Kayla, senior assistant in Glasgow G31

First of all I come from a large family, there is 9 of us. I have 5 younger sisters ages between 2-15, a younger brother aged 1 and also a big brother and sister aged 20&21. I have gained most of my experience through helping bring them up. I also have old grandparents who I look after in my spare time or whenever they need me. I cook, clean, bath, read and keep them company, I give them their medicine if they require them also and they love my support and service. I am an enthusiastic and reliable, hardworking individual, I am determined to ensure every task I am given is carried out to the maximum expectations, even if I am under pressure. I love working in teams and on my own as I am great at using my own initative. I am a very confident individual, I didn't feel like I was going any further in my last place and I want to move on and gain more experience in life. The best part about my job was communicating and gaining relationships with the children and their parents. One of my favourite hobbies is cooking. I LOVE to cook! I could sit all day and night and make loads of lovely meals, treats, deserts. As weird as it sounds my favourite part about cooking is cleaning up my mess and having my friends and family try and enjoy my cooking. Another hobbie I do very often is swimming, I love having spare time on my hands or wakening up at the weekends and going for a swim. I feel like it releases stress and I feel amazing afterwards and it keeps me fit and energetic. I also like to lay in bed at night and read and whenever I have the time to sit and solve puzzles in one of my puzzles books. Working in a nursery involves being part of a team and caring for babies and children up to the age of five. You will work with parents and carers to make sure that the nursery gives their children the best care possible. That means providing a safe and stimulating environment for the children doing a variety of creative activities, taking them out on trips and generally making sure they are having fun whilst they are learning. I had a lot of duties I had to follow while working there such as supervising and monitoring the safety of children in my care, preparing meals and organising mealtimes and snacks for children, helping the children keep good hygiene, changing the diapers of infants and toddlers, organising activities so that children can learn about the world and explore interests, develop schedules and routines to ensure that children have enough physical activity, rest, and playtime, watching for signs of emotional or developmental problems in children and bring the problems to the attention of parents, keeping records of children’s progress, routines, and interest. I had other duties such as introducing babies and toddlers to basic concepts, such as manners, by reading to them and playing with them. For example, teaching young children how to share and take turns by playing games with other children. I also helped preschool-age children prepare for school. Young children learn from playing, solving problems, questioning, and experimenting. I used play and other instructional techniques to help children’s development. For example, i used storytelling and rhyming games to teach language and vocabulary. They may help improve children’s social skills by having them work together to build something in a sandbox or teach math by having children count when building with blocks. I try get the children involved in creative activities, such as art, dance, and music. I gained a lot of relationships with parents of the children I look after, I feel very well appreciated and trusted as a lot of parents ask me to babysit their children in my free time if they are busy which is an amazing feeling and which I love doing. I've also achieved some training skills such as First Aid, Cot Death Trust, Food Hygiene, Health and Safety and a lot more.