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It’s a manny’s world! Teenager becomes first male undergraduate at prestigious ‘Mary Poppins’ nanny college
Posted on September 7, 2012, Friday
It’s normally only women who are trained in the art of turning curtains into costumes and become a dab hand at changing nappies at a world-famous nanny college.
But now one male teenager is set to be the first-ever man to pass through the education degree course that turns out the modern Mary Poppins, the Daily Mail reports.
Now Michael Kenny is hoping to become practically perfect in every way while he attends Norland College, in Bath.
Student Michael Kenny, 18, is the only male in a classroom full of 48 women studying at the college – but it takes more than a spoonful of sugar to pass the demanding course.
Michael, who has had to endure lots of jokes from his friends, admitted he initially wasn’t even sure if the college in Bath, Somerset, took on male students.
He had to ring the college to check – because he had only ever seen female students around the city.
Now while his female counterparts wear the classic cream dress and brown hat, he will don a tweed jacket, cream shirt, matching tie and beige trousers for his studies.
But he says instead of feeling out of the loop he has been warmly welcomed by all of the female students.
Michael said: ‘Funnily enough they have just been caring more about how I have been feeling, making sure I am OK.’
Michael says he was drawn to the job because he has spent time teaching English and math to severely disabled children in an Ugandan orphanage.
He said: ‘I wanted to work with children because I can understand young people a lot better – I find them a lot easier to get on with.
‘I think I would like to be a nanny for a few years, because it is the whole reason you go through the training.
‘But then after that I would like to do a PGCE and become a nursery teacher or work in a prep school.’
Norland College principal Liz Hunt welcomed Michael to the fold and said her supercallifragilisticexpialidocious students were more in demand than ever before.
She claimed every graduate will have a job offer sourced by the college’s in-house nanny agency so they are ready to start straight after finishing their studies.
Hunt said: ‘We always have more job opportunities than we have students, the demand certainly outstrips supply.
‘The modern-day Norland graduate also goes on to work in a wide range of careers such as management of nurseries or primary school teaching.’
Peter Cummins was the first ‘manny’ to study at the world-famous Norland College for nannies.
He was the only male among his class of 21 girls to take the three year Diploma course and passed ‘with merit’.
Peter, 22, from Dyfed, Wales, said at the time: ‘I don’t see any problem. My careers adviser hinted that it was very female-dominated, but I took no notice.
He said: ‘I wanted to work with children because I can understand young people a lot better – I find them a lot easier to get on with.
‘I think I would like to be a nanny for a few years, because it is the whole reason you go through the training.
‘But then after that I would like to do a PGCE and become a nursery teacher or work in a prep school.’
Michael, whose parents Simon and Mary, sister Alice, 17, and brother John, 12, live in Uganda, will be only the second male in the college’s 120-year history to graduate with the Norland Diploma.
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