Parctitioner Exchange!

[Guest]

has anybody been involved with staff members joining another setting for ideas and experiences?? i recently visited a friends nursery to have a look around and ended up helping her out for a few sessions as she was short staffed!, i really enjoyed this and took away a lot of great ideas, it got me thinking about my own staff and how we could all do with seeing how other practices work etc. any ideas or suggestions about how staff could swap for a day etc. would be great

[Michelle9]

Hi there, in my area we receive a booklet called a 'Lead Practitioners' booklet. Basically it has a variety of different settings in and you can go and visit them and talk to staff who have knowledge and experience in a variety of areas.

I recently went to another Nursery and took one of my Seniors with me and we ended up staying half the day!! It was lovely though to talk to other practitioners and get some ideas and we are planning on visiting a couple of other settings to see how they set up their out door area etc. I personally enjoy it as it gives me a chance to meet other Managers and for my staff to meet other staff and for us all to mingle. We also have a sister Nursery so somtimes my staff work up there and vice versa which is also a nice change. Overall, it is a fab idea.

 

Mich

[Rea]

Well, you have the world at your finger tips on here!

 

See if you can make links with people on the forum, there was a suggestion about it a long time ago which resulted in the travelling Teddy and Rabbit (although where they are now I dont know)

I spent a wonderful at Sue R's nursery which was great and also led to friendship. I'm sure there must be other people here who would like to swap for a day.

I work for an agency so see lots of places, but before that I helped my friend out at the nursery she manages and her deputy went to where I used to work for the day. It is helpful and interesting.

[Guest]

We did this when I was doing my DPP. Everyone on the course swapped settings for a day - those of us in sessional went to a full day care setting so we could see the differences. I was lucky enough to visit a lovely setting and it made me aware of things which we don't usually deal with - like nap time routines for one. We all learned a lot from the experience and came back with new ideas.

 

Sally

[Guest]

We are arranging to visit other settings after half term!! Two of my staff are very reluctant to go on any training courses and I thought visiting another setting would really help! So they will be off to another setting for the day!! Hopefully they will bring back some good ideas as well as realising that we do some things really well too!

 

If anyone in hampshire would like to visit our setting, you are more than welcome!!

 

jx

Edited May 21, 2008 by Jenni B

[Guest]

We have also done this before, although we struggled to find a setting locally who was willing to join in. We ended up going slightly away from our catchment area and making links with them. My staff got a lot out of it but we struggled to maintain the connection due to staff changing. If we could have got a few other settings involved I think we could have made more of it but it was useful for encouraging the staff who were reluctant to train to consider other methods, etc. They have since gone on more short training courses and started to offer their own ideas of how we can work.