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Preparing for interview

A lot rides on a nanny job interview so it’s worth taking the time to prepare it well. Here are ten tips to help you ace that all-important meeting before you even step in the door.

 

1. Plan your route – as soon as you have a place and a time work out how long it will take you to get there and the most reliable route. You don’t want to get lost on the big day so if it’s an area you don’t know it might be worth doing a dry run.

2. Prep your portfolio – make sure you have all the certificates and references you need in one place, as well as any example routines or activities you want to show the parents. Most parents will also ask to see proof of identity and address so have those handy too.

3. Scout out the area – if you don’t know the area then have a look on the internet for local activities and amenities. This will also give you a feel for whether you want to work there or not.

4. List your questions for them – our twenty questions to ask at interview are a good start but if there’s anything particular about the position you want to know be sure to write it down so you remember to ask.

5. Refresh your knowledge – it’s always a good idea to read up on the next developmental stages for your future charges before interview, especially if you haven’t worked with that age group for a while. If it’s an interview with a baby familiarise yourself with the latest weaning guidelines and for a toddler remind yourself about different behaviour management strategies and potty training.

6. Pick your outfit – what to wear for a nanny interview could be a whole separate blog post but your keywords should be comfortable yet smart. You want to create a good impression but still be able to get down on the floor and play if you meet the children.

7. Leave early -it’s better to arrive 20 minutes early and wait in the car or have a coffee than be in a big rush or, worse, late.

8. Go over the details – it creates a good impression if you have the information you’ve been given at your fingertips so you’re able to greet your future boss by names as they open the door and are prepared

9. Scrub up – just before you ring the bell check yourself in the mirror and get rid of any smudges, stains or stray hairs. Its worth keeping a pack of baby wipes in your bag to deal with any last minute emergencies.

10. Shake hands and smile – when the door is opened be smiling and friendly, shake hands confidently and step inside!

Expanding social circles

A common worry about nanny care is that children will end up socially isolated and stuck in the house with their nanny all day but one to one care doesn’t mean that your nanny and child will spend all day every in just each other’s company. A good nanny will work with you to develop and expand your child’s horizons.

 

Babies benefit from being in their own surroundings with a stable, consistent adult carer much more than they benefit from seeing other babies at nursery. Although they might find other babies intriguing for a short time, children don’t actually play together until they are about 2 years old. This doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s healthy for them to go without other social contact all day, no more than it’s healthy for a nanny, but you don’t need to send your child to nursery for them to see other children. Search out local toddler groups, classes and story times and trust your nanny to make judgements about the people she meets.

 

The friendships that develop between children who see each other with their nannies can be a lot more flexible than the friendships developed at nursery. They can have the experience of inviting their friends to their house, which involves sharing their toys and their space, as well as seeing where their friends live. They get the fun of spontaneous play dates and learn to be a good host as well as a good guest.

 

A benefit of encouraging your nanny to create a local circle of nanny friends is that if she is ever sick, or you have trouble covering her holiday, you can reach out to those contacts who will know your child and your nanny’s style of care, which is hopefully the same as yours, and create a short term nanny share, with the understanding that you are happy for your nanny to reciprocate and host another child at your house if their nanny is ever ill.

Sports day

Thank you, Louise for sending this to us. We’re delighted to share it.

It was my charge’s schools Sports Day today. I think times have changed and not necessarily for the better, and maybe you’ll agree, maybe you won’t but I’d like to share why I’m disappointed.

When I was younger our Sports Day was about friendly competition, about doing our best in races to go really fast and beat our friends. There were three races – the running race, the sack race and the egg and spoon race – for each and every year, with a long race and a short race for the older years, and no-one ever won all of them although we all tried. The best anyone managed was two and that was something to be marvelled at. Whoever was the winner won fair and square, no cheating allowed, and there were points for second and third place. We all tried our best to get points for our house. When you were in year 5 and 6 you got to go to the big athletics ground where we had Sports Day and try long jump, high jump, hurdles and very blunt javelin every fortnight in the summer term and there was a competition that everyone watched on the day itself.

Today there wasn’t a house system so there was no incentive to cheer on other classes. In fact I don’t think they were watching most of the time because each class was busy with their own event. It’s a shame that Sports Day is no longer a time for the whole school community to come together. Everyone got a prize for something, so the value of winning was lost, and the losers didn’t learn to lose gracefully or vow to do better next year because they got a medal for trying. I have nothing against trying but I worry about what children are learning when they get a medal for it!

There were so many events, some traditional and some not, and no consistency across the years, and that made me really think. We liked our simple races. The running races rewarded people who could run, but they often tried to go too fast in the egg and spoon. The sack race was down to luck on the day and not getting tangled in your sack and falling flat on your face. We were all desperate for it to be our turn to be in year 5 to do the Big Events and when we there we felt so special that it didn’t matter who won.

One thing I’m not sorry that they don’t have any more is the Parents Race. I think my charge would have made me run in it, and I like to think I would have lost with grace and shown her how to do that, but it was just too hot.

Employed or self-employed?

This is a question which comes up a lot and there isn’t really a short answer. Employment status depends on each individual job. Being self-employed for one activity doesn’t mean that a nanny is self-employed for all jobs. Some nannies may find that they are employed part of the week by a family that they work for regularly and self-employed part of the week working with lots of different families. We’re going to look at some of the indicators of employment status that HMRC use to assess status and the pros and cons of being self-employed for nannies and parents.

  • Do they have to do the work themselves?
  • Can someone tell them at any time what to do, where to carry out the work or when and how to do it?
  • Can they work a set amount of hours?
  • Can someone move them from task to task?
  • Are they paid by the hour, week, or month?
  • Can they get overtime pay or bonus payment?

Nannies are usually:

–  required to look after the children personally

– required to follow the reasonable instructions of their employer, in a place determined by their employer and at a time chosen by their employer

–  contracted for a set amount of hours per day or per week

– able to have their job description changed by their employer

– paid hourly, weekly or monthly

–  paid extra for overtime and may receive a bonus

 

 

  • Can they hire someone to do the work or engage helpers at their own expense?
  • Do they risk their own money?
  • Do they provide the main items of equipment they need to do their job, not just the small tools that many employees provide for themselves?
  • Do they agree to do a job for a fixed price regardless of how long the job may take?
  • Can they decide what work to do, how and when to do the work and where to provide the services?
  • Do they regularly work for a number of different people?
  • Do they have to correct unsatisfactory work in their own time and at their own expense?

Nannies are not usually:

–  able to hire an assistant, unlike childminders

– required to risk their own money

– expected to provide the major pieces of equipment, such as a pushchair

– paid fixed price regardless of length, they are paid hourly, weekly or monthly and have fixed working hours

– able to decide the manner, timing and location of the work, the parents usually decide the hours required

– required to correct unsatisfactory work or finish tasks on their own time, they are typically paid overtime

The only criteria for self-employment a nanny may meet is working reguarly for a number of people.

 

So it’s clear that the majority of nannies working regularly with a family in a permanent position are employed. Even if a nanny works for 5 different families, each on a fixed day each week they are still likely to be employed by each of those families as employment is determined on a job by job basis.

 

Temporary nannies and specialists such as maternity nurses or behaviour consultants may meet certain additional critera. They may have risked their own money to undertake necessary specialsit training without a guarantee that they will be successful in finding work. They may decide the hours and days that they are available. They may agree to work for a fixed fee for an unspecified length of time.

 

Although self-employment can seem an attractive prospect it’s important to fully understand the implications for nannies and parents.

 

Pros for nannies:

You are in control of the times and days you work, so you can dictate when you will take time off and arrange to care for other children at the same time.

Some of your business expenses such as training and insurance can be offset against tax.

 

Cons for nannies:

You do not get sick, maternity or holiday pay.

You are not paid mileage.

You need to carry out a self-assessment each year for tax purposes, which means keeping accurate records.

You need to invoice parents for the work carried out.

You do not have a secure income.

 

Pros for parents:

You pay-as-you-go and are not liable for holiday, sick or maternity pay.

You don’t pay mileage – a self-employed person charges an all-inclusive rate which covers their expenses.

 

Cons for parents:

The overall cost is likely to exceed the gross wage agreed with an employee, as self-employed nannies need to put money on the side to pay their tax and national insurance and to cover periods without work.

If HMRC decide you should have been employing your nanny you will need to backpay the tax and National Insurance plus a fine which can be equal to that amount.

Your nanny can decide they are not available to work, leaving you without childcare.

Your nanny can make arrangements to substitute someone else in her place.

Your nanny is not obliged to provide exclusive care for your children as long as she does not exceed two families at any one time.

You don’t have the same level of control over your children’s day.

 

 

Treasure hunts

The weather is starting to look quite fine so it’s time to get outdoors! Treasure hunts are a brilliant activity for all ages. that can easily be adapted to the interests and abilities of each child. You can theme your hunt around nature or a colour, or include an element of imaginative play such as pirates searching for treasure, survivors stranded on an island who need to recover all the missing pieces of their vessel before they can leave or rescuers on the trail of a kidnapped teddy. Treasure hunts are also a very low cost activity – you just need paper and some ‘treasure’!

 

For tinies

Even toddlers can participate in a treasure hunt by following picture clues. They’ll obviously need careful supervision but you’ll be amazed how soon they get the hang of it. If you’re doing this alongside older children it’s probably best to have a 1 easy:3 harder clues ratio to prevent older children from racing through their clues too quickly.

For early readers

As soon as they can recognise letters you can start to incoporate them into clues. If the clue is ‘b’ then the next clue might be found near an object that begins with ‘b’. You can quickly progress onto simple words and it will give their confidence a boost too.

For confident readers

Confident readers can have more complicated words or whole phrases as clues, including simple rhymes and easy puzzles.

For older kids

Older children who may find words or phrases simplistic can be engaged by using word puzzles and riddles. Try creating anagrams of the next clue’s location, mirror writing or a secret code that they have to break.

You need a few moments in private to place your clues, so get your bosses in on the secret so you can hide them in the garden before work, or team up with another nanny and go to a park or some woodland – one nanny can look after the children while the other runs around to plant clues. Just make sure you have your employers’ permission before leaving your charges with someone else.

Treasure hunts can be a great competition with a race to find the clue or a way to encourage teamwork and get older ones to help by reading the clue but encouraging younger ones to answer the riddle. They encourage all-important problem solving skills and independence so don’t leap to give them the answer when they’re struggling and let them go off after clues by themselves.

Ready…..set…..seek!

The six step guide to OFSTED registration for nannies

So the family you’re working for want you to become OFSTED registered? Simple, you think. What do I need and where do I sign up? And then you hit a blank.

Below are 6 steps to OFSTED registration for nannies, au pairs and mother’s helps, which OFSTED groups together and calls ‘home childcarers’.

Continue reading “The six step guide to OFSTED registration for nannies”

Calculating holiday entitlement

Standard holiday entitlement in the UK is 5.6 weeks, which include all Bank Holiday, pro rata for part time workers. But what does this mean? When does it start? What if you work part time or varying days or reduced hours for part of the year or term time only?

 

If you work full time you will get 4 weeks holiday and the 8 ordinary Bank Holidays (New Year’s Day or the following Monday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, the early May Bank Holiday, the Spring Bank Holiday, the August Bank Holiday, Christmas Day or the following Monday and Boxing Day or the following Monday or Tuesday). This give you a total of 28 days holiday.

To calculate your holiday entitlement for part time work, where you work the same days and hours each week you simply divide those 28 days by 5 to get a figure for 1 day per week and multiply by the number of days you work – so for 3 days it would be (28 days / 5 x 3 days)

1 day = 5.6 days or 1.12 weeks

2 days = 11.2 days or 2.24 weeks

3 days = 16.8 or 3.36 weeks

4 days = 22.4 or 4.48 weeks

Holdiay can be rounded up, but not down.

 

If you work term time only then you can use a similar calculation substituting weeks for days. In this example we’ll assume that there are 39 school weeks, so you get 4.2 weeks holiday (5.6 weeks / 52 x 39 weeks). If you have to take your holiday outside of term time then you may have an arrangement that you are paid in lieu of holiday. Alternatively you may be employed for 44 weeks of the year to allow for the holiday to be taken during your period of employment.

 

If you work different hours on different days but still work a fixed number of days per week you may find it more useful to calculate your holiday in terms of hours. For example Monday and Tuesday are 10 hour days but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are 5 hour days. Taking 5 Mondays off would give double the amount of time not worked but still use the same amount of holiday. To calculate holiday in hours just add up the number of hours over a week, in this case 35, and multiply that by the number of weeks holiday entitlement, in this case 5.6, giving 196 hours (35 x 5.6).

 

The same principle applies if you work part-time in term time and full time in school holidays. In this case you need to calculate the number of hours worked over a year, for example 4 hours per day, 5 days per week for 39 weeks per year ( 4 x 5 x 39,) which is 780 hours, and 10 hours per day, 5 days per week for 13 weeks per year (10 x 5 x 13), which is 650 hours, giving a total of 1430 hours per year. This is then divided ny 52 to get the average weekly hours (1430 / 52) which is 27.5 hours and mulitplied by the weekly allowance for a full week, 5.6, to give 154 hours holiday a year. That means 15.4 days if taken in school holidays or 38.5 days if taken in term time – quite a difference!

 

If  you work varying hours and can’ establish a weekly average then it may be best to calculate holiday using the accrual method, so for every hour you work you earn 12.07% of an hour as holiday.

 

Holiday is distributed according to a leave year. This is usually specified in the contract, and many run from 1st January to 31st December, with a pro rata allowance for the first and final years. That means if you leave a job after working 10 weeks you will get 1.1 weeks holiday (5.6 weeks / 52 x 10 weeks).

 

We hope this helps you to make sense of your holiday entitlement, and remember you can always post on our messageboards to  get advice from other nannies specific to you.

 

 

Tummy time

‘Tummy time’ can be a daunting prospect. It’s drummed into parents and childcare professionals alike that babies must sleep on their backs and that leaving an infant on their front is risky. But eqaully tummy time is vital to help babies develop strong neck and back muscles from the start and to prevent flat spots which can develop when too much time is spent lying on their back.

The concept of tummy time is simple. You pop baby on their front on a playmat or blanket covering a hard surface and allow them to try to lift their head at first, eventually pushing up with their arms and finally onto all fours so they can crawl. In practice many infants dislike tummy time at first and older babies can get frustrated. Tummy time doesn’t need to last for ours, or even minutes, to be effective right at the start. Even 15 seconds once a day gives a newborn the chance to move their head from side to side, and you can build up gradually. It’s often reassuring to keep a hand on their back so even when they can’t see you they still have that comforting contact. If a baby starts to cry or show signs of frustration or distress then it’s a sign that tummy time is over.

 

As they grow and become aware of their surroundings you can play games while they lie on their tummies. Try shifting position relative to their head and saying their name – they should look around to locate you. Another big hit once they can push themselves up a little is a child-safe mirror propped up in front of them. They will be fascinated by the other baby that they see there. Lie on the floor in front of them and make faces – anything that keeps them amused also gives them time to strengthen those important muscles.

 

Mix things up by altering the place you put baby down. Change the angle of elevation if you have a firm pillow or nursing cushion – put it under their torso with their arms in front. This can be really good for babies suffering from reflux as it keeps them slightly upright. You can also do very short bursts, for example after blowing a raspberry on their tummy when changing their nappy quickly roll them over to blow a few on their back too.

 

To encourage a baby to reach out and eventually crawl put a favourite toy just in front of them and allow them to grab it and pull it closer. as they grow place the toy further away as an incentive to get on the move. Crawling can also be easier if you remove unnecessary or constricting clothes before tummy time, just make sure the room is nice and warm.

 

Tummy time can be done anwhere – inside, upstairs, downstairs, outside on grass or sand – as often and for as long as you like. The most important thing to make it fun and give your baby a chance to develop.

 

 

 

 

5 ways with pom-poms

 

Pom-poms are a great tool for promoting all kinds of development. Here are 5 activities you can do with a muffin tray, a small jar or cup, a pair of tweezers or tongs and a load of pom-poms.

 

Pick them up and drop them. This simple activity for younger children promotes the pincer grip, which is vital for holding a pencil later on. Picking up and dropping the pom-poms promotes hand eye coordination and provides a sensory experience too.

Sort the pom-poms acording to colour. Not only is this promoting fine motor development and hand-eye coordination but it’s also working on matching and colour recognition.

 

Extend the activity by using tweezers. If you put the pom-poms into a narrow necked jar they won’t be able to get their hand in their to pick the pom-poms up so they’ll need to use tongs or tweezers. The pinching motions strengthens the muscles in the hand and the added challenge will develop problem solving abilities.

 

Count. It sounds simple but you have a lot of pom-poms so you can at least count to twenty with all of them, count how many of different colours, work on concepts such as more and fewer, and add up by transferring pom-poms from one part of the tray to another. It’s ideal for explaining tens and units if you have different sized pom-poms. The smaller ones are units and when you put the tenth smaller one in you can exchange 10 small pom-poms for a bigger one. Top tip from a primary maths specialist – always start to count from zero. The quantity ‘one’ doesn’t make sense unless there is nothing there in the first place so make it obvious and associate zero with nothing from the start.

 

Blow them. Pom-poms are light and they roll so get down and blow them in a straight line or round a course you’ve drawn out on paper. As well as encouraging children to fill their lungs this also develops the muscles of the face and jaw which is great for speech development.

Real Nappy Week

This week is Real Nappy Week, celebrating the use of cloth nappies and the savings in terms of cash and the environment they can bring. Go Real estimate that parents can save between £150 and £1000 when using real nappies and if every child in England and Wales was in cloth there would be 355,000 tonnes of waste saved (and the £32 million cost of disposing of all the disposables). But cloth is still a pretty unpopular choice – we had to search pretty hard to find nannies who used it –  and there are two big misconceptions.

It’s unhygienic

Nappies need changing whether you use disposables or cloth and they both usually go into a sealed contained in the bathroom. Cloth nappies are usually washed at 60C to kill any germs lurking in the nappy and come out squeaky clean. Out and about you just need to take a washable, sealable wetbag and instead of binning the nappy you take it home.

“I was a bit worried when my new employers mentioned at interview that they used cloth nappies mostly because I was a live in and would be using the same washing machine to wash my clothes as the nappies. But then I thought about it and baby clothes are covered in poo and wee and sick half the time and they go in the machine. The nappies come out clean so it must work.” Sophie

It’s complicated

The only complicated thing is choosing which of the many systems out there to use. You can get all in ones which are just like a disposable nappy only with poppers or velcro. The whole thing comes off and into the bucket. Then there are pocket nappies with an outer nappy part and an insert that goes in the pocket and again you just take one and put it on like a disposable. Two part systems have a shaped nappy, a terry nappy or a square of material that is
prefolded into a rectangle and put in the wrap. These all need an extra waterproof wrap over the top but once you’ve done it a few times you soon get the hang of it. Nappy pins are out too – nifty little T-shaped bits of plastic grip the fabric and hold it together or there are integrated poppers or velcro.

“When I started nannying in the late 1970s it was terry nappies and plastic pants. Cloth nappies now are much more fun and really easy to use.” Julie

Remember you can always compromise!

“I don’t mind changing them but the parents do the washing. That’s the deal. The pocket nappies we have are just like disposables so ir’s minimal effort for me and they actually smell less.” Kate