The Village Nursery was named after the African proverb ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Director Julie Lightley says, ‘We are very much of that mind. It is not just down to the manager to give the staff everything they need and to support them. It is all of us.’
The group’s six settings have an open and questioning culture, she says, facilitated by discussion apps, social media groups and regular feedback to management. ‘Staff welcome it,’ she says, ‘because the worst thing is to leave them in isolation.’
Induction
The group’s induction process lasts three months. Ms Lightley says, ‘We used to cram it in on the first day, which was so wrong. We picked all that apart and built a new induction system which takes them through the probation period.’
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The whole team is involved. An experienced member of staff is assigned as mentor, as well as a buddy (someone whom staff think they will get on with), while the new staff member will have meetings with key staff such as the designated safeguarding lead away from the children to better understand their role.
‘A lot of the time with policies and procedures, it is “here you are, go and read them”. We make sure staff have a time to read, digest and understand,’ Ms Lightley says.
Quizzes on issues such as safeguarding are built into the induction package, and discussions in staff meetings and supervision help embed them further. An app is used for communicating with and between the 200 staff, which is also used to work out how policies apply in practice.
Open communication
Ms Lightley says the app is also used for feedback questions, which she sees and can then raise issues with the manager or discuss them further with the staff member. ‘Feedback questions are on things like if people understand their role or if they have everything they need to fulfil it. Small things like having resources can help their emotional wellbeing.’
The setting introduced a new planning system ahead of the new education inspection framework due to come in this September, which has been discussed on the app. ‘Staff are already saying it helps them feel less stressed,’ Ms Lightley adds.
The group also has two quality and relationship managers. ‘A big part of their job is going around the nursery and talking to the staff. They will ask them if they have everything they need, they will ask them questions about safeguarding and see if there are any gaps in their knowledge and do peer observations, as well as the manager,’ Ms Lightley says. They also monitor the ‘emotional environment’ of different parts of the setting.
Early dialogue about problems usually helps make staff feel supported, rather than defensive, but she adds, ‘If they flag up they don’t like the culture, we will talk about it. We feel practice is better because of it. Most of the staff welcome it. We are not afraid of making mistakes. We ask lots of questions. Because we go into this level of detail, it does help staff think “is this where I want to be?’’.’
Culture of professional development
The setting has an annual conference for all staff, the last of which was with trainer Alice Sharp. Ms Lightley and her operations director have completed an MA in education, three managers just completed their early years degrees, mostly with EYTS, while external training is common. Each manager meets the senior team once per month and reviews the whole nursery and children’s progress, looks at training needs and gets reading materials.
Each staff member has a personal development log where they note all their learning – 70 per cent through experiences in work, 20 per cent through relationships (this includes supervisions and professional discussions) and 10 per cent through more formal CPD.
Best practice is shared, and the six managers are ‘close’ and in frequent contact with each other to offer support and ideas.
Another innovation was borrowed from car classifieds company Autotrader. Each month the senior team plot where they think staff are on a graph, which measures ‘performance’ on one axis and ‘potential’ on the other. ‘We do this for the entire team. From that you get some really good reflective discussion. We can flag up any professional issues as well, and then you need to have a different kind of discussion,’ says Ms Lightley.
She adds, ‘It helps to think about what support to give that member of staff.’
Nursery overview
Name The Village Nursery Group
Number of settings 6
Established 2005
Location North West
Chief executive Julie Lightley
Hopscotch early years consultancy comment
‘They know what they need to identify… proactive about addressing these weaknesses; expectations of staff are really clear.’
