Childcare and Education - Nursery Assistant
Childcare and Education - Nursery Assistant
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Nursery assistants help nursery nurses to look after babies and young children. They usually work in a nursery, but may work in a school or hospital. Nurseries usually take on children up to the age of five. Some take children up to eight during holidays and after school.
- Plan and supervise activities like arts and crafts, music, and cooking
- Help children to learn numeracy and language skills through games
- Take part in singing, role play and story telling
- Take children on outings/ trips
- Feed and change babies
- Observe children and make notes to write reports
- Make sure children are safe and well
Nursery assistants spend most of their time is spent indoors, but they take the children to play outside when the weather is good enough.
The working hours for nursery assistants vary depending on where they are employed. Typically, they work between 35 and 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday. Day nurseries are usually open between 7am and 6:30pm and so they may have early starts or late finishes.
Starting salary: £14,000
Experienced salary: up to £24,000
You can work as a nursery assistant and learn on the job. You'll usually need GCSEs in maths and English to start. Experience of working with young children will also help. You can get experience by volunteering at a local nursery group or after school club. This may lead into paid work, where you could do training on the job.
Most employers will want you to have some GCSEs or qualifications especially in maths and English. College - you could start with a care and childcare entry level certificate or level 1 childcare diploma. You could also apply for an apprenticeship. If you have an EHCP you may be able to apply under the DfE exemption which allows the apprentice to use Entry level 3 English and Maths qualifications.
The apprentice would have to be component enough to successfully achieve all other aspects of the apprenticeship requirements, become occupationally competent and achieve Entry Level 3 in English and Maths before the end of their apprenticeship.