Early years practitioner Review

My role involves caring for and educating children ages 2-5. This involves a lot of planning (activities, food) and writing observations on the children to help with there development in all areas of learning. I also have to help teach the children about day to day tasks (dressing, toileting etc)

My confidence has grown massively from completing my apprenticeship and working in the early year sector. When I first started I was really quiet and didn’t want to talk and felt really uncomfortable when having to speak to parents. Now I feel the complete opposite! I don’t think my confidence would have grown so much without the apprenticeship

I really enjoyed it! After finishing 6th form, I knew I wanted to go down the early years route but didn’t want to go to university as I knew I wasn’t academic. The apprenticeship was the best route in my opinion as your gain experience as well as a qualification

I felt it was very well structured. I felt having monthly face to face check ins with my tutor was a real help and she was excellent when I was struggling and needed some support with my assignments and workload. I was also able to contact her throughout the week via email too which was a real help

My employer was brilliant. She had also previously completed the same course so was able to help me when I was struggling. She allowed me to bring my laptop into work on quieter days so we could work together on it which was an incredible help and I am so grateful for that

I gained a lot of support. We had monthly check ins as well as being able to contact whenever over email which was brilliant. Even through the pandemic I was able to carry on as usual as we had our monthly check ins over zoom which was a great help

I have gained so much confidence and more so with my qualification. I feel more confident talking to parents and now we have a new apprentice in my setting so now I feel as though I have the knowledge and understanding of the role to be able to help them with their course

There is not any specifically but we all do like to go on staff days out once in a while either in a half term, weekend or bank holiday to get to know each other better and just to spend time with each other out of the working environment as you learn so much more about one another

Yes

The YMCA are an amazing organisation to work for. Their ethos and just everything about them is just incredible in my opinion. They have so many opportunities for you within the organisation and everyone who I have met or spoken to who also works there are so lovely. Would highly recommend

Enjoy yourself and be yourself. As I previously said, everyone seems to be lovely and were so welcoming when I first started. Working in early years is such a rewarding job and makes you feel good about yourself every single day as you are teaching young people and helping shape them into the person they will grow up to be