Posts filed under ‘Nannies Duties’
Nannies typically work for one family at a time, so have only one employer. Some nannies may work for two families at the same time (a nannyshare) or two different families on different days of the week (two separate nanny jobs). A nanny therefore has one, or maybe two employers.
In many occupations there is an expectation that people do CPD – Continuing Professional Development. Ongoing training to enable them to keep up with latest developments and to renew existing skills.
Nannies are no different in this respect, as over time there can be changes to knowledge about child development, ways to help children learn, spotting when children may need extra help, changes to child protection procedures and renewing training in Paediatric First Aid.
Paediatric First Aid is probably the most common thing that nannies know needs repeated training. In the UK a First Aid certificate is valid for 3 years, at which point a refresher course needs to be done.
If a nanny in England is registered with Ofsted, then the childcare regulator requires that First Aid training is repeated every 3 years and that a valid certificate is held at all times that childcare is provided. Therefore a nanny may well repeat First Aid training every 2.5 years or so, depending on when they can attend a training course prior to expiry of their existing first aid certificate.
First Aid training in the UK can be quite costly. In my area (Surrey) a Paediatric First Aid course which includes practical exercise is 12 hours long and costs around £95+VAT. Registered Childminders have to do that long a course, nannies however can do a shorter course as long as it meets the criteria for registration – which can be found in Appendix A of Ofsted Guide to Registration.
Who should pay for this training?
In other jobs, training may be provided as part of the job. Nannying is different and some parents may well contribute towards ongoing training, whilst others will not. I feel that nannies need to consider what they need to be doing to make themselves employable. If a nanny does not update their training then when they next apply for a job, will their new employer consider them for the job? Or would a new employer consider someone who already had the training?
As a nanny I pay for all my own training, I do not expect my employer to pay that cost in addition to my salary. Maybe I am wrong to think that it is my responsibility to keep updated with latest developments, but I feel that if I were to ask my employer to pay for training costs, they may well decide to not offer any pay rise in future. I also feel it is unfair on them to have this added cost which they will not have allocated any budget. Not all employers of nannies are rich with multi-million pound homes. Many employers of nannies are just parents trying to make ends meet, working long hours and doing quite highly paid jobs but also having quite high mortgages and outgoings.
What do you think – who should pay for training?
April 13, 2012 at 10:24 am
A parent wrote on Mumsnet about her nanny leaving her child in a toy shop, whilst the nanny shopped in the store opposite. It did not appear to be a case of the child wandering off whilst on a trip out but more that the nanny did not realise that it wasn’t safe to leave a child alone in a shop.
I’m in the UK and here we have had cases of children being abducted from shopping centres. The most well known case is that of Jamie Buldger, a toddler who was abducted and then killed by two children in 1993. This case is etched into the minds of people like me, nannies in our 30′s. It is probably also quite well known by younger nannies.
In British culture carers of children do not leave children alone. What parents choose to do is up to them but nannies are responsible for the children in their care at all time. In other countries there is perhaps a different attitude towards letting children have more independence and freedom. Though would that mean a nanny from another country would leave a child in a shop alone?
In the same week on Mumsnet another parent wrote about their nanny leaving their sick child at home alone. Nannies do care for sick children so do face the situation whereby the nanny needs to collect another child from school and take a sick child with them. Should a nanny ever leave the sick child at home, in bed? Whilst the school run may only take 20 minutes, anything could happen whilst the nanny was out of the house, either at home or to the nanny.
In my view deliberately leaving a child alone, be it in a shop or at home is not the conduct expected of a nanny. Parents can choose to make such choices but nannies are employed to care for children and if there is no one who can bring a child back from school, then the sick child will need to come with the nanny on the school run.
In England, if a nanny is registered on the Childcare Register, then Ofsted imposes certain rules that need to be followed. These include:
CR1.1 Childminders and home childcarers must ensure that children receiving childcare are kept safe from harm.
CR1.6 Childminders and home childcarers must ensure that they are present on the premises at all times when childcare is being provided unless they have prior written approval from Ofsted to be absent for short periods of time while another suitable person cares for the children.
Reading that, to me Ofsted are saying that leaving children alone is not acceptable. How about you, do you feel there are ever any circumstances whereby it would be acceptable to leave a child alone at home, or in a shop?
November 27, 2011 at 9:14 pm
What is your worst fear when driving a car? Mine is that I am involved in a road traffic collision with children I care for in the car at the time.
It could have been worse
My worst fear became reality this week, when a minibus went into the back of my car whilst I was taking the children back home from the playground.
Fortunately we were stationary waiting to turn onto a busy A road and didn’t get pushed too far into that A road. Fortunately no one was injured either in my car, or in the minibus. Fortunately my car was drivable just about so I was able to get the children home and eventually get myself home as well.
I won’t bore you with all the details but lets just say it’s at times like this when you realise that car insurance is useless, as the policy you have covers if you hit someone else. When someone hits you, you are relying on their policy, so it can take some time to get things moving… such as 25 hours for a hire car, several days before my car gets taken to a garage. Anyway I said I wouldn’t bore you with the details.
When something like this happens everything seems to go into auto pilot. My primary concern was for the children, then I had to check the other driver and then try to exchange details. I forgot to do some things, like asking around to see if any other drivers had seen what had happened – well it wasn’t as though I could go far from my car as I had three young children on board and it was distressing enough for them for me to just get out of the car and talk with the other driver.
This is the first time I’ve been involved in a car accident with children I nanny in the car with me. I am very thankful that no one was injured. It could have been so much worse. These things happen, you can’t predict what other drivers will do. You just have to rely on the fact that most of the time other drivers will be taking care and won’t smash into your car.
When parents decide that they want to have a nanny and they decide that the nanny can drive their children around in a car, it must be hard to make that decision. In the society we live in today, the car is an integral part of many peoples lives. I certainly can’t get to work without a car, there is no public transport I can use. We can’t currently walk to school from where the family live. If we didn’t use a car our trips out would be extremely limited.
For families who live in a city there may be more options with regard to travel. In rural areas the options become much more limited so the car becomes much more vital.
I hope the accident has not had too much of a permanent affect on the children. They seem ok about it but how much they understood is hard to know. I also hope it won’t mean an end to out ability to go on outings, some of which can be quite long distance. This accident took place about 6 miles from home, so quite near for us given the journey distances we can do.
Having your children involved in an RTA/RTC must be one of a parents worst nightmares. I suppose you just hope/pray that it won’t happen, or if it does happen that they won’t be injured. On this occasion, no injuries. I hope there is not ever a repeat occasion.
Have you ever been in a car accident with children you nanny on board at the time?
If your nanny had a car accident with your children on board, how would you react?
Update: 26-Oct-2011
Morton Michel (the insurance broker) passed on a complaint e-mail I sent them with regard to how long it took to get a hire car to the customer service manager of the accident management firm. They just called me to apologise for the delay I experienced, it shouldn’t have happened and seems as though it was due to a e-mail server type issue. Supposedly it should only take an hour or so for the hire firm to get in touch but for some reason they didn’t get the message to get in touch as promptly as they should have done. Technology – great when it works, causes trouble when it does not.
October 21, 2011 at 8:37 pm
In my job as a nanny having a car is vital. I live around 8 miles from where I work and there are no buses that go from my village to the village in which I work. I have no other way to get to work other than to go by car.
A taxi is an option and I have had to do that once in the past, it cost a lot, more than you might imagine as whilst you and I may consider 7am to be daytime, a taxi company still considers that to be Night Rate so it costs a lot more than a taxi at say 9am. Nannies don’t often start work at 9am, I tend to start work around 7am.
If you follow me on twitter you will have heard about my car drama this evening. Today was my regular day off from work so I had scheduled that my car went to the garage for it’s routine service – 36,000 mile service in this particular case, which is a big service. So I was without my car for around 7 hours today, not a problem as I live about 2 miles from the garage so happily walked home after dropping off the car and walked back again to pick it up.
No major problems were encountered on the service, it even cost a little less than the estimate. All well you may think. Yes, so did I. Drove home and it seemed fine. Went out this evening and as I was just approaching the next village a red warning light flashed.
Red lights I know are not a good sign. It was flashing though not solid on, so I know from experience that it’s a problem but not a Stop Immediately and don’t you dare move it situation. I decided to turn around and limp it home and then called the garage, who remarkably for around 6.30pm answered the phone. Alas it wasn’t a mechanic that answered but it was the owner of the garage.
Cut a long story short, it is now 10pm and I have a courtesy car from the garage and my car will be looked at first thing in the morning. That is certainly not the situation I expected to be in at this point, as how many garages would come out to you that evening to help fix a problem? I had the boss come out to me with his brother – thus delivering me a car and taking mine away (after a quick temp fix).
I had brought my car from the local dealer who is very local being only about 2 miles away. It is always serviced by the local dealer as per as close as I can get it to the service schedule. My car is vital to my job as a nanny, so I do try to keep it as road worthy as possible, even though I know next to nothing about cars.
Without a car I am really stuck and it puts the family I work for in a difficult situation. When a nanny takes time off at short notice a colleague can’t just cover the work. It becomes a nightmare trying to juggle peoples schedules to see if something can be done so that children get to school, nursery/pre-school, and parents get to work. Parents who employ a nanny can’t always get time off their own work at short notice. If they don’t go to work that has a knock on affect and many people could be affected.
I have a loan car. It is a temporary solution which I am so glad the garage was able to arrange at such short notice tonight. Whilst you may argue that something they did on the service might have caused the problem, how the garage has reacted to situation I feel is great. One of the advantages of dealing with a small local company is that they will go that extra mile to try to resolve problems if they occur.
As a nanny who knows about children and knows very little about cars, I need a nice friendly small local garage to sort me out on occasion. The nanny car is vital to my work, I simply cannot work without it. These days we are often very reliant on technology, even my alarm clock is digital.
Cars… cars… cars… when they work they are great. When they breakdown they are not so useful!
October 5, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Over the past few years mobile phone technology has developed to a point where we can now use them for e-mail, finding information on the internet, taking photos and sharing them with our boss, driving directions and maps, twitter, facebook and other social media.
As a nanny I have a smartphone and I have noticed that I do tend to use it quite a lot whilst working. It’s become a sort of habit and I am not sure it’s all a good habit, so I now deliberately try to restrict the amount I use it during my working day. However it is useful as I can look up the time of a local toddler group, find it on a map and get driving directions. I can use it to help answer a question a child might ask – what is the tallest building in the world and how many lifts does it have?
I use my phone a lot for looking up recipes -such as how to make a certain type of pastry, delia’s american muffins, or getting suggestions for things to cook from MyDaddyCooks, Mumsnet and other websites. I even have a short cut on my phone to a Playdough recipe I posted on Mumsnet so I can easily find it for when we make a new batch of dough. I also use the phone to send text messages to other childcarers and parents of children we know to arrange to meet up.
Music and photos are another use for the phone. I take pictures with my phone and upload them once a week or so to a system where my boss can login and view the photos. Photos can help show what children have been doing during their time with their nanny. Songs and rhymes can be played on the phone, videos can even be watched – one of the children I care for loves There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly (video).
I have also used Twitter and FourSqaure to post my location detail at certain times, so my boss knows that we have been somewhere. However, is knowing that sort of information important, or is it just an excuse to post on social media networks during my working day?
Best Nanny ran had a series of blog posts in August about nannies using phones during working hours. Do You Text or Visit Facebook at Work? This blog post came about due to a nanny being seen texting whilst their 3-year old charge was in a swimming pool. Now many of us, me included will think that is totally unacceptable. However if it was at a playground and the child was playing happily on their own or with friends, would it still be unacceptable?
Nannies do have some downtime during their working day, when children are napping for example. Most nannies do not get a lunch break or any official breaks at all during their working day and they could be working 12 hours a day or even more. So some usage of the internet, text messages I feel is to be expected during those down times, or for researching places to go with children, for texting people to make work related meetup plans.
When is that usage too much? Could you cope without using your phone for a day, a week, a month?
September 21, 2011 at 3:58 pm
This week I was contacted by Roxanne who mentioned an article
10 Things Nannies Don’t Usually Do for Families from the NannyJobs.org blog.
- Excessive Housework – cleaning beyond keeping things tidy
- Errand Service – dry cleaning pickup
- Free Time – live-in nannies own time
- Cooking – for parents
- Out-of-Pocket – small expenses nanny pays
- Referee – mediate family squabbles
- Yard Work
- Laundry – for parents
- Schoolwook – teaching the children another language
- Bedmaking
As you may spot, that blog is written in the United States whereas NannyNick.com is aimed mostly at nannies in the UK, as I live in England. Yard Work here in England would be things like mowing the lawn, pulling out weeds, that sort of garden work. The other things are all self explanatory I hope. Read the full article for more details: 10 Things Nannies Don’t Usually Do for Families
I would actually disagree that a nanny does not usually do some of these things. As a nanny I see my role as being more than just a caregiver for the children. I see my role as caring for the children and their home environment. So if things need doing around the home and if I am equipped to do them and have the time, then I can see no reason why I shouldn’t do them. For example, making the beds, picking up a parcel from the post office, calling out a drain contractor if the sewer gets blocked, make a loaf of bread or a cake or some other food all the family can share.
I do agree though that for a live-in nanny their time off-duty is their own time and involving them in family activities is nice but getting them to work during that time is not nice. Some live-in nannies have commented to me that they find the children come into their bedroom. I do not feel that should not be permitted as I feel a live-in nanny needs a place where they can go to get away from the children during their off-duty hours. Young children can’t tell the time but they can learn that if a door is closed they are not to go in, even if the door is not locked.
The level of cleaning done by a nanny is often a topic of debate and I feel like many things it will come down to what was agreed at the start of the contract. Some nannies will be prepared to do more than others. Personally I don’t iron clothes – I’m just not any good at it. Maybe I need to practice more! I do however put all the families clothes in the wash. If it needs washing, it needs washing. A nanny is there to help make the lives of the parents easier, so if the nanny is washing the children’s clothes, then adding the parents clothes is not much of a hardship given today’s automatic washing machines.
What do you think? Do you do any of the tasks on the list? As a parent would you expect your nanny to do any of those tasks as part of their usual duties?
September 10, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Now that it is the school summer holidays you may have thought about taking your nanny with you when you go on your family holiday. This might sound a good idea but in my view it is not.
I do not think this is a good idea because:
- It won’t be a holiday for your nanny.
- Your nanny will still need to take their statutory holiday entitlement.
- Your children will spend time with your nanny, rather than with you.
- Your nanny will be with you for longer periods of time than usual, so may well want more pay. Whilst their hours of actual work may not change, they are not in a position to go home and do as they like.
Whilst your nanny may like to go on holiday somewhere, they want a holiday not to be working. If they go on holiday with you, they may get some time to themselves but a lot of it I feel they would be working, caring for your children. In the past I have gone on holiday with a family and whilst it is nice to go away somewhere, for me it wasn’t like going on holiday. I did feel that I was working and even when I wasn’t directly caring for the children, I felt I was on-call.
You may well like the idea of having someone care for your children whilst you are on holiday. Having someone known to them may well help them settle a lot easier but if they are with someone they know well, is it any different to them being at home? Some places you go on holiday you may find have a KidsClub or special activities for children, so if you don’t take your nanny with you then you may still find you get a few hours with your children entertained by someone else.
Nannies working in the UK are entitled to statutory holiday (a nanny working 5 days per week is entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks holiday). Your nanny needs to take their time off at a time that is convenient to you. Is the time that you are away from home not a very convenient time for your nanny to take time off? I would have thought it was a perfect time for your nanny to have off, as then they can then work once you are back from your holiday. If your nanny goes on holiday with you, then once you are back home the nanny will need to take some time off.
What do you think – are there advantages to taking your nanny on holiday with you which outweigh the disadvantages?
Perhaps you are a nanny and have been on holiday with the family for whom you work… would you go on holiday with them again? Do you have any tips for making it work, suggestions on how the experience can be made better for all concerned?
July 24, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Are you a nanny and need some advise about an aspect of your work?
Are you a parent looking to hire a nanny and would like some advice about nannies?
If you would like some individual advice about a topic to do with nannies in the UK please do get in touch.
Alternatively I am always looking for suggestions on things to write about on this blog, so if there is a topic you would like to see covered, please do let me know.
Nannynick – nannynick@gmail.com
July 24, 2011 at 9:08 pm
I am a nanny and I am live-out, which means that I do not live at the home of my employer but instead I have my own home and go to work in the morning and come home in the evening.
I’ve never really done any other type of nannying so know relatively little about the other types, which are:
Live-in Nanny – where the nanny has their own room at the home of their employer. They could well have a bedroom and en-suit bathroom, or a bathroom shared with children. They might even have their own annex, or a cottage in the grounds (though that is more tied accommodation).
Nannyshare – This could be live-in or live-out and means the nanny works for two families at the same time. The nanny may work from just one of the family homes, or may switch between the homes. What makes it a share is that the children from both families are cared for at the same time by the nanny.
Nannies: Have you ever worked as a live-in nanny or in a nannyshare? Your comments about how you found the job would be great, such as if you were live-in did you feel you had your own space and time or were you constantly on-duty? If you were working a nannyshare, how did you find juggling the expectations of two sets of parents?
Parents: What do you see as being the advantages and drawbacks of any particular type of nanny job. As a live-out nanny I travel to and from work, so there is always the risk that I will be late, which isn’t likely to be the case when a nanny lives-in… though I suppose they could just fail to wake up.
July 18, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I was reading an article today about under-fives needing three hours of exercise a day.
It said things like “babies should be taken swimming and play on ‘baby gym’ mats while toddlers should walk for at least 15 minutes of routine journeys such as to nursery.” Well the baby and three year old whom I nanny get to do those things, at least on occasion. We are quite good at walking to school, often twice a day, though baby of course does not do the 10 minute walk each way… she gets to ride in the buggy.
I wonder how we can tell if a baby is getting enough exercise. I suppose we could monitor their weight but babies put on weight much of the time as they are growing up. Maybe all the Government guidance is trying to get us to do is to think about how much movement a baby is doing and to encourage them to move around a bit more by putting objects just outside of their reach, so baby has to move to get the object.
Some pre-school children can be very active and charge around the garden or the local park for long periods of time. Nannies can encourage this by taking children outdoors more often and ditching the buggy.
Whilst I walk the children to school whatever the weather, we don’t go out walking in the countryside in the rain that often. Indoor exercise is therefore something to think about, dancing to music for example may be a good way of children using up some of their energy. Jumping up and down can be great, some cushions on the floor can be like a trampoline.
Three hours of exercise a day may be quite hard to achieve though I expect they don’t mean three hours of structured exercise classes but rather that children are active for three hours a day. Going up and down stairs is exercise, helping carry things is exercise. So it isn’t all about taking children to the park and playing ball games with them. I feel instead it’s about encouraging children to be more active generally, whatever their age.
What do you think… do young children need more exercise? What activities have you found are good for encouraging children to exercise?
July 10, 2011 at 8:22 pm
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