Work matters: Leadership - Spread the word
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
To maximise the effectiveness of staff training, managers themselves need to understand what that training involves. It's all about helping the whole setting to ultimately benefit, says Sarah Presswood of George Perkins Day Nursery in Birmingham.
I believe passionately in training, especially in the current climate of change and development in early years. It is through training that practitioners keep abreast of changes and build their skills base. Everyone needs to access training, no matter what their level of experience or qualification.
I have implemented a training schedule for all staff which addresses the needs of individuals and the nursery as a whole. Accessing the training has been made relatively easy by the local authority, which not only provides training but also pays cover costs when staff are attending training. What I realised was that sending staff on training courses was just the first step. As a setting we were not very good at making use of their training. Sometimes people did not even feel empowered to incorporate it into their own practice, let alone share it with colleagues and enable the whole nursery to benefit.
I decided to ask these staff to give feedback to a staff meeting about the training they had attended and to share what they had learned and how they felt the nursery could benefit. I had hoped, and indeed suggested to the staff, that the person who had been trained would share their new knowledge with the rest of the team, and offered to facilitate this. However, it became evident that this was not happening in an effective way. I had to come up with a better strategy.
I therefore decided to debrief the person who had attended the training and gain an understanding for myself of what they had learned and what they felt the benefits could be for their practice and the nursery as a whole. We would then come up with a format for a discussion forum for a staff meeting. These forums often include suggestions or ideas for sharing the training and/or implementing the new practices, while allowing others the opportunity to question and explore how they might benefit from this new knowledge.
Managers will agree that they want to send their staff on training. It is important to remember that sending someone on training is only part of the process - you need to have effective mechanisms in place to ensure that training benefits as many people as possible.
