for babies, for children to form a secure attachment to a limited number of caregivers. A nanny provides consistent, loving attention.
Things done your way. Want your children to eat organic? Nap at certain times? Go to the library twice a week? You’re the boss.
They cook and clean, and tidy, and shop. Only for the children but they will prepare children’s meals, including dinner ready for you to reheat, do their laundry, clean their bedrooms, make sure you have bread, milk and nappies and generally leave the house in the state you left it that morning (if not better).
They bake. Seriously. Most nannies will happily bake with their charges meaning cake for you, we mean, cake for the school bake sale, saving you precious time the night before.
Cheaper for larger families. It might seem the pricy option but it’s about the same as two in nursery, or one in full time nursery and two in wraparound care. And no unpaid time off for you while you’re still paying childcare (see point 3).
You choose them. In a nursery you don’t get to choose who looks after your children, but with a nanny you have a great deal of choice. You can find someone who fits perfectly with your family or speaks a language you want your children to learn.
Extended hours. Arranged far enough in advance most nannies will agree to the occasional early start or late finish, which means you aren’t scrambling around to fill the gaps if you have a big business trip. Live in nannies are even more flexible and may regularly start early, babysit, or even work overnight.

Nannying for children in hospital

Most children will end up visiting the hospital at some point in their life. The lucky ones have a quick trip to A&E and go straight home but sometimes a longer stay is needed. This can be a very testing time for the family and you may need to step into the breach to provide support but it can be difficult to know what to do beyond keeping everything ticking over.

If there are other children in the family your job probably won’t change much athough you might end up working longer hours to allow your employers to spend time at the hospital. Ask whether siblings are allowed to visit and if the parents would like your charges to see each other. Bear in mind that some hospitals don’t allow children to go onto the ward so be ready to suggest other ways your charges can keep in touch, such as drawing pictures or speaking on skype.

You can support the parents by packing supplies for your charge ready to take to the hospital. Hospital food often isn’t appetising so if they are allowed to take snacks in then you can go to the shops and prepare a care package for them to take in. You can also keep up a stream of clean pyjamas and other clothes as hospitals can be hot and sticky places. If allowed, toys from home will help relieve some of the boredom of being stuck in a hospital bed, and for school aged children keep in touch with school in case they ask to do some homework! It’s a huge help for parents to be able to come home, empty a bag and repack it with everything that’s been laid out ready.

Volunteer to take a turn sitting at the bedside to give your employer’s a break and provide a change of scenery for your charge. Your employers will feel more relaxed leaving their poorly child with someone they know and trust too. Children’s development doesn’t stop when they’re in hospital so you can talk to the doctors and nurses about providing some suitable activities. Encourage them to play, talk and laugh with you as they would at home.

You also need to recognise that it’s a worrying time for you. Most nannies become deeply aatached to their charges and it’s difficult to see someone you love in distress. Look after yourself and don’t be afraid to share your feelings with your family or nanny friends.

When they come home from hospital your charge may have medication to take or specific care routines to follow. Make sure you’re clear on what these are and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Communication will be more important than ever and be sensitive to the fact that your employers might want to check in with you more often to see how everything is going.

If you’re a nanny and have some tips about working with a hospitalised charge don’t hestitate to share them on our Facebook page, Twitter or our messageboards.

Nanny references

Writing a nanny a reference can be tough. It usually means your childcarer is moving on and whether it’s your choice or theirs it’s often an emotional time. A glowing reference will help your nanny find a wonderful new job and show them how much you appreciate the job they’ve done for you.

Writing a nanny a reference can be tough. It usually means your child carer is moving on and whether it’s your choice or theirs it’s often an emotional time. A glowing reference will help your nanny find a wonderful new job and show them how much you appreciate the job they’ve done for you.

A good reference is about a page of A4 long. It often takes the form of a letter and includes your contact details so prospective employers can contact you. It should be written in the first person and split into easily readable paragraphs, each with a theme, for example your nanny’s day to day duties, their attitude to work, any particular skills they have and times they’ve gone above and beyond. You might find it helpful to refer to previous annual performance reviews when you sit down to write.

Give plenty of detail about your nanny’s current job and how that has evolved over time. If your nanny started when your child was a baby and they’re now at school you have 4+ years of very varied duties to cover! Don’t assume that a new-to-the-nannying-world prospective employer will know what ‘usual nursery duties’ or ‘daily care’ involves. Expanding on these shows what your expectations of your nanny were on a day to day basis, and of course you should comment on how well these expectations were met.

Providing specific examples will also help a prospective employer build up a complete picture of your nanny. Perhaps your nanny helped your child overcome shyness or transformed a fussy eater? By giving details of how they accomplished that you can demonstrate their approach to the children in their care as well as showcasing a positive impact they’ve had on your family.

Think about the kind of skills or attributes you really appreciate in your nanny. If your nanny is very organised or an excellent time-keeper then mention that in their reference. If the children are always laughing when you come home in the evening or they always have something they created that day to show you then share that with prospective employers. Bear in mind when writing a reference that your nanny may not always work as a nanny, or even in childcare, so highlight two or three highly transferrable skills.

A trickier task is writing a reference for a nanny who has been less than satisfactory. In this case a brief reference confirming length of employment and duties with an invitation for prospective employers to contact you will be more than sufficient.

Expect to be contacted whether you give a positive or neutral reference. Prospective employers will want to both check the veracity of your reference and ask detailed questions of their own. Be factual and honest – if they ask whether you ever needed to use a disciplinary procedure and you did then you should answer the question fully and truthfully. If that was the cause for terminating the nanny’s employment you are allowed to share that. If it was resolved satisfactorily use it as an example of how your nanny took your feedback on board and improved their performance.

Writing a reference is one of the kindest and most lasting things you can do for an excellent nanny and it will serve them all through their career, so it’s worth taking the time to do the task fully and well.

Nanny review

Although a performance review can also be helpful at any time if there are problems with your nanny carrying out their duties they should not be neglected if everything is going well. A performance review is a chance to praise your nanny and let them know what a good job they’re doing.

It’s a good idea once a year to sit down for a more formal meeting with your nanny to review their performance, your children’s development and plan the year ahead. You may like to do this on the anniversary of them starting work with you, at the start or end of the school year or the start of the calendar year. We’ve put together some questions you might like to consider or ask your nanny to think about before the meeting so you can sit down prepared.

Many nannies expect a pay rise, or at least a pay review, at their annual review. If you don’t want to discuss finances then let them know in advance that the meeting is solely about their performance and you’ll set aside another time to discuss pay.

Schedule the review for a time when there are no children around. Children can be a distraction and it’s especially important that you are able to be honest with your nanny if either of you have concerns about the children or if you have something negative to say.

We hope you find these questions helpful in facilitating communication with your nanny about their performance and your needs!

The year just gone:

Is the nanny able to do everything on their job description? Is there anything they are doing which is not in their job description? Does the job description need to be modified?

How has your nanny coped with the workload? How do they feel they have coped?

What have been your nanny’s strong points this year? What are areas for improvement?

Have there been any problems? How were they resolved?

Are the any developmental concerns about the children?

The year ahead:

Are there any foreseeable changes to duties?

Are there any activities it would be good to introduce? How can the children’s development be stimulated?

Do any strategies for behaviour management need to be recapped or reviewed?

Are there any areas where your nanny would like to refresh or update their knowledge?

What are the goals for the year ahead? (These may be for the children, the nanny or you e.g. potty training, ensuring all laundry is up to date on a Friday night, ensuring the kitchen is tidy on a Monday morning)

Is your nanny’s salary competitive and a fair reflection of the job’s demands?

Premature babies and childcare

A baby born before the 37th week of pregnancy is considered premature. Premature babies born at 35 or 36 weeks may be perfectly healthy but slightly smaller than expect but before that they may have not had time to fully develop in the womb and need to continue developing outside. The lungs are the last organ to develop, which is why mothers at risk of preterm labour are often given steroid injections, so a premature baby may need help breathing in the first weeks and their lungs remain fragile for some time.

A premature baby who had breathing difficulties may be at increased risk of catching certain infections, such as RSV which is common in children under 5. Your doctor is the best person to advise you on the risks to your child but there is a higher chance of catching an illness in a group setting, so a care provider who comes to your home such as a nanny or who cares for a small group of children such as a childminder might be safer in the first years of life. It’s important that care providers are made aware of prematurity as they should take corrected age, rather than actual age, into account when assessing development and may need to be especially careful about hygiene. Some childminders, for example, will accept children with minor illnesses but you may be uncomfortable with that if you child is prone to infections so you will need to come to an agreement.

A good childcare provider will use their knowledge of healthy, term infant and child development to monitor progress bearing the adjusted age in mind. Most childcare courses cover child development in detail and, as premature babies may show some developmental delay, it’s important to bear the need to identify key milestones in mind when choosing a childcare provider, particularly a nanny where no minimum qualification is needed. One thing that can be difficult as a parent of a premature child is the temptation to make comparisons with other children. This is particularly obvious in a nursery setting where many children of the same age are grouped together but it’s important to remember that each child develops individually right from conception and a corrected age rather than actual age is more important up to the age of two.

It can be very difficult to take the decision to leave a child who was premature in childcare. Parents who are used to taking extra care with their baby may find it harder than usual to leave them with someone else, even when it is a professional child carer. You may need a longer settling in or handover period to adjust both baby and parent to the new circumstances.

Although prematurity can have lasting effects many babies are perfectly healthy and show only a slight delay so although it’s important to bear the circumstances surrounding their birth in mind, particularly when assessing development, most need no more care than a baby of their corrected age when entering childcare

Midwives – The Lowdown

Midwives – The Lowdown, NHS or Independent what are the pro’s and con’s?

Midwives are trained pregnancy and childbirth care professionals, available in the UK through the NHS or independently.

In the UK, midwifery-led care has become the norm, and midwives are generally responsible for the care of all low-risk patients – and some of them care for high-risk patients, too. This has freed up a lot of time for obstetric consultants, who are now reserved for specialist pregnancy and labour care.

But how do you know what kind of midwife to choose? With independent midwifery clinics springing up across the UK, it can be a difficult choice to make. In this article, we will attempt to make this choice a little easier for you.

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Nanny Skills: What Do You Need

As a nanny, you are responsible for the safety and well-being of the children in your care. As a result, it is important that your skills and training are up to scratch. You are likely to be responsible for the children in your care for many hours each week, making it even more important that your skill level is up to scratch.

There is no minimum level of education required to become a nanny – and, in fact, the best nannies are often those with years of experience but no formal childcare qualifications whatsoever.

However, it is a competitive world for childcare providers. The family that hire you want to know that you can do your job, and do it well. More importantly than anything else, they need to know their children are safe with you.

As the 2022 approaches, why not look into gaining some new skills as a nanny, or developing the ones you already have? Here are some ideas to consider.

Paediatric First Aid
This is arguably a qualification that every nanny should have under her belt. You may think you know the basics – and indeed, any first aid is better than no first aid at all – but techniques vary greatly between age groups. Recommended techniques can change over time, so if it’s been a while since you attended a paediatric first aid course, now’s the time to do it. A basic course will equip you with the knowledge you need to help a choking child, deal with burns and bleeding, and how to administer
CPR. A more advanced course will likely cost more, but the knowledge you gain will be invaluable – and it will really help parents relax, knowing that their child’s caregiver is fully versed in all things safety.

A Driving Licence
If you can’t drive, now is the time to learn. A nanny with a driving licence will almost certainly be picked over a nanny on foot. As a nanny, you will often be responsible for school runs and ferrying children around to various extra curricular activities also. In big cities, public transport is usually very good so a nanny could theoretically get by without a car – but most parents would far prefer it if their nanny
has their own set of wheels (or is at least able to drive the family car).

Child Psychology
Many people (usually those without children) believe that looking after children is easy. This is not the case, as you probably already know. Children are complex creatures, just like adults, and by undertaking a foundation level course in child psychology you will have a far better understanding of the children in your care.
Understanding the motivations between children’s behaviours – especially the undesirable ones – is the key to being an empathetic and effective carer and educator.

Academic Skills
Depending on the ages of the children in your care, you will likely be called on to help with homework at some stage. If you feel your own skills could do with brushing up, don’t hesitate to do so! Look into adult learning evening courses at your local community centre to get your mathematics and literary skills up to scratch.

We are able to offer you some great courses with a training company at a discounted rate for our Nannies, follow this link for the ones they are offering to Nannyjob

Training for Nannies – Nannyjob

Explaining Terrorism to Children

As parents and caregivers, it can be extremely difficult to answer questions from children about terrorism. It’s a heart-breaking subject that you might wish you could push away or not discuss, but it’s quickly becoming a necessity due to the world that we live in.

The act of terrorism and the horror it brings is hard for even most adults to come to terms with and understand, which is why, following the terrible events occurring all over the world, we’ve put together some advice to help explain terrorism to your children.

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