1 Fields Park Road, Cardiff CF11 9JP
02920 343777
Academy / For Parents & Guardians
If your son or daughter is under 18 and thinking about applying, you will want to know who we are, who they will be with, and what protections are in place. All of it is below. Anything we have missed, ring us.
Who we are
Highgrove Housekeeping has been providing executive housekeeping to families across Cardiff and the Vale for years, from our base on Fields Park Road. Our clients are people we see every week and who know our staff by name.
The Academy exists because we would rather train people properly than keep hiring and hoping. It is an investment in our own business, which is exactly why we have every reason to look after the people on it.
You are welcome to visit us, meet the team, and see the base before your child applies. Most parents do, and we would encourage it.
Supervision & safeguarding
These are our standing rules for anyone under 18. They are not adjusted for busy weeks or short staffing.
Under-18s are always paired with a senior housekeeper. They do not hold keys to a property on their own, do not open up alone, and are not sent to a home unaccompanied. This applies for the whole time they are under 18, not just during induction.
Staff working with under-18s are background checked and hold photographic ID. Your child will be given one named mentor and one named supervisor, and you will have both of those names in writing before they start.
Nobody at the Academy works after 6pm. Rounds finish in the afternoon and there is no evening or night work of any kind. Under-18s are capped at 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week, with a 30-minute break after four and a half hours — these are legal limits under the Working Time Regulations and we keep records to prove we are meeting them.
Your child gets their supervisor’s number and is expected to use it. If they are under 18, you get a contact for the Academy too. If something is wrong we would far rather hear it from you on a Tuesday than find out about it in a month.
If your child is still finishing a course, we build the rota around it. Study time on the apprenticeship is paid, protected and never quietly swapped for a shift because a round is short-handed.
We carry out a specific risk assessment for young workers as required by law, covering the equipment they use, the products they handle and the homes they attend. Training on chemical safety is completed and signed off before they touch anything.
Their legal rights at work
We are setting this out because a lot of young people do not know it, and neither do a lot of first-time employers. These rights are not ours to give or withhold — they apply automatically.
If you want to check any of this independently, Acas publish clear guidance on young workers and Citizens Advice can talk it through with you free of charge. We would encourage you to do exactly that.
The awkward ones
A fair question and one you should ask any employer offering training to young people. The honest answer: your child is paid at least the statutory minimum for their age from their first day, on a proper employment contract with holiday and sick pay. We also spend money on them — certification, uniform, equipment, and a senior housekeeper’s time supervising rather than working a round of their own.
The programme only makes sense for us if people stay and become excellent. That is our motive and we are happy to say it out loud.
They are not tied in. They can leave with standard notice like any employee, and the qualifications they have earned are theirs to keep for good.
What we do ask is that training we pay for ourselves is repaid if someone leaves soon after we have funded it. That covers extras such as driving lessons and additional certification we buy on top of the government-funded qualification. It does not cover the qualification itself, which is funded and is never repayable.
The amount reduces the longer they stay and falls away completely after twelve months. It is set out in a short written training agreement that you and your child both read and sign before they start, so it is never a surprise later. Any repayment is capped so that it can never reduce their pay below the National Minimum Wage.
We would still much rather someone worked out in month three that it is not for them than spent two unhappy years here.
Experienced housekeepers who have been with us for years, are background checked, and carry photographic ID. You will be told the name of your child’s mentor before they start, and you are welcome to meet them.
Client homes are properties we have worked in regularly, with clients we know. We do not send trainees into a home we have not been to ourselves.
They ring their supervisor and they leave. That is the instruction, in writing, on day one — if a young person feels unsafe or uncomfortable in a property for any reason, they are to remove themselves and call us. Nobody has ever been criticised here for doing that, and nobody ever will be.
We are fully insured, we investigate every report, and we will withdraw from a client relationship over the treatment of our staff. We have done it before.
For some young people college is absolutely the right answer, and if that is your child we would rather they went. This suits people who learn by doing, who want to earn now, and who would struggle with two more years in a classroom.
It is not either-or in the long run. They finish with a funded qualification, real employment history, and no debt — and plenty of people go on to further study afterwards from a much stronger position.
Yes, and if they are under 18 we would prefer it. Come to the informal meeting, ask your questions, look round the base. We will also want a parent or guardian to countersign the offer paperwork for under-18s.
Speak to a person
Genuinely — we are happy to spend twenty minutes on the phone with a parent who has questions. It saves everyone time and it is how most of our best trainees have found us.
