New here, stressing I have made the wrong choice!

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skye93
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Joined: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:57 pm

New here, stressing I have made the wrong choice!

Post by skye93 » Sat Feb 15, 2014 2:49 pm

Hi there everyone. I'm Skye, 21 from Western Australia. I have one 13 month old son & expecting my daughter in April. I have been thinking long and hard about what I want to study and decided on cert III in early childhood education & care. I knew I wanted to do something along the lines of community services, children or the elderly. Since having my own son I decided on getting into childcare.
Basically my grand plan is to finish the cert III then possibly do the diploma before I go back to work. I have a few questions though..

1, If I do my cert III & diploma without going back to work will I have any chance gaining employment without actual proper experience ? (apart from the work placement)
2, I'm REALLY worried about the hours. Once my children go back to school I'd really love to be working minimum 5 days a week. Is this achievable with two children? (If you have kids please share your input on this one and how you go about it!)

Also, has anyone studied through inspire education? if so how did you find it? and how much did your cert III cost all up? Will I need to buy extra text books? That's where I have enrolled I chose distance learning over online (they didn't clarify what the difference was?).. impatiently waiting for them to send me my student details so I may start.

Many thanks.

Skye.


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Lorina
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Re: New here, stressing I have made the wrong choice!

Post by Lorina » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:57 pm

Hi Skye,

Welcome to Aussie Childcare Network! :wave:

Just a few thoughts in the questions you have asked....

1. When you complete your certificate 3 and you are applying for jobs, employers know that you may not have any experience working with children, especially when you have just completed it. So, if when applying for a job with cert 3 even though you don't have much experience, it's ok. You assist the group leader in the room anyway and your tasks are basic so you don't need to worry about having experience for cert 3 position. However, with a Diploma it's a little different. I can't speak for all centres but there are some centres who prefer a diploma qualified to have had previous experience. This is because it is a much higher responsibility than a cert 3 qualification. You run the room, you do all programming and planning, you handle the staff in your room, your responsible for all the children in your care and you're the point of contact for all families of your group of children. It is a tough position to carry out for the first time if you haven't had any experience within a centre besides work placement. That's why some centres prefer someone who has done the role before. Although in saying this, it really depends on the centre... If possible maybe you can try and work with your cert 3 qualification to gain much experience while studying for the diploma before taking up a diploma position...

2. Regarding hours once again depending on the centre, however minimum full time hours is 8 and a half hours per day. There are some centres that staff work 10 hours per day with 1 day off during the week. You will just need to discuss this with your employer when applying for a job. Childcare is really demanding and it's hard work. You're going to spend all day looking after someone else's children then you're going to go home and look after your own. It's going to tire you out... Look if worse come to worse and you can't handle it you can do part time or casual until your children are a little older...

I haven't studies with inspire so I'm not sure how good they are. Doing a course online is more expensive then doing it through TAFE. I did distance learning as well... This means they send a package/your unit you will be studying to your address and you complete it and send it back. Online means you do the complete course online over the internet. I don't think you need to pay extra for textbooks it should be all included... Just go to the library if you need more information for assignments...

The benefit for you is that even though you may not have had centre experience you do have you're a mum and have your own child which means you understand the basic care requirements in looking after a child and that counts for something!

By the way Congratulations on your baby girl!

Good Luck!

:geek:,
L.A

3Js
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Re: New here, stressing I have made the wrong choice!

Post by 3Js » Fri Sep 12, 2014 3:49 pm

Hi Skye,
How did you go with Inspire education?
I plan on studying online.
Inquired about diploma and it cost 3k if you pay cash upfront.
This is the cheapest one I saw.
Any tips, anything I need to consider?
Thanks

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