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I have a member of staff who just does not comprehend 2 year olds regarding their ages & stages of development. I have put lots of support in place, yet her expectations still remain far too high. She is from another country where I think strictness and expectations may be part of her cultural background. (I don't mean to have a judgement but from what she has said, leads me to believe this.)

 

Despite putting lots of things in place for support/learning, she still talks inappropriately to children, such as saying 'your bad behaviour'.... Or 'stop it, I said stop it now.'

 

I have done supervisions. Other staff members feeling uncomfortable. Wondering what my 'next steps' should be?

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Same as above.

There is something else you could try though: mimic her behaviour back to her. It is not very nice and you may feel uncomfortable, but it might work and it's much better to educate that to discipline. It might be best done during a staff meeting, but that depends on what you choose to do and is up to you.

To put it into context ... as her expectations are too high, set her a task that she is unable of completing. For example, ask her paint [enter something difficult here] or give her a complex mathematical equation and say you need the answer for your finances or something. When she says she can't, ask her 'why not?' Be rude, be mean. You can then ask whether or not she feels you have set her a task past her stage of development, and ask her how she thinks the children must feel when she does the same.

For the two things you've quoted her saying, you can do something similar. Set her a simple task (such as changing a display board) and walk past regularly correcting things. Say 'stop it, stop it now! I don't want it straight, I want it at an angle.' Or 'that's rubbish, you're really bad at this!' Again you're gonna have to be mean and then point out the correlation between what you're doing and how it makes her feel and what she does to the children and how it makes them feel.

Be sure to explain that it was all an attempt to get her to see things from the other side, and maybe even apologise.

Maybe I'm just a big meanie though, I don't know :P

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Maybe I'm just a big meanie though, I don't know :P

 

:o Oh you are!

 

Just kidding - I get the idea and can see that it might work - but not sure that I could bring myself to do that :blink:

 

Could you try videoing her interactions with children - not just hers all staff - and have a session where these videos can be 'critiqued'?

 

Other than that I think I would have to go down the disciplinary route.....

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I saw it done to a practitioner who always corrected children's artwork and told them how to do it etc.
During a staff meeting we were all given playdough and asked to make a snail during the meeting, to give us something to do. The manager kept going over to the practitioner and changing her snail saying she was doing it wrong. It was brutal, but she got the message :P

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Have you spent a session with her? You could introduce it as a mentoring session. Sit with her and every time she uses a comment such as you have mentioned. Stop her move her away and tell her what she did wrong. Be brave and tell her "it is not part of this setting's ethos to say it's bad behaviour" then ask her to break down what happened, what the reasons were and other ways she could have resolved it without damaging the children. Be consistent and keep it going for the whole session and another if you have to. But if she can't understand and find other ways of saying things then I do think you have to go down disciplinary.

Good luck

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