When coronavirus restrictions hit, baby and toddler class provider Hannah Dixon (pictured)instructed her Hartbeeps South Buckinghamshire team to deliver sessions online. But ahead of restarting face-to-face events, she and around 170 staff, who make up Hartbeeps in four countries, completed an online course by Flick Learning entitled Returning To Work Safely: Education and Childcare Training.
Ms Dixon used the Level 2, CPD-accredited course to guide risk assessments in class locations. It covered the latest UK Government guidance for people working in schools, colleges, early years settings and childcare. The eight-minute presentation is composed of graphics, videos and multiple-choice questions. Flick updates the course every time advice changes, so delegates can redo or refer to it again in the future. ‘It’s a really good format to be able to train all your staff very quickly,’ Ms Dixon says.
The course helped Ms Dixon and her team develop a class format that avoided contamination through props such as egg shakers or scarves. ‘Based on the training, we’re going to give each child individual packs,’ she says. ‘They will use that for a session, then they will be cleaned down.’
It also helped her realise that despite planning to distance parents and children using yoga mat ‘islands’, such efforts would be undermined by ‘crossover points’, such as when accessing toilets. ‘You will have to have a traffic-light system – i.e. Put up your hand if you need to go to the toilet,’ Ms Dixon says.
Delegates receive a virtual certificate if they pass with a test score of at least 75 per cent. Ms Dixon says Hartbeeps practitioners have shared their certificates on social media to reassure customers the company is taking safety seriously. She adds the course has helped standardise training, as managers administrating subscriptions to Flick Learning are able to run reports to check who has completed training.
