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Category: babysitters
How to Help Your Child Deal with Nightmares
Nightmares are common in both children and adults, but they affect children very differently.
Adults can understand upon waking that the nightmare wasn’t real, but this isn’t so easy for young children, as the fear they feel during a nightmare can overwhelm rational thought when they wake.
That’s why we’ve put together some advice to help you support your child whenever a nightmare occurs.
Continue reading “How to Help Your Child Deal with Nightmares”
Can a robot change a nappy?
The news that Google is developing an AI (Artificial Intelligence) nanny has been making the rounds and whilst it’s not a shocking announcement, it is a disturbing one.
In the past few years, we’ve seen a multitude of announcements about robots and other artificial intelligence that claim to be able to raise our children.
New Look Nanny Job Website!
By now, you’ve probably noticed that the Nanny Job website has a whole new look!
We hope you like the new design and find the site easier to navigate than before.
To get started on our homepage, just choose from one of the 3 options; Childcarer, Parent or Agency.
Then use our free and simple search tool to filter the search results to meet your requirements and find your perfect match!
You can also find a range of other useful information, including the Nanny Job blog which will also be updated soon, by clicking Info in the navigation menu.
If you have any feedback, let us know!
Online Learning Resources for Older Children and Teenagers
At some point during your career as a nanny you’ll probably be asked by one of the children in your care for help, whether it’s with homework, a school project or a personal interest or hobby.
We’ve put together a list of online resources that you and your children might find useful and are perfect for helping children and teenagers to learn online either with help or independently.
Continue reading “Online Learning Resources for Older Children and Teenagers”
How to create a nanny CV personal profile
Many people nowadays suggest that you add a personal profile to the top of your CV and nanny jobs are no different. Summing up your interests and experience in 3 or 4 lines, while daunting, allows you to showcase your strengths to parents from the very start. But what to include?
Your qualifications
You spent time gaining your qualifications so don’t hesitate to use the word trained and mention the awarding body. NNEB, CACHE and Montessori qualifications are all highly sought after. You don’t need to go into details of your course – there will be space for you to do that later on your CV.
Your experience
The word experienced will tick another box for many parents, simple as it may sound. You might want to specify what type of experience you have – nanny, nursery, teaching, childminding – or how much experience you have. Here is a great place to sum up whether you have experience as a maternity or night nanny, with multiples or as part of a nanny shar but again finer details should feature further down your CV.
Your approach
Are you firm with the children?A believer in routines? Are you spontaneous? Focused on education? Are you tidy? Calm? Active? Energetic? You should consider what you’re really like on a day to day basis and what your natural reaction to children is. Try to find adjectives which will really resonate with parents but be honest about what you’re really like.
(Just a little aside – flexible might be interpreted as willing to stay late or willing to do extra housework so consider how flexible you really are before you say the F-word!)
Your skills
Are you an amazing cook? Great at time management? Fluent in another language? A talented artist? A dab hand with a sewing machine? A black belt in karate? Anything with a wow factor should definitely appear in your personal profile.
Your wishlist
What kind of nanny job are you seeking? Live in or live out? Full or part time? Do you want the relationship to be friendly but entirely professional? Do you want to become part of the family? Are you looking for a hectic but stimulating position with a busy family or would you prefer something more laid back? You personal profile is your only brief chance to mention your requirements on your CV!
Finally, get a friend or past employer to read it over for you. Sometimes other people can be a better judge of what we write than we can ourselves and they may have ideas that haven’t crossed your mind.
9 nifty Easter activities
Welcome to our #9nifty series. We’re starting with 9 Easter activities for kids of all ages…
1. Eggs inside eggs
How to : Put little foil wrapped chocolate eggs into a ballon and blow it up, cover with the outside of the balloon with glue then wrap string/wool/embroidery thread around it (leaving enough space to take the balloon pieces out but not so much that the eggs can escape) and glue again. Hang them up to dry and when they’re ready pop the balloon and take the pieces out carefully ! Experiment with blowing the balloon up to different sizes or different types of string.
Focus on : Fine motor skills
2. Chocolate easter nests
How to : Melt chocolate, mix with shredded wheat, shape into nests and allow to cool!
Focus on : Numeracy/science – pouring and measuring, melting and solidifying
3. Silhouette bunnies
How to : trace around the bunny, or make a stencil to paint over and make a fluffy cotton tail to stick on!
Focus on : Understanding the world/The World and Traditions in other countries. Talk about the Easter bunny who bring the eggs. Some other countries have the same tradition although in Sweden, Austria and Germany it’s a hare and in France it’s the bells who bring the chocolate ! What’s the tradition in their family ?
4. Easter egg scavenger hunt
How to : Hide your Easter eggs around the house or the garden and write clues. Read the clues together and find where the eggs have been hidden !
Focus on : Problem solving and memory skills
5. Collage Easter egg cards
How to : Fold A4 paper/card into half and then half again. With a craft knife cut out a shape of an egg from one qurter, this will be the front of your card. Make a collage onto thenow exposed quarter (you might want to mark it while it’s folded) and wait for it to dry. Refold and admire the colourful egg !
Focus on : Colour recognition and decision making.
6. Hand and footprint bunny
How to : Make handprints and footprints in pink paint and cut them out, leaving a reasonable margin. Take 2 paper plates and cover them in cotton wool. Join them together to create the head and body of the bunny. Stick on some googly eyes, black pipe cleaner or strips of felt for whiskers , a pink heart for a nose, the hand prints for ears and the foot prints for feet.
Focus on : Talking about textures. This is a sensory rich activity with sloppy, sticky paint and fluffy cotton wool.
7. Easter bonnet
How to : Buy a cheap wide brimmed hat, or improvise ! Decorate the hat by painting it or covering it with fabric, cut egg cartons open and paint them to make flowers, attach ribbons and feathers, let your imagination run wild !
Focus on : Understanding the World/ People and communities.Talk about the tradition of Easter bonnets. In the past people put flowers on a hat to celebrate spring and wore new clothes at Easter. In America there were big Easter bonnet parades. In the past, people used to wear hats to church.
8. Peekaboo chicks
How to : Cut a small egg shape out of card and then cut it in half horizontally (or if you’ve made collage cards just use your pre-cut egg shapes). Attach the two halves one side of a clothes peg, one at the top and one at the bottom. Draw a small chick and cut it out. Attach it to the other side of the clothes peg behind the egg top so when you pinch the peg together to the open it you’ll see the chick!
Focus on : Object permanence for babies and Knowledge of the World (eggs hatching)
9. Bunny whiskers mask
How to : Take some pipe cleaners and attach them to a lollipop stick (or two or three taped together for stability). Add a pompom for a nose and create some adorable bunny whiskers
Focus on : Role play – make bunny faces and hop like bunnies !
The wheels on the car go round and round
It’s a rare child who never has to go in the car, and an even rarer one who never fights going into the carseat or gets bored after 5 minutes making a journey less than pleasant for everyone involved. Today we’re going to look at some ideas which will hopefully make your life easier.
Earlier this year we came across a nifty little product on Twitter, called My Car Step, which attaches safely to the car seat. Invented by a mum fed up of battling her daughter, this award winning product allows children to climb into the carseat by themselves instead of being lifted, or manhandled, in. As we said in our post on tantrums, allowing children independence can defuse situations and, as a bonus this will save your back some strain, because you no longer need to perform contorted lifting manoeuvres. For nannies or childminders, who can lift multiple children into carseats on a daily basis for twenty years or more, good lifting technique and minimising strain is invaluable.
Once your little cherubs are safely attached it’s worth making the environment as comfortable as possible. Sunshades will reduce glare and making sure that the children are wearing the name number of layers as you will allow you to control the car’s temperature appropriately. Take their personal preferences into account regarding recline where possible – better that a child is happy but falls asleep upright than is reclined from the start and protests all the way. On long journeys you can stop briefly to adjust the recline to ensure they remain comfortable. Before setting off check that they have any toys within easy reach, and if necessary a drink of some kind.
Music can make journeys a lot more bearable for children, as singing along to their favourite nursery rhymes with sound effects and actions will keep them occupied. If it gets unbearable for you make a compilation of songs you all enjoy and listen to that instead. While you may appreciate the radio, young children may be bored by adverts and some songs won’t be age appropriate.
One perennial favourite is I-spy, a game with endless possibilities and several variations. Under-2s will join in looking for objects if you say ‘I spy with my little eye a bus/tractor/cow’. Preschoolers are able to identify objects associated with colours ‘I spy something red/green/yellow’ and once children are confidently recognising phonics or letters your can play the classic version.
Older children who don’t get car sick can play a version of I-spy bingo. Create some cars with pictures of different objects such as a bus, a set of traffic lights, a bicycle or a letterbox, and include some less common ones. When children see the object they can mark it on their card. The idea is to get a row, or if your feeling really adventurous, a full house. This also improves memory and recall as they will need to be able to tell you when and where they saw the objects.
Children who can recognise letters can help you make up funny sentences from the letters on car number plates. Y491 AMS makes You Are My Squishy or You Ate Many Satsumas. K920 LSC can become Katie Likes Scented Candles or Kicking Leaves Someone Crying.
Even young children can get involved in making up stories about other people on the road. This enhances social and emotional development, introduces children to situational humour, and exercises their imagination. This is especially good if you’re stuck in traffic and can see pedestrians walking by. You can pick someone who is walking by and ask the children where they think the person is going. Are they in a hurry? Why might that be?
Check our our ‘Travel with children‘ board on Pinterest for more ideas.
Finally, even if the traffic is frustrating, you’re late and it’s raining outside, keep your cool. Children will easily pick up on tension and frustration, and if you’re constantly enraged when on the road they’ll begin to associate going in the car with negative emotions. Ideally journeys should be fun and education, but most of all, happy!
We hope you find some of this helpful. What’s your fail safe technique for car journeys?
Nanny Natter
It’s half-term and for some people that means a whirl of playdates and trips out, for others it means the cancellation of the only adult interaction they have in their week.
It can be tough as a nanny to find people to talk to as nannies don’t have colleagues in the traditional sense. New jobs often mean losing touch with an established circle of nanny friends and any local nannies may know your own employers. Plus talking about your employer or charge to someone who knows them without revealing confidential information is virtually impossible when they know your charges and possibly your employers, and that can add up to create a lonely situation.
Nannyjob has a long history of providing nannies with a chance to talk to and meet fellow nannies and childcare professionals. Our messageboards are one of the few dedicated nanny forums on the web with sections for training and careers, resources, places to go and things to do, and meet other nannies as well as general childcare, events and chat so you can ask questions, share advice and get ideas. Check out discussions on what you need when you start a new job, structured learning for young children, and Happyland!
We also have a Facebook page where we can post questions on behalf of nannies or parents and open the question to our network of 1,400 (and counting). It’s also a great place to keep up with our blog posts on Government proposals, our parent blogger, articles on articles about essential skills for nannies or different careers in childcare and we’ll soon be launching a nanny panel on our blog who will give their personal take on different situations that nannies encounter in their work. You can follow us on Twitter too @nanny_job and join in discussions there.
When nannies or other childcarers register on the site to create a CV and use the jobseeker or babysitting advert services, they also have the opportunity to join the Nannyjob Social Club. This allows you to make nanny friends in your area either by putting a profile up and waiting for them to contact you or contacting people who have already posted their profile. It’s a great way to get started if you’re new to an area and worth checking on a regular basis to see whether anyone has recently moved to your area too.
Come and join one (or all!) of our communities today!
More Great Childcare II
In our first blog post on the changes proposed by Liz Truss we focused on the changes to ratios. This second part is about the changes which relate to qualifications. To understand this one must first understand that Professor Cathy Nutbrown undertook a review, culminating last year in the report Foundations for Quality which made a number of recommendations. More Great Childcare is, amongst other things, the Governments response to that.
Early Years Educators
Liz Truss proposes a new standard ‘Early Years Educator’ badge for qualifications. As anyone who has looked into gaining a qualification over the last decade, or looked at employing someone, there is a huge array of qualifications, some of which are simply a rebranded NNEB and some of which are barely worth the paper they’re written on. These were all slimmed down the the Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce, which was criticised by Nutbrown’s review for being, amongst other things, too broad. Clarity here would probably be welcomed by everyone.
Early years teachers
More Great Childcare proposes a new status and training course for Early Years Teachers, a postgraduate qualification that will focus on teaching in the early years and have the same entry requirements (including the skills tests) as school teachers, but crucially stops shorts of giving Early Years Teachers the same Qualified Teacher Status that their primary and secondary colleagues have. Given that there is already Early Years Professional Status, which can be taken by professionals working in registered settings, the proposed change doesn’t seem to go much further and is likely to be a source of discontent.
GCSE Maths and English
Nutbrown recommended that all entrants onto an early years qualification hold a level 2, with the reasoning that learners should be ‘confident and capable in their literacy and numeracy’. The Government has interpreted this as a grade C in Maths and English GCSE.
This has been of particular interest to many on our Facebook page. It used to be a requirement of many colleges before entry, and some people seemed unaware that this policy had changed. Others appreciated the need for English to develop children’s communication skills but questioned the need for maths. Still others placed a higher value on aptitude for working with children.
Nannies in particular, who are not obliged to hold any qualifications, are uniquely affected by this recommendation. Parents can order their own priorities when hiring a nanny, but particularly for those with school aged children GCSEs and further educational qualifications are increasingly important. A quick random poll revealed that parents felt academic qualifications combined with a natural affinity for children actually outweighed the need for formal childcare training. What would Nutbrown or Liz Truss say to that?
So how does this link back to ratios?
Professor Nutbrown herself suggested that the Government explore whether qualified teachers could work with more three and four year olds. The Government re-examined ratios in a larger sense and suggested increased ratios possibly based upon:
– Setting based criteria e.g. 70% of staff qualified to level 3; 100% of staff qualified to level 3; 100% of staff to have a C in Maths and English; at least one graduate plus 70% of staff qualified to level 3
– Practitioner based criteria e.g. only staff with a C in English and Maths to operate the higher ratio
There is some sense in the second requirement, although we don’t recall our GCSE (or O-level) certificates giving us extra eyes or arms, in that the paperwork is going to increase by 50% and strong literacy and numeracy skills will be essential to cope with that in a timely manner.
What does this mean for people already working in early years?
If you already have a qualification rest assured, that will be assessed against the criteria in place when they were awarded. If you are working, or wish to work, in a nursery and you don’t meet the literacy and numeracy requirements you may find your prospects limited. If you don’t have a qualification you may find that you need to brush up on your maths or English first.