communication

[Melba]

As our setting gets larger, I have found that it has become difficult to manage the communication between staff and myself. Either they ask me everything or they don't bother to tell me things I needed to know. There is absolutely no question that I would be left to pick up the pieces if they had done something wrong!

How do other managers deal with this? Do you expect to know everything? If so how do you communicate that to staff? What do you do if important information is not passed on to you?

[lsp]

We use an A4 full page diary which is out and open. Everything, including phonecalls, children absent etc gets written down but we are a small, one room sessional setting.

[Foreveryoung]

I found this too as we grew massively over the last year or so. We have one time for in and one for out, it used to be rota led who did open door but now I do it every session so I get most of the info from parents. Parents say things to others as they drop off so I check any messages at registration. Hardest thing I did was delegate roles and make these more productive, so now have area leaders who hold area mtgs fortnightly, last about 15 min. Also it gives the team extra people to grab to pass on info then area leaders take the decision if I need to know as. I don't need to know everything. It works well now but took a while, I do staff newsletters also to ensure my info gets out too. did use a white board for a while but it's just something else to write when they are already running around like chickens, phone calls can be answered by anyone but one of leaders is to be informed immediately after.

I know if I was them and didn't see me for a good 20 mins I would forget too, I have post it's to find post its !

[Mouseketeer]

A tapestry 'staff notice board' would be great, I get fed up of one or the other saying I didn't tell them things or they don't tell me things (embarrassing when you have to apologise that you don't have a clue what a parent is talking about) If I had the space to spare I'd make a child called notice board and add to all staff as a child, they could all be its parent....not for chn stuff but dates/times of meetings, reminders etc....