Report OL 175 In-House Training for Nursery Assistants

In 1990 Kids Unlimited undertook a new training initiative with support from the Employment Department under its Business Growth Training Scheme. The aim was to develop a training solution for the problem of maintaining quality standards in childcare at a time when the company was undergoing a period of rapid growth. This report highlights the development of the initiative. Whilst meeting the objectives of raising and maintaining standards for its then unqualified staff, Kids Unlimited additionally created a new academic syllabus for a formal Certificate in Nursery Practice in the form of an Open Learning package available to any organisation in the field of childcare. The OL programme would allow the company to expand, whilst meeting the new requirements for fomal childcare qualifications, a change that resulted from the 1989 Children Act. It also enabled nursery managers to devolve responsibility for quality to more junior staff.

The training solution, original to both the company and the childcare industry, is already exceeding initial expectations. However, the value of the programme will not be fully realised for another two years, when the lengthy training period has had time to influence performance at work. A major issue in the development work was the requirement to meet standards set by the National Nursery Examination Board ( NNEB ). The task was complicated by the fact that a private company was seeking to make major changes to existing standards and, at the same time, to gain approval to deliver training using an unconventional method. Inevitably, the boldness of the objective of creating a new Certificate in Nursery Practice delivered via Open Learning was reflected in some hickups in the course of the development programme.

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This page last updated 25 January 1999.