Starting a Child Care Business

With more and more women returning to work after having children, demand for good quality childcare has skyrocketed! This means there has never been a better time to set up your own child care business. This course from UK Open Learning is designed specifically to help guide you through the process of setting up your own quality childcare business.

As any parent knows, the early years of a child's life are absolutely crucial in that his/her future health and happiness. So whether you simply wish to become a childminder or nanny, or have ambitions to run your own nursery, this Diploma course is designed to help you take that important first step in a whole new career. By taking the course you will learn how to research the childcare market and how to set up and launch your own business. The course covers a wide range of practical and interesting topics such as the registration process involved, health, safety and hygiene matters, and how to provide good customer service and involve parents.

At UK Open Learning we pride ourselves on our friendly and supportive tutors. Your tutor support will start as soon as you receive your course and will be valid for 12 months. All our tutors are highly qualified with extensive experience in supporting distance learning students. You contact your tutor via email and they are responsible for marking assignments answering your questions and guiding you through the course to ensure you are ready for your examinations.

No qualifications are necessary to study this course; it is open to anybody. At UK Open Learning we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to further their career and learn new skills.

We recommend you spend approximately 110 hours of your time studying for the Start a Childcare Business Award. The pace of study is completely up to you. To give an example, if you dedicate 2 hours a week to the course it would take you a year to complete but if you could spare 4 hours a week you could complete it in six months.

Unit One - Researching the Market. Unit Two - Setting up your business. Unit Three - The registration process. Unit Four - Launching your business. Unit Five - Health, safety and hygiene. Unit Six - Toys and Equipment. Unit Seven - Customer service and parental involvement. Unit Eight - Financial Matters.

This course is marked through a process of continuous assessment guided by your tutor. This means that your qualification will be awarded according to your performance on assessments rather than by taking an exam.

Students are assessed through a series of tutor marked assignments based on their application of the course content there is no final exam.  The assignments take the form of a series of structured questions. There is no word count for these assignments, however you have to prove to your tutor that you have fully understood the questions asked.