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This just popped up on my social media timeline....! wrote it four years ago when I was getting to the end of my tether with paperwork and ticking boxes for bean counters and Government stats.... Ode to the Early Years Practitioner I’d like to be a smiley face and holding children’s hands Whilst guiding them through early years supporting where I can I’d like to sit and play a while, converse and skip and hop I’d bounce around with little ones who run and never stop I’d like to help the mixing, the gluing and the gloop And then lay back exhausted in the resting space all pooped I’d like to sustain thinking but not over rule or lead But follow in the learning dance and be there when they need I’d like to taste and smell and touch and see and hear and laugh But all too often nowadays I’m stifled by the graphs The tracking and the funding forms, the ECAT and the files They suck away my inspiration, eat away my smiles And instead of reading stories and singing nursery songs I’ve sleepless nights and furrowed brows and thought of all the wrongs And then just as I think , I’ve finished and can breathe Someone does an audit…………. that I’m not allowed to leave! ..... Plus ca change plus ca reste la meme!

alas Mouseketer, I have become a dictator......you either follow my rules or you don't come! I def have more problems with the grown ups than I ever get with the children!! Would you like me to come on over and sort them out face to face , man to man, dictator to dictator and if necessary break my own "it's never ok to hit anyone" rule?....because frankly it sounds like this person just needs a slap! (not that I advocate violence etc....but honestly).. PS I think I might have had this person with me last year (or maybe their clone?)..Can we have a couple of days, can we have all week, 2 days into term, we might be moving, one mot=nth into term, my circumstances have changed theyre going somewhere they can do longer days, end of the next term, it hasnt worked out can we come back for a day or two whilst we sort something else out?..in the end I lied and said I had no spaces ....NO YOU CAN@T GO AWAY AND MESS SOMEONE ELSE'S PAPERWORK< STAFFING AND NUMBERS AROUND!!! So happy to help if you need a heavy!

Crikey for a moment there I thought I had written this .....exhausted 💤 things going so well I have to keep remind myself these are not normal times☠️ and who doesn't like a bit of 💩.....our best moment was yesterday , tipping it down with 🌧️ we are completely outside, only 4 children turn up...so one to one we walk them to the high street and treat them to a Babycinnos with marshmallows which we brought back and sat under the gazebo snuggled up with for snacktime 🌈

as someone who has "thin hair"👩 at the best of times I have no idea what thinning scissors are, how they are used or indeed why anyone would need them.....Personally I think anyone using them is probably just showing off...unless of course your using them on your legs🦵 or moustache 🧔in which case I completely understand!🤣

I'm not in school so this is all a bit alien to me but if I had to then I would think that this year I would write about how well the child has coped with the changes and stress of the last few months and then add that this is in no small part down to the wonderful support and work that was done at home during lockdown. I would then add that all learning experiences help to build a strong young person ready for the next step in their learning and that you are very proud of the child and how resilient and resourceful they have become.......

I think this very much depends on how your setting works....in my case I decided against the "official" paperwork led sign on the dotted line approach and instead we has a meeting at pre-school the Friday before we went back chairs in a circle all distanced and a cup of coffee and pack of biccies. They had already seen the game plan but then I spoke about how each of us would need to be responsible to ourselves, our families and the team as a whole and how if anyone felt that they were being unsafe, asked to do something they didn't feel comfortable doing, felt someone else was being unsafe etc they MUST speak up and that would absolutely be the right thing to do. We spoke about individual feeling and how each of us would have our own personal levels of risk and our own self imposed boundaries and that for this to work and everyone to be safe we needed to be very honest and that although we had done loads of risk assessing etc that at anytime anyone felt unwell they absolutely must not come in and even if that meant we couldn't open because perhaps others were off that was what would happen as it was the right thing for everyone's safety and no one was to feel bad etc. (normally being a small PVI pre-school my staff struggle in even if they have a leg hanging off). We sat and chatted about how scared we were all feeling . I suggested that if staff felt very vulnerable then they could ask not to do certain jobs (like bathroom runs etc or handovers with parents). I think this approach helped staff to feel part of the solution and not just an "employee" signing yet another policy etc.

Yea tis ye olde weekend and I am determines NOT to spend one minute of this one working unlike the last four or five. Have a lovely weekend one and all. Gardening for me i think xx

suggest you throw her the filing cabinet full of regs, h&s guidance, insurance docs and ask her to do some problem solving on that one!

alas not normal is the new normal

It certainly is .....well done

To be honest this whole thing in many ways has helped me to reassess my own situation....for the first time in 20+ years I had a chance to step back and evaluate what pressure I have been putting myself under. I hit a milestone later this year and I am really considering retiring which is something if you had asked me about at Christmas last year I would have laughed about and said I had no intention of doing. The peace of lockdown and time for myself, the way we have been thrown back in the deep end with so little consultation and common sense, the jumping through hoops, constant producing of figures and statistic for the local authority, the failure of parents to conform to the systems in place for their protection has just made me wonder.....I sort of miss lockdown!

it is natural....but once you get back on the horse you will remember how to ride without fear xx

Sunnydat...on our first day back we all felt like this we were scared, not sure we were doing the right thing...even though we had a great game plan in place (if I say so myself as its author).....but by day two all those feelings had gone an I am now pleased we have gone back because like you I had got to the stage where I was almost having a panic attack at the thought of going into a busy place,seeing people, going back to work....and I am NOT a panicker! So I completely understand where you are coming from but what I can say is once you get pack out there it will be fine.

She has said she will but trouble is she isn't the most confident of people. I hope she will. Its not our borough otherwise I would have said something via official channels to our team......having had an extra week you would have thought they had considered the guidance even more than those of us in last week.

maybe it was I'll have a google on that after work today and see if I can find something that fits..thank you

thank you. Alas I dont think Ill ever find my lovely book again.....never mind

well one of my colleagues dropped her children at school today as she has been doing throughout lockdown only to discover her schools onsite pre-school had reopened today.....all the children.🤧..all the parents🤢 no social distancing🥶, no staggered starting times etc😵 all standing alongside the poor keyworkers bubble. 🥵

Oh That is terrible....but you will not be alone on the financial front I am sure.

Hello and welcome

Hi Lisa....I can't help you with your question I'm afraid as we are an old fashioned paper based setting however I just wanted to say welcome 🙂 I know there are others who will be happy to help

had the schools there reopened this last week? I know in some areas they had already delayed until the 15th...either way its both very concern but also very confusing for the children. Better not to mention the sweetie shop at all than take the child to the sweeties shop and then say its open but you cant buy any sweets because I haven't brought my purse. I saw on a professional FB group I belong to that some teachers are being told they cant teach too much either as that would be unfair on the children still at home....I understand the arguments for reopening, I understand the arguments for staying closed....what is not understandable is how confusion in anyway shape or form helps children's education or development. It would have been so much better to have used this half term to properly plan for Sept and how we can get all children back permanently than have this higgledy piggledy approach which is distracting from transitions and has only established ways of working which are not sustainable for the larger schools etc. We have been back a week and are already having to reorder gloves, aprons etc Don't get me wrong we are back and it feels good...but it isn't real life, it isn't sustainable (my break even point is higher than the current limit), and what children have always thrived on is stability...and it appears we are far from that.

That makes perfect sense...I think those of us who normally operate with 26 and who are now operating with 16 are in a different position which is why the question was asked.

When I first started a lifetime ago we had a wonderful book in our pre-school which was published I think by UNESCO and had been donated to the pre-school by them to address the issues raised by cultural diversity with the view to gently teaching children about racism. We used it a lot to talk about how we are all different and yet we are all humans. Alas ten or so years ago we had a serious flood and one of the books which was damaged beyond repair was this book. It was I think about a little girl and she lived on one side of a hill . I think she was either blue or green and her drawing was quite geometric maybe a square or a triangle.. on the other side of the hill there was another village and they were (blue/green?) different . I can only remember that somehow the little girl ended up in the other village and I think the two villages were constantly fighting over who was better. Every time something happened like she was ignored or a bad thing was said , or she witnessed unfairnessr she started to fade away. I thought it was called something like "The little girl who vanished" . It was a lovely lead into talking about racism/tribalism of any sort etc. Given the current situation in the world and having a small budge I would like to find simple stories suitable for the 2-4 age group which I can pop into our book corners area so that we can once again be more proactive in tackling this issue head on but in an appropriate way for our age group (who in my experience for the most part don't even notice coloour/cultural differences etc). Do any of the really ancient forum members remember this book? Or indeed still have one which they use..if so what is it called and does is have a number ..I suspect its out of print even if I could remember the name and if so probably a collectors item. Does anyone have any really good books on this subject which they use?

really they've kept that quiet I hadn't heard that

it looked like it might be a beach hut by the pics and there was def some sort of beach shop/stall open because that was in one of the piccies with the usual "seaside" stuff outside and the children standing in front of it....and of course this works both ways they could have transferred things down there and likewise they could have picked up something given the rising rates down there and potentially brought it into the setting had we said "Oh yes come back next week". So much of this is all about trust...and of course they would be the first to complain if they picked up something from a child in setting or a member of staff and yet no consideration the other way