Christmas is coming….

December 2, 2021

Little girl dressing up as reindeer for Christmas

A statement that can cause pure excitement but also alongside it bring a long list of things to do. The KiddyKare team know how much everyone wants to enjoy Christmas this year and make it the best possible. So, whether that’s watching all your favourite films, planning lots of Christmas days out or just making sure you spend time with the people closest to you. We thought we would put together some top tips to ensure you have the most stress-free Christmas possible!

1. Plan ahead

As it’s only the 1st of December this is a great time to sit down and make a Christmas plan, we find creating a list of things you need to do alongside a list of things you would like to do helps. This creates a structure for you to follow, showing which things need to go on your priority list and which things can be done if you end up with some extra time on your hands. (Do remember if you’d rather have five minutes to sit down, that’s ok as well)

2. Write things down

Following on from planning ahead and creating two different lists, you can break these down. I find creating a list for each week or daily lists dependant on how you personally prefer to structure it. This way you can do things when you know you’ll have free time rather than trying to do lots of things when you don’t!

3. Share the load

This is one of our MUST DO TIPS. Make sure you share the load with others. Pull in your best friend to help decorate while you catch up or let your children create the Christmas cards to send to all the family. Whatever is on your list, make sure to delegate some things to others and I’m sure they’ll always be willing to help. You never know, they might even enjoy it!

4. Spread activities out

To ensure one weekend isn’t more stressful than the other, be sure to spread things out. It’s a classic for all of us in December to forget we have other weekends, other evenings, and other days. If you try and fit every activity into a small amount of time, you will end up feeling stressed rather than enjoying yourself.

5. Create your own rituals

We know personally it’s hard to run away with an idea that you’ve seen on social media or heard from a friend. We are all guilty of wanting to create the perfect Christmas experience and we forget that we already have the perfect Christmas experience with the ones we love, anything we do is just an extra. So, create your own rituals, find out what works for you and your family. Create your own traditions, this way you’ll enjoy the activities you’re doing.

6. Embrace at home DIY activities

Its easy to fall into a trap of having to attend a million festive events in the run up to Christmas, which can end up being very time consuming, stressful but also expensive. The self-planned DIY home activities can be just as fun and a great way to spend time together. You could make something to decorate the house or bake a festive treat to share with friends/family.

7. Try and keep your routine

Everyone knows that during the Christmas period we all change our routine to allow for the different activities. However, we think that keeping to your routine as much as possible will really help when returning to normality in January and help to keep the calm in the Christmas chaos.

8. Make time for yourself

Throughout all the planning, festive activities, and family gatherings one of the most important things to remember is to make time for yourself. Everyone needs a bit of me time, so if for you that’s a nice bath, catching up on your favourite tv show or going for a daily walk. Try and keep this as normal as possible so that you get some time away from the Christmas chaos!

9. Don’t panic – if you haven’t got the Brussel sprouts!

When it comes down to it Christmas will be the best if you are all together. So, if you don’t manage to organise that extra activity or make a different pudding, don’t worry! Everyone will be happy if they are together

10. Remember to slow down and enjoy

The most important tip of them all is just to enjoy yourself, we know that we all spend lots of time making sure everything is so perfect so much so, we actually miss out on enjoying what we are doing. So however, you spend Christmas, whatever you do or whoever you are with, just remember to sit back and enjoy the moment.

Have a lovely festive season!

From,

The KiddyKare team

KiddyKare’s favourite autumn activities for children

December 22, 2020

As we enter autumn here at KiddyKare we thought we would pick out our favourite autumn activities to do with children. Now everyone is getting back into a normal routine, some easy activities will be a nice way to keep the little ones busy and all these activities can all be done after a lovely autumn run around the park!

Some autumn Playdough

A great activity for children to use all their senses and a lot of imagination!

AMAZING Pumpkin Spice Play Dough

A leaf garland

Autumn decorations can be nice to give a warm cosy feel, start with creating your very own leaf garland.

Autumn Leaf Spin Art Garland

A leaf head dress

We all known children love role play, what is better than creating your own headdress to go with your imagined activity?

https://mothernatured.com/nature-crafts/easy-nature-crowns-for-kids/

A leaf suncatcher

These will look lovely with the autumn run shining right through them on the window, plus looking through one will make a grey day look beautiful.

https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/fall-craft-for-toddlers-and-preschoolers-leaf-sun-catcher.html

We hope you all love trying out our favourite autumn activities! Please do send us some pictures of your creations to team@kiddykare.co.uk or share with us on social media, as we would love to see what you come up with!

Love, The KiddyKare team

A guide to a DBS check and the update service

December 22, 2020

What is a DBS check?

For those of you that are not familiar with a DBS check it is an abbreviation for the Disclosure and Barring Service. It helps companies make safer recruitment decisions by providing a background check on anyone who applies. These background checks can come from local or national police stations, there are also many different checks dependant on the role you have applied for.

Such as a basic check, a standard check or an enhanced check.

How long will it take?

DBS checks can take any amount of time, so people will receive them faster than others. However, they do generally say between 4 – 8 weeks, things like having multiple different address locations or a mistake on a form could delay your DBS. So, it’s best to double check these things when applying.

Who needs a DBS check?

There are many professions that require a DBS check such as educational staff, healthcare professionals or a job role that requires you to enter the home of a member of the public such as pest control or even a taxi driver.

A lot of people think it is only something required by people who work within education; however, this is not true. Everyone who is working within many different sectors should always have DBS checks in mind when applying for new roles.

How much do they cost?

The DBS check price depends on what DBS check the job you are applying for requires however you should be able to gain information on the price before going ahead with the check.

The Update service and what it provides

Working with the educational sector we get asked a lot of questions about the update service and how it works.

The DBS update service is a new service which provides applications and employees to view the DBS certificate. This service is required by a lot of employers now so that they can keep up to date with staffs DBS checks. It costs £13 a year and saves you applying for a new DBS check every 3 years. However, you do need to sign up for this service within 30 days of your certificate being issued to you.

We hope we have helped outline a DBS check and given you a little more information on the system. If you do have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us at the Kiddykare office on 01628 675 828.

You can also visit https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service for more information.

Time sheet top tips for a KiddyKare temporary worker

December 22, 2020

Here at KiddyKare we know how hard our team of temporary staff work, so we thought we would provide you with our timesheet top tips. These are the main tips we would get you to follow to ensure you are paid correctly and on time. After all, no one wants to have to worry about getting paid.

1. Please make sure you provide your full name; it is very hard to trace the time sheet back to you if you don’t. So please make sure you have written your name clearly, as we would love to pay you on time, just as much as I’m sure you would love to be paid.

2. Double check the hours you have worked, we have a lot of people send over time sheets with less or more hours than they have worked. So, making sure this is correct is best for both you and us.

3. Making sure the picture you send in is clear, close enough so we can see all details with nothing cropped off. Keeping your time sheet clean and flat, so it isn’t crumpled, and we are able to read it.

The ideal way for us to receive a time sheet is:

Non blurry
At an angle at which we can read everything
Nothing on top of the time sheet
Not crinkled or dirty
All details to be visible and easy to read

We hope these top tips help and make sending over your time sheets easy, we look forward to receiving them.

The KiddyKare team

Recruiting through the pandemic

December 9, 2020

As we are all aware the pandemic has made recruitment for new staff members difficult. With the rules changing daily and different areas having different levels of restrictions it can get confusing.

KiddyKare know how important it is to follow a correct, safe recruitment process. This to ensure all the relevant checks are completed, KiddyKare thought it would be helpful to outline the procedures we follow to ensure a safe recruitment process.

KiddyKare’s recruitment step by step:

Interviews

Interviewing candidates right now is challenging however there are different processes you can follow to make this COVID-19 safe.

Telephone interviews are a normal first stage for many companies but are becoming more common due to the pandemic. This helps you gain more information about the candidate to see if they are the right fit for the role before proceeding further.

A video chat works well as a next stage interview. You can use this to get to know the candidate in more depth and answer any questions they might have. A lot of educational settings are used to being able to see the candidates in action, however during the pandemic this may not be possible for all. Creating a task for the candidate to complete prior to the video call or ensuring you have more robust interview questions in place will help provide the information you would gain from seeing them in action.

Right to work

The right to work document checking process has been updated to allow remote document checking until we can check the original documents. Once original documents can be seen this must be done as soon as possible. We are still required to check the right to work documents, if you are unsure on the documents candidates need to provide please do use the link below where you can check these.

Please do refer to the below link to see the list of documents require for a right to work check:

Right to work checklist – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please do refer to the link below for more information on the right to work changes:

Coronavirus (COVID-19): right to work checks – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

DBS check

The DBS process is mostly completed online by both parties; however, we would normally check the candidate’s documents face to face. Some changes have been made to allow companies in urgent cases to virtually check the candidates documents via video call.

Please do refer to the link below for more information on the DBS check changes:

COVID-19: Changes to DBS ID checking guidelines – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

References

Gaining the candidates references virtually is a normal recruitment process however due to the current situation people could be working part time or on furlough. This could make gaining candidates references a longer process, however most business will have a secondary contact in place if an employee is not currently working.

World Book Day

March 4, 2020

As world book day (5th March 2020) is fast approaching, it is a lovely way to celebrate reading and understanding all the benefits that come along with it. Here at KiddyKare we strongly believe that reading and sharing books together is such a great way for children to learn.

So, whether that’s looking at pictures, listening to an audio or beginning to read some of the words within the book; It all makes a big impact on the development of children, but also helps to create a great bond between children and their familiar adults. Whether its within their home life or during their nursery routine, it can also be used as a great comfort and a chance to form social bonds.

Books can be a great aid to help children learn an array of other things such as emotions, noises/sounds, expressions and much more!

Some great ideas to improve your story times could be:

Using Puppets alongside your chosen story – These can be used to recreate characters within the story, learn familiar words and phrases as well as to explore emotions of characters and how they may be feeling in situations.
Props – Such as a water spray for when you talk about water or visual aids to help tell the story. It is great for children with EAL or who like to explore sensory items to concentrate for a longer period.
Creating sensory trays – Bring a story to life, using props to create scenes that have been happening with the story. Then when you read the story alongside this, it can help the children to experience the story first-hand.
Creating themed areas within your house/nursery to mirror the story. You could then act out the story whilst you read it, or older children could try and remember the story themselves.

So, whatever you do for world book day, whether you are dressing up as your favourite character within your nursery/school setting or spending time with your children reading their favourite book. We do hope you have the best day and get to enjoy reading!

Beat the January blues

January 23, 2020

Yet again another year has flown by. So we thought it would be nice to look at how we can make the most out of a new one.

2020 is here and 2019 feels like it was light-years ago. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like that and once we get into a new year by the time you know it, it’s over. Just like that, in a flash it’s a new year, with new challenges and opportunities.

We all know January is not anyone’s favourite month. Normally for me it’s the month I begin by being very proactive and end with ‘I’ll try that again in February’. I don’t know if you feel the same but after the low of Christmas passing by, the long wait until your next payday and the new year diet, it just becomes the slowest month of the year.

However, this year in the Kiddykare office we are going to try and start the year as we mean to go on. Using our fresh start to take up new challenges, learn new things and try something we wouldn’t have done in 2019.

We would also like to help you, whether you’re new to childcare or someone with many years of experience. We would love to help you find your next challenge in life, to start your new year with a bang.

Kiddykare’s top new year tips

Start with small goals – Keep realistic and make goals you can achieve in certain timescale.
Make yourself a plan – Decide and outline your tasks and how you will overcome any challenge that may arise.
Make the leap – Take a chance, be confident in yourself, keep trying and don’t give up.

Lastly, we would like to give you our new year cv tips, to help you stand out from the crowd and secure your new year challenge.

Kiddykare’s CV tips

Spelling – Always use spell check before submitting anything, even the best, make mistakes sometimes.
Keep it simple e.g. no textboxes – Make sure your cv is clear, simple and professional.
Contact details are a must – This is so important to include so that people can contact you immediately, rather than having to hunt for your details or for you to miss out on the opportunity because you can’t be contacted.
Dates of employment ordered chronologically – This is very important; it helps set out your career history and makes sure your employment history is fully covered.
Small snappy personal statement – Make sure you sell yourself and include something about you personally to make you more memorable to recruiters or employers.

We hope to hear from you about your new year challenge,

The Kiddykare Team

Consider looking for a Nanny through KiddyKare

January 30, 2019

Why consider a nanny?

Are you struggling to find time to manage everyday life, work and childcare? When considering all the childcare options there are out there it is difficult to know which one would best suit your family. If you are looking for something which enables your children to be able to spend time at home as well as outdoors and or mixed with school or nursery pick ups, a professional nanny may be worth looking at.

Having a nanny to take care of your children is a wonderful way in which they can spend time at home in their own space as well as going out and about to explore. A nanny can take on the responsibility of managing your child’s everyday routine including visiting their friends, local groups and also having qualifications in childcare means that they are able to track and monitor your child’s learning throughout their time with you.

Studies show that for the first three years of life children thrive best in their home environment. Being at home ensures they experience less illness, stress and fewer behavioral problems. Although this does not apply to every child it is still important to consider.

The benefits of having a nanny:

There is one-to-one care for your children from a dedicated nanny
Nannies are often happy to prepare healthy meals for the children
Personalized meal plans if necessary, especially if a child is weaning or has specific dietary requirements
Having a nanny is a wonderful way to ensure that children are developing social skills.Attending local groups, parks, meeting other nannies and going on exciting trips where they can learn about the world all help
Both parents and nannies share a common goal for all children
Children have secure attachment with the nanny ensuring strong emotional development
The close working relationship nannies have with parent ensures that they are able to communicate effectively about any issues or concerns
Nannies are generally happy to help with any additional hours or support needed due to the close nature of them being a part of the family home.

How KiddyKare can help

KiddyKare are here to support you throughout the entire process. If you would like to enquire about recruiting a nanny, contact us. We will talk you through whether a nanny is the best option for you. If you decide to go ahead and start your search, then we will make every effort to get to know you as best we can to ensure the Nannies we put forward to you are well suited.

What KiddyKare has to offer:

One-to-one consultation from experienced Nanny consultant
Continuous support and guidance
We offer home visits. These ensure the nanny consultant can get to know your family and understand exactly what you need from a nanny
Professionally written agency job adverts placed on your behalf
We interview all nannies and ensure all background checks are carried out before they are put forward to you
We arrange all interviews at times convenient for both you and the nanny

A day in the life of a nanny

March 23, 2018

Its 7:15am and I arrive to work, I let myself in with the key mum has provided me and I hear the little boy I look after run to the stair gate upstairs and shout down to me.

I go upstairs and am greeted by him with a big cuddle, I then go in to mums room where she is doing her make-up and we have a chat about our evening and how he has been. I then take him downstairs for breakfast, giving him a bowl of corn flakes his favourite!!

Mum comes down when she is ready and says bye to the boy giving him a kiss and cuddle, he waves back and continues to eat breakfast.

After breakfast we sit and play, he already has toys out but likes to get more from his baskets, we sit and explore and read stories. After a while we go back upstairs and I get him dressed choosing his clothes from his drawers, I encourage him to help put his arms and legs in!! He then brushes his teeth and we go downstairs and set off for the day.

Every day as a nanny is different some days we have playdates with other children and other days we go to groups, this is great as both him and I get to socialise and he is still learning new things in different ways.

I tend to stick to a routine so on a Monday we attend “Messy Mondays” this is a walk in group that encourages children to explore messy activities such as painting, crazy form and water play, this is great as he loves to get messy!! We then attend “showstoppers” in the afternoon which is a music class encouraging children to follow different actions and explore sensory objects and lights.

Getting out and about is great as it breaks the day up and keeps the him entertained and happy.

We have lunch at home at 12pm which I prepare. As I prepare his food for the day I know his likes and dislikes which makes it easier, however mum is extremely relaxed and does not mind him trying new things which is great!

At 12:30 I put him down for a sleep in his bed, playing soft music and patting his back until he falls asleep.

Once he wakes we have a cuddle and a snack before heading off to music class, he walks in and explores the room and other children whilst I catch up with the other parents and nannies before the class begins. I encourage him to join in and time flies as we are both having fun!

Before I know it, it is time to head home for tea. Once he has had tea we sit and play. He shows me what he wants to play with and I talk about what we can see, teaching him new words and linking words to objects.

Mummy and daddy arrive home at 6pm and I tell them everything we have done for the day before I head home.

A day in the life of a nursery worker

March 22, 2018

children in nursery copying actions of nursery nurse

I turn up to my shift at 7:30 knowing what time to start as my manager has put up the staff shifts for the week on the previous Friday and let us all know.

I go up to the Baby Room where I am in charge and I greet all my staff members with smiles asking them how they are, I go on to let them know their morning duties working with them we begin to set the room up, choosing different toys to stimulate the children including mathematical, physical and creative as well as imaginative.

The parents start bringing the babies in and we greet them asking how their children are, some babies come over with big smiles whilst others are slightly sensitive and need more comfort, luckily we have a key carer system and all babies have settling in sessions before starting full time so already have made a relationship with their carer.

I already have all the children’s information recorded so I am aware of their likes and dislikes which makes it easier to comfort them and I make sure for every child who comes in upset I get out something they enjoy doing and have comforters at the ready!!

As the day goes on we each do group activities with the children, teaching them through play and recording what they do on observation sheets, this is a simple paragraph on what the child did whilst exploring the toys and a photo taken on the nursery camera and I am responsible for my key children’s observations.

Each baby has a separate routine and I ensure I know my key child when they start knowing what time they go to sleep and how they have their food/bottle this makes it easier for me and when its bedtime I go off with them in to our sleep room, get their stuff out of their baskets and rock or pat them to sleep.

At 12:30 the children have their lunch and I start to send the staff on theirs, they go in to the staff room and all have a good chit chat about their day and weekend, all the staff get along and we are lucky enough to meet up outside of work so have lots to talk about!!

The afternoon is filled with lots of play and messy activities and a trip to the garden, time flies by as we are all having fun and before we know It it’s time for tea!!

The parents start to arrive from 5pm and I feed back to my key children’s parents telling them how their child has been and what they have been up to during the day.

6pm comes and it’s time to tidy up and go home and relax until tomorrow!!

Some autumn Playdough

A leaf garland

A leaf head dress

A leaf suncatcher

What is a DBS check?

How long will it take?

Who needs a DBS check?

How much do they cost?

The Update service and what it provides

KiddyKare’s recruitment step by step:

Interviews

Right to work

DBS check

References

Some great ideas to improve your story times could be:

Kiddykare’s top new year tips

Kiddykare’s CV tips

Why consider a nanny?

The benefits of having a nanny:

How KiddyKare can help

What KiddyKare has to offer:

About KiddyKare

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