New job - need to vent!

[SewandSew]

The setting I was manager at for 20 years closed at the beginning of the summer holidays, it was owned by a church. The  committee was made up of elderly church members and with no one younger to take over they made the decision to close. The closure and redundancies weren’t handled very well, so I guess I’m a little sensitive. 

I started my new job yesterday, I accepted a practitioner role in July. Because of my previous experience they decided to make deputy and Safeguarding lead which I found out yesterday, I don’t know if I want to be safeguarding lead again (thought I would take a step down as I’m no spring chicken anymore). I’ve had no induction yet there does yet seem to be any induction paperwork.
At snack the grapes weren’t cut up and was told they don’t normally cut them up, they were then cut up. The staff use the same toilets as the children. They have a disabled toilet with a changing station and ladies with two cubicles, the children are encouraged to use one cubicle and the staff use the other. Does anyone else do this? at my last setting staff used the gents and children used the ladies.

I was then told about my break and when I asked when it would be I was told I could take it when I want. I asked about ratios and was told I could be counted in ratio even if I was not in the building. There is no where to go away from the children and I do understand in a church hall space is hard to come by but I made sure staff had somewhere to go as I feel it’s important.

And just to top it all off there is no car park I will have to pay £2.70 per day to park. I did know this before but after 20 years of parking outside the building it was a bit of a shock. I also know I have been very lucky to have had parking.

I know it will take sometime to get used to the change but right now I feel like walking but I can’t. Apologies for the long rant.

[louby loo]

Sorry to hear about your setting's closure. 

I think any new job takes a while to settle into, however your new place does seem to have some bad practise going on!

Does it have any possitives to focus on, maybe you could build up from those?   What kind of setting it it? Have they taken you on in the hope you will change things, or they just an old setting very set in there ways? 

Our setting has been around for years and always used to share toilets, but that has changes now that ofsted removed the 1 toilet - 10 children rule. We now do as you say and staff use the mens, children use the ladies.

Sorry, lots of questions, but I do hope things get better for you.

[sunnyday]

Oh dear, this all sounds less than satisfactory to me, I'm so sorry that you find yourself in this position

The 'grapes' thing beggars belief what on earth are they thinking - tell them to 'Google' Oliver Steeper - that might wake up their ideas...

[SewandSew]

My new setting is a preschool in a Church hall again and out of all the offers I had they paid the best, most of the preschool/ nurseries round here have a standard level 2 and 3 pay rate no adjustment for experience/ higher qualifications.

My previous setting had been running for over 50 years in one form or another. It was a very good setting to work for and payed really well until the redundancy issue.

I don’t think they hired me specifically to help them make changes, but they had failed their previous Ofsted because of not meeting certain statutory requirements. I think they feel that they can pick my brains to stop that happening again. The staff member who is taking over as Supervisor has asked me lots of things but seems to have fixed ideas about what she wants to change.
I need to be in work so I guess I’m stuck for now I will make some suggestions about the above issues and see if things improve as louby loo suggested. The  grape thing did shock me though as I thought that was common knowledge and something everyone did even my daughter said she knew. 
Thanks for the support I feel a bit better about the whole thing this evening.

[finleysmaid]

If you are in charge of safeguarding can you use that to try and ram through some changes? The grapes is a child protection issue, the staff ratio could be under safeguarding, toilets safeguarding etc....maybe you could approach the supervisor and do the i know im new here but since you put me in charge of safeguarding may i discuss a few potential issues with you?

[louby loo]

Any better today?  If they do get around to doing an induction (Not doing them is yet another SG red flag!) this would be an ideal time to meaniton your SG role and what you've observed.  Do they have supervison in place?

New jobs are hard at the best of times- let alone when you see things that shouldnt be happening 🙁

[SewandSew]

Tackled the grape thing today, had lots of paperwork I kept as it was going to be thrown. I had a table from the food standards agency on early years choking hazards that I shared.
I asked about an induction and was told they thought they would give me a few days to settle in. I explained that I would prefer to do it as soon as possible as I’m a bit lost not knowing what their policies and procedures are. So it’s going to happen on Friday (the preschool is only open three days per week at the moment) I will mention my other concerns then.

I still have some mixed feelings but I will see how the induction goes and just keep reminding myself that it’s going to feel strange for a while.

Thank you very much for checking in.

 

[Helen]

How did your meeting go? I hope you have found a way to move forward positively. 🙂

[SewandSew]

No induction yet, no information taken from me for records/payroll etc.

I don’t think it’s a bad setting they seem to care about the children and want the best for them. The staff member taking over as supervisor seems unsure of what she needs to do in relation to all the day to day stuff. Also the retiring supervisor comes in to do stuff so I think there is a little bit of not wanting to let go and completely hand over.
I have shown the new supervisor how to do some things and shared a lot of my paperwork such as my planning and curriculum.

I don’t know what to think at the moment I don’t think I could leave after such a short time I would feel really guilty for leaving them in the lurch.