Looking after children – exercise 2 – key and notes
The chronological order of these various jobs and courses in Julie’s life is as follows:
D C G B A K E F M O J H N L I P
D She had had some work experience working with children in a primary school while in her final year at school.
C Julie sat five ‘O’ levels together with a pre-nursing course because her father had always wanted one of his daughters to go into nursing.
G When her daughter was at full-time school she did a nursery nursing course.
B When she had gained her NNEB Julie started working in the reception class at Ravenswood Nursery.
A She says her return to a full-time job when her son was about 2½ was a big mistake.
K She left her job as a nursery nurse after several months.
E Julie started working as a childminder at home when her son was young.
F She stayed at home for two years.
M It was around this time that Julie got divorced.
O Tumble Tots was a demanding, very physical job that Julie would have liked to continue.
J She went back into childminding working from home so she could keep an eye on things at home.
H She did a two-year HNC in Early Childhood Studies at a night class.
N Julie also had a part-time job working with children with language-learning difficulties.
L Julie had a temporary job at a primary school working one-to-one with pupils with learning difficulties who had a lot of social problems.
I Julie worked for three years as a classroom assistant at Knop Law Primary School.
P She stopped being a classroom assistant to become a care assistant.
Vocabulary
to see sth through to the end – to ensure you finish sth
nursery nurse – person trained to look after babies and young children in nurseries, crèches, playgroups, or in infant / primary schools
The reception class is the first year in an infant school
shattered – INFORMAL – exhausted
to call something a day – INFORMAL – stop the work you are doing – eg "Shall we call it a day?" = "Shall we stop now?"
To swap over – to change places so that you do what another person has been doing, and (s)he does what you have been doing. Eg "I’ll start painting the fence while you wash the car, and then we’ll swap over."
An HNC (Higher National Certificate) is a one-year course if studied full-time, and a two-year one if studied part-time.
a carer – a person, either a family member or a paid helper, who regularly looks after a sick, elderly or disabled person. A foster carer looks after a child (or children) in place of his / her (or their) parents.
a care assistant helps in the care of a person or people. The word ‘assistant’ indicates a subordinate or auxiliary position.
to care for someone is to look after and provide the needs of a person; it can also mean to be fond of someone
The term caring professions covers careers such as childcare, social work or nursing which involve looking after people.
A Geordie accent
Pronunciation: Did you notice how Julie pronounced words such as ‘my’, ‘daughters’ ‘son’, ‘Mammy’ (instead of Mummy), and ‘heart of hearts’?
Did you notice the pronunciation of the vowel ‘a’ – the long a in ‘take’ ‘a day’s placement’,’placed’ ‘stage’ ‘day to day’ ‘mistake’ ‘eight’ and the short a in ‘last’ ‘class’?
Did you notice the vowel ‘o’ in ‘O’ levels, ‘home’ and the ‘u’ in ‘tumble’ and ‘so much’?
She has a tendency to say an ‘r’ sound instead of a ‘t’ – ‘lot of’ = lorrov, ‘what I was trained to do’ = worr I was
Grammar: She says she stayed in a job for – ‘two year’ – This should be ‘two years’
When Julie says she was at her ‘most happiest’ she should have said when she was at her happiest / when she had been happiest / most happy.
In informal speech we often say ‘you’ meaning ‘I’ or ‘we’ – eg ‘By the time you got home and you had a three-year-old saying ‘play with me, Mummy!" (Mammy) you were absolutely shattered ….’