Nursery World - Work Matters: Management

Local nursery staff are visiting each other's settings to share and improve good practice. Mary Evans reports.

Childcare practitioners in Plymouth are benefiting from an innovative scheme set up and funded by the city council's early years team to share best practice.

The Open Door programme is providing the impetus for local nurseries to visit each other and exchange good practice. The scheme provides a more formal basis for early years advisors to promote this.

Vicki Cross, proprietor of Pathways Day Nursery, transformed her setting after making two visits this summer. Sue Fitzsimmons, manager of the Toad Hall Pre-School, says her staff enjoy the public recognition of being hosts.

'We were often suggesting to settings that they visit other providers to see high-quality provision first hand,' says Julie Packer, the early years advisory teacher who leads the scheme. 'We were using the same settings and began to wonder how often we could keep asking, as they were getting no financial reimbursement or status for doing us these favours.'

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