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Hi all

Not sure if any of you have been following my situation at the pre-school .......anyway on temporary contract (although havent got one at the mo!) to do Wed/Thurs. Committeee looked at number of children for next term and 3 or 4 of them "turn" ...to the magical 3 years that is :( So, they then decided that given they are paying for an agency deputy and sometimes agency staff (covering sickness and training) that they have to reduce the staff...hence me :o .

 

Well Supervisor having waited since July time for new deputy (3rd attempt at interviewing in 2 weeks time xD:( :( ) has told committee enough! She doesnt want to lose me as member of staff. Other assistant who works 5 days has offered to drop 2 of her days to keep me! That way we 2 assistants can cover our own illness and our courses between us. If numbers go up and they need more staff then we can do that. Both of us can do NVQ (she has started her Im trying to see if i can get on one now!). Supervisor said if committee didnt like it then we were going to do a walk out! The chair fortunately said ok.

 

Now all we need is a blooming good deputy!

Edited by marley
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that's good new's..... childcare needs more people like you.

 

Can I just add from reading your posts you seem quiet 'savvy' if you get my drift - With that in mind I'd like to offer a little advice, which may or maynot be relevent in you LA area - but we feel we have been 'stictched up' with our NVQers,

We had two well experienced but unqual staff so on advice from LA they both started training - both being told best to start at level 2 even though both very experienced, both completed easily and want to progress to L3 and guess what -they've been told the criteria has now changed andl as they have a L2 we'll have to pay for the L3!!!!! Both could have done L3 straight away (with support from group) One lady in particular is so good and I feel totally gutted for her - I want to move on, and I was hoping she would be able to step up the ladder, the L3 is not cheap, the setting cannot really afford to pay it and the lady herself cannot afford it.

 

So what I'm saying in a long winded way is - if you can go straight to L3 fully funded fight for it- your posts here certainly indicate you have sound knowledge and common sense and as an assessor myself you start to recognise these qualities others.

xxx

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Re the issue of paying for level 3 quals. If I may add my two penn'oth?

 

I wear two hats, as half of my business is childcare and half is adult education. The rules for the way adult ed is funded changed this year so anyone advising starting level 2 last year would not have known that changes would be made this year - I certainly didn't.

 

Anyway the basics of the rules are these:

 

1.Anyone doing a first level 2 automatically gets it for free.

2. Anyone doing a first level 3 who does not have a level 2 automatically gets it for free.

3. 18-24 year olds automatically get free training

4. Anyone doing a subsequent level 2 (e.g you may have level 2 in health and beauty but are retraining for CCLD etc) can get it for free but training providers have got a limit as to the % of free places they can offer in this category. They WILL be penalised if they go over their limit.

 

5. This is perhaps the most relevent bit to this disucussion. Level 3 quals for those who have a level 2 is 'co-funded'. This means that the learning and skills council (LSC) will fund just over 50% of the cost and the employer is expected to contribute the rest. The employee cannot be asked to pay the training provider.

 

However, we have found a problem here in that most childcare employers cannot afford the contribution or sometimes the student is a volunteer and not an employee and so in this case the setting won't pay for the training of a volunteer (this could be around £400 - £500 for level 3).

 

But all is not lost - there are ways around this as I have found. Firstly try your local authority as they have funding to support training and may well cover the co-funded element if you are in a PVI childcare setting (not maintained and not classroom asst courses). Also many large training providers are actually prepared to take the loss and put the course on for the price that the LSC is paying them.

 

The daft thing is that as a small training provider I have not been able to afford to put on level 3 courses this year and am limited to putting on level 2 only. However, as an employer I have then had to source free level 3 training for some of my staff because I can't put them through my own training setting for the price that LSC are offering.

 

Free training is out there - just call a few private training providers as they are more likely to offer it for free than large FE colleges who rely on people not realising they have a choice.

 

Good luck and let me know if any of this has not made sense :o

 

RR

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Great news Marley :o (shame it had to go to such a threat though :( ).

 

Good luck with finding a deputy and good luck with your training, good advice re: level 3.

 

Thank you to ReaderRabbit for your very clear information regarding funding. xD

 

Peggy

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Hi

Thanks for all the advice......my job share is doing NVQ 2 but supervisor says I could easily do NVQ 3 (have no NVQs myself just biology degree). This was what I had intended to do and I had already filled out funding form etc through the LEA to start Sept. I did however have to put it all on hold when there was talk of getting rid of me at the pre-school (was only on temp contract). Once they issue me a permanent one then will call (again!) the tutor that wa originally going to take me on. I think that maybe it i too late to start now and may need to wait until next Sept???

This is something I am going to have to find out. :o

 

Thanks again

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Lots of training providers in my area offer "step on, step off" training which means they start you when you are ready and you finish when you have completed (within 2 years for level 3). This is outside of the actual colleges. I don't know lots about the funding side of things as we haven't had anyone training for over a year at our setting, but if you have a degree already you may find that there is no funding (outside the setting) for the level 3 as you will be classed to already have a level 2 in the qualifications you needed to get onto the degree. This was the case for me when I did my Level 3 after my degree but it might be different now.

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