My Grand Achievement

By Heidi McFadyen

My grand achievement was winning the title ‘Professional Nanny of the Year 2007.’  I was completely overjoyed, it was a fantastic sense of both personal and professional achievement, and words cannot express just how I was feeling on The 1st August 2007.

It was inevitable that I would work with children; I was the eldest of three with a ten-year age gap between my youngest sibling and I. Therefore I had lots of hands-on experience with her. Also my mother has been a childminder for the past 25 years and so I have spent the largest part of my life with children around me and I learnt such a lot from her.

When it was time for me to make choices towards the end of my compulsory schooling I knew exactly where I would be heading, directly to the local college to study childcare.  A few courses were offered but I settled on a BTEC National Diploma in childcare, which I thoroughly enjoyed for the whole two years that I studied.  I made some great friends and it was very interesting to observe the choices everybody made to use their qualification.  I hadn’t realised just how many routes could be taken with this course.   I decided firstly to work in a day nursery which I did for just short of two years before realising that I might actually enjoy nannying, sure enough I settled into nannying like a duck to water and have done it ever since, although I am proud to say that I have only had the pleasure of working for two families.  I have been very fortunate to find two great families to work for and so I have been able to stay with each family for a long time.

I first heard about the ‘Professional Nanny of the Year Award’  in my second employment when I read about it in the quarterly newsletter that I receive from my local nanny agency ‘Nannies at Notice’ I was reading all the general information that gets sent out and then I noticed the article about the award.  I read it a few times that evening trying to convince myself to pluck up the courage to speak to my employer about nominating me.  Why didn’t I think I wasn’t good enough, surely if she didn’t think I was good enough I wouldn’t be looking after her four children and this is how nannies should be thinking.  If your employer can leave you with there most precious possessions when they are at work all day then they must think you are worthy of the award.  I just handed my employer the article and asked her what she thought, before I had finished my sentence she was already saying lets go for it and planning how to put my application together.

The next thing I did was contact my nanny agency who were very excited at one of their nannies being nominated for this award.  I have known the proprietor of the agency for a long time and she wrote me a reference to put in with my application, which was really kind of her. 

It has been the most exciting year for me, I really enjoyed the application process, and it gave me a chance to reflect on what I do as a nanny and what being a nanny is all about.  I spent a long time putting my application together not only to make it stand out with the judges but also for my own personal record and it is something I will treasure forever.  It will be such a good documentation of what I have done and currently do to take to future employers.

The whole experience leading up to the award was amazing and I had such good fun, I met so many lovely people and have kept in touch with some of them.  After getting through the first round with my written application I was asked to attend a day at the Chiltern College in Reading.  I think I was more nervous about the M25 than the thought of the day, which actually turned out to be great fun.  After getting a guided tour of the college and the nursery I spent a couple of hours working in the nursery, which I thoroughly enjoyed and the children really enjoyed someone new to play with. The interviews then followed, well I say interviews, they were more relaxed conversations with some very nice people all interested to hear about my role as Nannies.

I then had an agonising wait for to see if I had made it through to the next round.  A letter arrived on my doorstep and I was so nervous that my Mum had to open the envelope for me. As soon as she screamed I knew I was through to the next round.   I walked into my employer’s office and screamed: “we are through”. The whole office was jumping up and down; you see where I work isn’t just myself and the family that I look after, but a large team of employees all of whom work for my employer’s business, which she runs from home.  The award had moved up from being something I would like to achieve personally, to the whole team getting involved.

A few weeks later on 1st August 2007 I headed up to North Yorkshire for the awards ceremony.  With four children in tow, a very packed car and a two and a half hour drive ahead of us on the day of the award presentation the car was buzzing with excitement.  The children were so excited for me and kept saying “super nanny you’re the best!!!”  I wish at this point I had their confidence. I was so nervous I had no idea what to expect.  I was lucky that I had made friends with one of the other finalists so when I arrived it made it much more relaxing.  We were taken into the conference hall and were shown to our seats.  I was taken in my surroundings when I heard my name called out.  I was secretly gutted that my name had been called out first as surely that meant that I had come third so I sat and waited for the winner to be called out when I was given a large nudge and told “you have just won, you need to go on to the stage”. Woo-hoo -  is exactly what I thought for just one second before all the thoughts of, what if I trip up, what if they have made a mistake?  To my delight I made it from my seat to the stage in one piece and was handed the award.

Nannies having fun: Lorna Powell, Heidi McFadyen and Helen Bird.

All I could see for the next couple of hours were the flashes of camera’s I have never been photographed so much.  It was so much fun, I was photographed on children’s play equipment and lots with my award.  I will treasure these memories and photographs forever.  The rest of the day was very quiet apart from the huge number of texts that I received from friends and family back home. 

I couldn’t say the same for the next day.  Myself, my employer and all the children had stayed in North Yorkshire for the night so whilst going around the Railway Museum with them I did an interview with local Radio for my home county of Cambridgeshire, then I had the newspapers calling for interviews although all of this was alien to me but I still enjoyed the whole experience and soon settled into the fact that I was a bit of a local celebrity.  I didn’t stop smiling for at least a month. A sign was even put up in my village pub to announce my achievement, which was very touching. Although I was doing a lot of interviews the companies involved were prepared to do the interviews out of work hours.  I didn’t want the fact that I had won this award to take me away from the real reason that I had won the award and this was the children.  The four children who were now on school holidays and needed my attention. Although out of work hours I was more than happy to speak to anyone and to write articles such as this.  I have discovered that I in fact actually enjoy writing especially on a subject that I am passionate about. 

I have gained so much confidence in myself something that as a child, teenager and a young adult I lacked.  I have given talks and have given advice to other nannies and this has really helped me to become a stronger more confident person and before I was given this opportunity I would never have been able to get the courage to do this, so for me it has been a huge boost for my self-confidence.

When I hand over my award I will really miss writing these articles and doing all of the things that have been linked with the award. I think also for the Nanny Agencies who have nannies nominated for this prestigious award it is a great achievement and it will look fantastic to future families and nannies who join the agency.  I have spoken about and written about my agency such a lot that I hope it has been good advertisement for them. After all it is the least I could do, they found my the fantastic job that I am now in and have given me so much support over the years and towards the award and for that I am very grateful. I would like to help any nannies who would like to be nominated for the award or even for people who are thinking of taking up a career in nannying because even though you have to qualified for a minimum of two years now is the time to work hard and think about applying. It gives you fantastic opportunities and what an achievement gaining the title of ‘Professional Nanny of the Year.’

I would like to wish all of the future nominees the very best of luck and even if you’re not the winner just being nominated is an achievement in itself and will look fantastic on you C.V.  Good Luck.

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