Questions regarding Child care traineeship

Hello ckim80,

Welcome to Aussie Childcare Network! We are happy to hear that our site is useful to you ! It's great to hear that you would like to start your career in this industry...

Regarding your traineeship, you are definately not too old to get one. All you really need to do is find a childcare/ long day care centre, who are looking for a traineeship and you can apply for a traineeship position there. Your age certainly shouldn't stop you from completing your qualification. A traineeship usually lasts up to 1 year.

You can also complete your certificate 3 at tafe or through correspondence without having to do the traineeship, just the certificate 3. Keep in mind that you will still need to go and have experience working in a childcare centre as part of your practical componenet of your cert 3. With Tafe you will have to attend classes. Through correspondence, you could try and finish the cert 3 in much less than a year if you'd prefer.
These are just some of the options available to you.

The experience you have teaching music with 4-6 yr olds, will definately help you in this child care industry. How long did you work as a music teacher for in Korea? You should definately include that in your resume. Have you got a teaching degree/ certificate? If so, you may not need to do the cert 3 at all. Let me know...

Regarding the wages, from my personal experience I can tell you that the wages vary depending on the centre location, the centre itself,, the owners and more! On the top of that there are also a lot of jobs in demand in this industry. However keep in mind that the wages while doing a traineeship will be low since you are an unqualified worker at that stage. So it works like this, the more you are qualified the higher your wages will be....

You can always start working in this industry and study while you work to further your experience in this career. There are different ways you can do it depending on your needs. Either do a traineeship, diploma or a degree. Its upto you on how far you want to progress in this career. If you have a passion and like working with kids, I think you should certainly go for it... Any experience you have working with kids will always be helpful..

Do you current hold any other qualifications? Are you considering to do a traineeship in childcare to start your career in childcare (or) is it to gain experience on this field? Tell us a bit on what you would like to do so we will try to help you out...

Cheers ,
L.A

Thank you so much for the reply.. ^^
i am currently working and wondering the option between corospondence and traineeship. at the moment i can't afford to do the traineeship because of the pay so i am now thinking more towards corespondence. However, coming to think of the experience traineeship will definatly help...
so i am currently deciding...Also i want to start my career in this field knowing how muchi love children and how wonderful and fulfilling this work field can be...
and can't wait until i start this work and meet more people who loves children.. ^^

thank you for such a good advise and replies.. ^^ thank you

Hello ckim80,

Thanks for your post. It's always good to hear user's feedback !

While you're deciding on starting your cert 3 through correspondence or a traineeship, I do have some other points that will hopefully help you make an informed judgment about the best way to receive your qualification.

at the moment i can't afford to do the traineeship because of the pay

A traineeship is a good option considering a few circumstances. When you do a traineeship at a childcare centre the wages are low, since the employer pays for your trainneship (except enrolment, typically you pay enrolment fee). The wages you would typically be paid while doing a traineeship is around $10 to $12 per hour. Please keep in mind that this changes for each individual which depends on age, state you live in, and the childcare centre your employed at. So, in some cases you can even negotiate for a higher pay. Yes I agree with you when you say you can't afford to do it, the pay is low.....

coming to think of the experience traineeship will definatly help...

When doing a trainneship in childcare you will definatley gain experience since you get a hang of working in a childcare setup and you can see how other childcare professionals interact with children etc. It will also give you the confidence since you will be dealing with children practically, which will definately help you when doing your certificate 3 course.
However you should keep in mind that while doing your traineeship you will spend a lot of time in various other duties in the centre that may not involve caring for children. For example, washing up, cleaning rooms and general cleaning duties. The reason behind this is because you are not "qualified" yet to take care of the children by yourself. This is just a heads up so you know that you will also be required to do various other duties in the centre that don't involve children.

One more thing that you should be aware of, is that you normally cannot complete your assignments at work. You will need to do this at home but you will still need to complete 38 hour/week.

If you're considering the other option of correspondence, you can definately use it in your favour to quick start your career in this industry. You can try to finish the course in a very short time. If you try really hard you can complete your certificate 3 in 6 months rather than a year through traineeship. I completed my diploma of children's services in four months. Sorry I'm not trying to brag... I'm just telling you this from practical experience, that you can do a course in a short time via correspondence if you put your mind to it !

I have a few questions on this topic -

I am currently not working in child care but studying my cert 3 through correspondence. When I come to do my Diploma I am considering a traineeship so I can get industry knowledge... are traineeships a set amount of time or can I work through as quickly as I please? Is there the opportunity to finish it early if I do the required work?

Also is the diploma traineeship wage lower then the wage I would be paid if I was working in childcare with my cert 3 and studying externally through correspondence?

Thanks!

Hey KSaund,

Typically with traineeships you will be under a contract with your employer... this means that you are required to work in the centre for the length of your traineeship. I'm not too sure but I think that even if you do happen to finish your assignments quickly you will still be under a contract... You could always do your Diploma by correspondence and work as a casual in childcare until you finish your course. Even if it takes you 6 months through correspondence to complete it, by working casually you would have already gained the industry knowledge and then you have opportunities for a diploma position.... just an idea...

I'm not too sure about the wage difference between cert 3 and diploma traineeship... I'll try and find out for you...

Cheers ,
L.A

Thanks LA, thats a good idea. I would like to get my diploma a quickly as possible - 6 months would be great!