Frustration

[sarah09]

Were do i start, i have been in my place of work privately owned nursery for a few months, new challenge to help staff with planning, enviroment, and obs 4 months on and staff attitude to planning the same. Explained why we have to plan etc individual, group and for all the children, and how. still no change certain staff dont take on board what i have shown them, 1 reply was "Well i have worked here for many years now this is all i no, they havnt been on any eyfs training, the other day i asked this member of staff what would u like to see out in the messy room? Hopeing from her obs she would suggest, what a reply well i dont no wat to put out or have available, i gve up i thought, not once as there been any ideas what the children have shown interest in or to help there learning, post-it notes not being done We need to support our planning only mine, please help am very close to throwing in the towel.

[HappyMaz]

Perhaps a good place to start would be to have a planning meeting where all practitioners bring their observations of their key children so that you can plan together? That way you can model the kind of thinking and reflection that is involved in analysing observations and identifying children's next steps and deciding what resources are appropriate.

 

When the team have gone through this process a few times (and with ongoing support and encouragement from you) the value of planning this way will become clearer to them, and their confidence levels will rise.

 

From your description I wonder if they are finding the pace of change hard to keep up with - it can be difficult to change your ways when you've been used to doing things one way for a long time, or when you don't understand the reasons behind a change.

 

Good luck - I'm sure you'll get there!

[Inge]

also a few appraisals to see where the gaps are in knowledge and training needed for their own personal development.. if they have not had any updating it will be hard to understand, just being explained doesn't always work .

 

seeing things in practice often works better.. smaller steps of introducing just one thing, getting that in place and then adding the next. Took me over a year to get a well established staff to change their way of thinking but once they were able to see one thing work they embraced my next idea.. gradually we changed to what became a joint model using their input as well as mine.. bit they needed to see that I was listening and trying out their ideas and plans as well as my own..

 

until then I had a daily plan which had different ideas added to it for them to follow, showing what sort of thing I was expecting to see in the areas... this expanded their ideas just by following my list and enabling them to see how each area could/should be used ..until they eventually took over. using staff meetings to produce the plan helped them see why I was doing this.

[Guest]

I think you need some back up-have you shared your feelings of frustration with the owner? The staff may need some incentive to go to the trouble of changing their long established and comfortable ways of working.

[sarah09]

Thanx 4 all ur advice, before i started i went in 4 2 days observing everything, then had 1t1 with staff eyfs has been introduced since 2008 and shocked how little they put in practice especially child initated play and next steps, a little at a time introduced first the enviroment always asking every1s involvment, is it me asking to much but just to see some 1 sitting there well i wouldnt mind but ther younger than myself so energy must be higher lol wat to do.

[suebear]

x

Edited January 3, 2011 by suebear

[suebear]

Hi Sarah, it's so hard isn't it, inheriting staff and you have this idea in your head of where you want the setting to be and then you wake up and see the reality in front of you. I keep telling myself to be patient everyone hates change and the only way you will achieve your dream is through little steps. I'm doing a staff meeting on Wed hoping to explain and inspire, ideally with a shared vision for the future. Dreading it. The positive is childcare pay is rubbish so you know deep down their reason for doing the job is because they are caring people with a love of children. It's getting them to see they do it for the children not for OFSTED, EYFS or you. You are not creating more work for them just slowly getting them to think slightly differently to how they're used to so they can give the children the best.

 

Chin up. For that member of staff doing nothing, smile and bring attention to the learning through play child nearby. It might take the edge off your mood and maybe even make the staff take note.

 

laughter breeds smiles which in turn makes positivity

 

laugh with the child it's better than screaming at the adult

 

ok I'm not quite so sure where the philosophy crept in from....

 

good luck x

[mundia]

Hi Sarah

I wasnt sure from your post if you are the manager or not? If you're not, then think you probabaly need to enlist the support of your manager with this one. Yes change is difficult for many people, but at the end of the day there are statutory requirements of the EYFs that need to be met. So for example if none of the staff have attended any EYFS training, that might be a good place to start, either in house, or by enlisting the support of your EYA if you have one, or local training team.

 

A couple of staff meetings around the whole developmenet of the setting may be the way to move forward, if you can get the staff on board with how they might improve practice, and then as others have said, break down each task into small steps. This is also a good opportunity to think about the things that are good, and going well, and use those as a building block to improvements.

 

If the manager can then build this into appraisals, (and it may be worth looking a job descriptions too), then the staff have a choice. Those that can see that change needs to happen will go with it, but may need a lot of support, and those that really dont want it and will want to move on.

 

Good luck with it.

[Guest]

Hi,

 

I'm just readong through this as it seemed interesting considering my need to implement/support change for my EYPS. I find it hard gettiong the'more experienced' staff (who have worked at the nursery more years than my 2) to listen to my ideas and suggestions. Any I do put forward end up being done by myself only which defeats the ultimate purpose. I don't want to tread on other peoples# toes either.Just finding subtle, unobtrusive changres and enhancements to make for now.