Last year I asked the staff which one thing they would change at nursery if they could. There were varied answers, but one intrigued me - to have a staff training day. My initial reaction was 'that will never happen'. We are a private setting, offering a service for a fee and enabling our parents to work. They wouldn't accept nursery being closed for a training day.
Then I was faced with the challenge of implementing the EYFS. I wanted this to be a positive process in the nursery, with everyone feeling confident about their roles and responsibilities under the framework. The more I thought about what I wanted to do with the EYFS, the more I realised that there were some fundamental concepts that we needed to ensure were embedded in our care as a staff group.
The arguments for having a training day seemed more compelling each time I considered them: we would be able to address so many aspects of the framework in one go, staff would have the opportunity to tackle some practical planning exercises, we could share ideas and discuss them. The whole thing would be great for staff morale. The challenge was to convince parents that their children would ultimately benefit from the training and so it was worth the short-term inconvenience of nursery closing for a day. I wrote to parents and was surprised by how little adverse reaction we had - some even wished us a 'good training day'.
The training day was all that I hoped for. We spent time as one big team, reflecting on what the EYFS would mean to 'our nursery', not just worrying about 'my group'. The pre-school team shared experiences on working with six areas of learning with the birth to threes team. The day finished with everyone feeling confident and enthusiastic and clear not only about what was expected of them but what they had to offer under the new framework.
Children need motivated staff and I saw a huge boost in motivation. Such was the benefit that we have decided we will have more training days.
