Belfast Met Early Learning and Childcare Academy Applications

Overview

This Early Learning and Childcare Academy is supported by the Department for the Economy and delivered in partnership with the Belfast Met College (BMC), Belfast. It will provide 20 individuals with the skills to take up early learning and childcare roles with one of the supporting companies: Adventures Day Nursery, Neddy Teddys, Sleepy Hollow and Wee Care.

The Early Learning and Childcare Academy consists of a twelve week training course during which participants will study accredited training modules covering safeguarding, first aid, food hygiene and manual handling in addition to practical childcare sessions, digital documentation training, workplace integration, health declaration and supervised engagement with children.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Eligible applicants will be invited to an online Information Session W/C 14 October 2024 and an Interview which will be held W/C 21 October 2024 at the Belfast Met Campus in Castlereagh. 

TRAINING

Successful applicants must be able to attend twelve weeks intensive training at BMC’s dedicated training venue in Belfast starting Monday 11 November 2024 to Friday 14 February 2025.

Training will be Monday to Friday primarily in-person, supported through e-learning resource and facilitated visits to childcare settings. Weeks 1-4 10.00am-2.30pm, Weeks 5-7 9.00am-3.00pm and Weeks 8-12 9.00am-5.00pm.

• Participants will be paid a £87.50 weekly training allowance for the first 4 weeks and £175 weekly training allowance from Week 5 to Week 12 while in training.
• Participants will be paid reasonable travel expenses covering their return journey from their place of residence to the college while in training.
• Participants may be eligible for assistance with childcare costs while in training.

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA

Applicants must:

• be at least 18 years old by Monday 11 November 2024
• have a right to work and to undertake Assured Skills Training in the UK at the point of application and not be disqualified from doing either by reason of their immigration status. Proof of this will be required in order to progress to interview.

Whilst there is no minimum level of qualifications required to apply for the BMC Early Learning and Childcare Academy, preference will be given to applicants with Level 1 or higher English and Maths (equivalent to GCSE D-G).

If living outside Northern Ireland – by accepting an offer of a place on this pre-employment training Academy, you are committing to attending training and pursuing a job opportunity with one of the supporting companies based in Northern Ireland.

APPLICATIONS OPEN

Applications are welcome from everyone who meets the essential criteria and are particularly welcome from persons returning to work from a period of caring for their children or other family members.

If you have a disability and require assistance in completing this form please email Assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk or by telephoning 028 9041 6972.

Correspondence Regarding Your Application

All correspondence relating to your application will be via email from assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk. It is your responsibility as applicant to act as required within the given time frame.

Email whitelisting helps ensure that important messages from known senders won’t end up in the spam folder.

To whitelist the assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk email address, you may wish to:

• Open your email client and navigate to the settings.
• Find the option to create a new filter or add a new contact.
• Add the email address assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk as a known contact/safe sender
• Save the changes.

The exact steps may vary depending on the email client you are using.

If you do not receive an email about your application by 11 October 2024 please contact assuredskills@economy-ni.gov.uk and put BMC Early Learning and Childcare Academy in the subject line.

To find out how we manage your information please see privacy notice below:

https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/publications/assured-skills-academies-privacy-notice

If you wish to make a complaint about the Assured Skills programme, please email assured.skills@economy-ni.gov.uk or telephone 028 9041 6941.