Early Years Educator Review

I am an Early years educator, in the simplest of terms, the main aspect of my job is to educate children in their early years. I conduct physical care routines, serve appropriate healthy meals, supervise sleep times. Alongside my team I come up with a range of activities that help children learn through the several areas of learning. We work with parents and the children to provide them the best care and opportunities in the early years.

I have developed a range of skills, such as how to conduct risk assessments, how to safeguard children. I have developed my communication skills through the way that I interact with colleagues, parents, other professionals and children. I also have improved my creative skills in the way I can come up with new activities that explore different creative elements and use a range of resources to enhance learning. Along with many more.

I enjoy learning new things, I enjoy exploring all the different aspects of early years education. I can take things I learn through my course and discuss them further with colleagues or demonstrate new things and further the experience for the children. It is rewarding to watch as things I learn impact positively on the children.

The programme works well in the way in which you work both theoretically and practically. There is a balance in how much theory you do alongside the amount of practical work that is needed to influence the written work and how we show our work with children through the coursework.

I have a lot of support from my employer and it’s great that I can talk to my colleagues, seniors, management and higher for guidance, advice or help with all aspects of the course. Many colleagues have also gone through an apprenticeship within the company and therefore have had first hand experience that they can use to guide me.

I had good support from my trainer throughout my course, they guided me through face to face meetings, zoom/teams calls and email as well as their online system. I got good feedback on all my work that I handed in and most of the feedback was prompt and where I was lost or confused they guided me to the right direction

The learning received within my qualification has greatly impacted my performance in my role. It has taught me how to reflect on my work, long term, short term and in the moment. It has taught me about theories and approaches that I can look to for inspiration on how to conduct activities and it has given insight to so many situations, circumstances and aspects to varying factors that help with my everyday practice and I feel myself improving all the time

Throughout the year we have social events that include health and wellbeing evenings, sometimes themed skill evenings that we as a team can attend. At the moment I’m not aware of any sporting teams but I know that if I were to come up with anything I would be welcome to offer ideas and suggestions to enhance extracurricular opportunities and that these would be considered.

Yes

Working with snapdragons, you make a huge group of new friends, there is always someone to support you and chances to learn and grow. Snapdragons has many different nurseries and so by being part of the team you’re not only part of one small group but you are part of a bigger picture and can help out in many places. Snapdragons works hard to do right but the children in their care and work inclusively and with heart to give everyone a great start!

For anyone applying to this company, my main tips would be to be open to learning, have ideas on how to support all children. Have a passion for giving young children great care. Snapdragons is a team and a family, be positive and open to making new friends and connections.