Rebecca

We're doing planned phone calls, zoom calls or Tapestry reports depending on what the parents want. We're pretty much redoing our usual parents evening but over the course of 6 weeks

Yesterday was fun ... 22 3 year olds caught in that torrential hailstorm. Our nursery garden is big, with trees - but it is a minute-long walk for little legs. So there I am in the office, minding my own business with my co-manager - "Goodness, listen to that rain!" ... "Where are the pre-school group?" ... "Oh blimey, they're in the garden". Cue us both grabbing coats and going to the door - I couldn't see my hand in front of my face! Said to co-manager you stay here, no point us both getting drenched. I ran up to the garden where my staff had got the children huddled under a big tree out of the worst of the storm. But they couldn't stay there. So, ensued a mad few minutes where we marched them back to the building - some crying as the weather was quite scary, some laughing because they love an adventure, others not seeming to notice! Back to the building - every child was wet through to the skin. Cue every child taking their clothes off "I'm all wet", brand new pre-schoolers looked at the older ones taking their clothes off and promptly stripped, including taking nappy off. A pile of wet coats, clothes, nappies and wellies!! It took the 3 preschool teachers, me, me co-manager and our office manager 20 minutes to restore order - everyone in dry clothes (mostly which were their own) all wet clothes bagged, cuddles distributed to those in need. No need to wash down the garden toys last night, they had their own wash. I then had to go straight to a meeting, feeling decidedly soggy. Thank goodness for hot baths. Today, I am working from home ....

Sending love Sunnyday x

... and then Covid came! One of our parents said "Ofsted and a pandemic in the same year should be illegal" I don't disagree!!

Are you still able to claim back the SSP for those who are self isolating? I claimed for staff back in March and April.

You are tiptoeing round very dangerous territory with my friend Sue, she'll be after you if you accidentally say the 'mishmosh' word early

We tend to discuss RPs at appraisal - they are always reviewed annually and can be taken away if agreed targets aren't met - or split between 2 people if they want to share the work with a colleague. As an owner / manager I'm just much happier being transparent and being able to demonstrate (in however small a way) that ideas / application of CPD etc can be rewarded (so there is a point to going on training) - you can also have more than one RP if you have responsibilities in different areas. We thought that RP1 took an additional hour a week of your time, RP2 1.5 hours and RP3 2 hours. That's in addition to your working hours with the children as a key person

Not brilliant to be honest. But we soldier on. My dad (81) is still managing to care for my mum at home but not for much longer. Looking at care homes as we expect to need one within 6 months. Thank you for remembering x

Helloo! 👋 I'm still here - been head down hard at it since March ... gradually feeling like we know what we're doing. Now have 45 children back in every day - 3 bubbles. All staff that wanted to return are back - one has gone on Maternity, one was on a temporary contract anyway and one wants to be with her school age children and that doesn't work with full day care hours. I'm a bit frayed round the edges, but I'm back back back!

We're a full day nursery so our finances are slightly different. We went through this a couple of years ago becasue I lost a valued member of staff as she couldn't take the 'fairness' of being paid less becasue she was young (but qualified) against an older person (over 25) with little experience. I took the bull by the horns and devised a payscale. I based it on our local authority advertisement for LA nursery provision - it worked out as NLW + depending on qualifications. So we have the 25yr olds rate as our base and everyone else builds from that. It is only pence different per hour but it does show clearly the difference between qualified and unqualified. I also brought in Responsibility Points - valued at £500, £750 and £1000 a year that staff could have as add ons to their salary. So our L3 staff would get NLW +3% and then if they have additional responsibilities they have RPs added on (like teachers do) - my room leaders have RP3 which adds £1000 a year to their salary. If staff go on a course or are enthused by something they can write to me and ask for a RP for a period of time e.g RP1 for a term to reorganise our outside play area, or to take responsibility for organising an area of the curriculum.

yes, that's what we do

Each of our bubbles has 3 sets of their own sand which is rotated through the week. Played with and then quarantined. We haven't had our shared sand pit since March

If it had been me I would have done the following: advised parent to stay home and phone the NHS advice line - need to stay home as they have temperature child stays home with parent if parent is told by NHS that it is likely that it's previous illness then child can come to nursery if parent is told to get test then child must isolate for 10 days If parents test is negative the child can return if test is positive then child must see out isolation period, if develops symptoms then must get test Family needs to keep you informed all the way through. Yes, you can insist child doesn't attend - it's the government requirement Hope that is helpful 🙂

I like these too - however they do require a more in-depth understanding of child development, which I'm not seeing in the current training at L2 and L3. I'll not be 'throwing baby out with the bathwater' and I will continue to refer staff to the age/stand guidance in the pre20/21 Development Matters. I think skilled and knowledgeable teachers will find these checkpoints helpful as reminders but there will be a lot of work to do with those staff who don't have that experience / skilled understanding (yet). With the workforce issues of losing the highly qualified (expensive) staff in favour of the cheaper apprentices I foresee issues in this area. Staff CPD for this will be essential.

I'm concentrating on getting my team feeling super confident about what they already know and can do in preparation for this less prescriptive document. As Helen has said, "It's either too detailed or not detailed enough- and I don't think it's either", which in my team reflects the different levels of confidence and professional development of the staff. I've got some for whom a prescriptive document is like 'teaching granny to suck eggs' and will get their backs right up. I've also got some super newbies who want line by line instructions of what to do next with the children. It's a document that can work for both I think. With the requirement to really know and understand the children in our care we can safely say that the most important thing for all staff is the relationships they have with the children and the partnerships they have with their families. With the secure relationships in place learning comes naturally and emerging issues for children 'jump out'. I decided that we would, whilst working with the original DM, begin to think of our planning 'thematically'. This is very much not topic based. I've described it to my team thus: "Thematic planning is like going to the supermarket to buy 'some dinner', topic planning is like going to the supermarket to pick up the ingredients for spaghetti bolognaise" - with topic planning you have a route A to B, with thmeatic planning you have an A and then you might end up anywhere ... but you will have had fun going round all the aisles! So, to introduce this document we have had a huge staff focus on reflective practice - we are all thinking ahead (deciding that we need 'some dinner', if you like) and then we are all chipping in and sharing our thoughts and ideas. We're doing this on Tapestry Reflections - it keeps a really nice record of what everyone's thinking, staff can 'pinch' each other's ideas and chip in suggestions and we can link onservations as we go along to build a picture. Becasue everyone is involved, my highly qualified staff can use thier skills to support less knowledgable colleagues and my newbies aren't as exposed as they would be if they were asked to contribute verbally. It also means that with the social distancing requirements that Bubbles don't mix, staff can still talk to each other. So far, a week in, we have had some fabulous activities (provocations) which the children have already taken off in unexpected directions - which is perfect. In short, the document requires us to know our children and know what they need to do next to support their development or fuel their imagination and motivation - that isn't new. I think if you were to 'teach' to the goals then you would be too prescriptive and so many wonderful opportunties could be missed. If you take a more holistic view I think their is scope to make of the document what you want - I'll be doing that until someone tells me that's wrong! The powers that be can change the paperwork as much as they like, the children don't change - I'm working with that in the forefront of my mind.