Almost six years ago I had my daughter Rebekah and I decided to give up my career as a bookkeeper and settle down to a new life as a stay-at-home mum.
I also have two grown-up sons who have long since fled the nest.
When my daughter started school I followed her into the nursery as a classroom assistant. After a year I had my appraisal with the school director, who encouraged me to get a qualification in early years teaching.
Fortunately one of my colleagues had just completed her own NVQ 3 and encouraged me to study for this award. I was very lucky in having her to offer support where needed.
So I went off to Croydon College to enrol. Initially I sat a literacy and numeracy test, just to gauge whether I should do a level 2 or 3 NVQ.
Because I worked in the Croydon borough I applied for a study grant and Folly's End School, where I worked, agreed to pay the balance.
In January I attended an induction workshop and was warmly welcomed to the college by our tutors and assessors. We were shown the paperwork involved and told how to start collecting evidence for our award. It was also explained how the NVQs had been revised.
In the first unit we were asked to compile a professional development journal, which involves recording personal reflections of learning and practices. I felt this was a good way of looking at how I felt about what I was doing.
Currently I am working on completing the first unit and enjoying learning all about health and safety in the workplace. This unit looks at how to maintain a healthy, safe and secure environment and how to supervise procedures for accidents, injuries and emergencies. The study has helped me become much clearer on the points and the responsibilities relating to the policies.
The next unit we have just started is all about promoting children's development. So far we have discussed a child's development from 0 to 16 years, and our homework is to compile a child development chart for this age range. Thankfully there are very good child development books that provide this information for physical, intellectual, language, emotional, social and health aspects.
We do not meet again until 21 February. This should give us enough time to complete the chart.
My goal in studying for this NVQ is to be able to run my own classroom and to nurture young children, giving the best possible fun and educational start in school life.
