At Dukes and Duchessses in the centre of Liverpool, you won’t find strip-lighting, headache-inducing colours or even staff in uniform. EYT Liz Ludden says the impact of the changes on behaviour was immediate. She says, ‘Before, the children were more stressed and more boisterous. After, they were naturally grouping together. We also changed the carpet from dark blue to a more neutral colour. We took away all of the harsh colours and it made the room look bigger and brighter.’
The training that led to this was part of ‘Stepping up to the two-year-olds challenge’, a research project from the Liverpool EYFS Quality Improvement Team. The setting received five sessions each on learning environments and working with parents. Communication and wellbeing were also covered. As a result, Ms Ludden created an ‘I Wonder’ board so that every time staff go on CPD they can add a different question. She says, ‘Examples would be, “I wonder if we provide smaller spaces for children, we enable them to communicate better?” and, “I wonder if our uniform is a barrier to children’s communication?”
‘Then we started to ask if uniforms were actually a barrier to communication. One parent said if we got rid of the uniforms she wouldn’t know who we are, and another one said it was a sign of authority. And we didn’t want either of those things – authority goes against everything we are learning about in attachment.’ Now staff just wear a shirt and trousers, with a lanyard around their neck to identify them. Ms Ludden says, ‘Some of the parents were really against it at first but we explained the rationale. We also had quite a backlash from other nurseries. They said staff will look scruffy. But actually we are taking more pride in our appearance.’
Another outcome is that staff now invite parents into the nursery half an hour early for breakfast. ‘Sometimes parents can eat the bread their children have made the night before. It’s just a nice start to the day,’ Ms Ludden says.
