MANAGER'S JOURNEY

My Career In childcare began in 2001, when I left school to become a nursery apprentice at a large nursery. It was my first full time job, and aware of my new responsibility and the positive impact I could have on little people’s lives, I looked forward to everyday. In 2003 I moved to a smaller nursery much closer to home, where I finished training and completed my qualification in early years care and education. I wanted to play a bigger role in helping children to develop and progress through educational experiences and activities. I loved my time here but relocated after two years to start a family.

In 2005 I Started my Employment at ‘Stebbing Green Day Nursery’ (Formerly known as Patricia Pilgrim’s) following maternity leave. Attracted by the prospect of working as part of such a large experienced and diverse team of practitioners, I aimed to learn as much as I could from them.

I have 19 years building my knowledge, skills and childcare expertise which allowed me to grow and to progress in my career. My experiences within Nurseries and as a parent have prepared me well for my role which, along with the team at Stebbing Green Day Nursery is to assist your child along a fun and exciting learning journey giving them the freedom to explore and make the most of their experiences each day in a warm and nurturing environment.

I have recently become the manager of Stebbing Green Day Nursery and I am very proud to think about my journey and see the impact I have made so far. I have visited other settings to help me with finding a vision for our nursery. We want to reflect our aims and ethos within the Setting Environment and provide a welcoming, lively atmosphere which encourages curiosity, individuality and creativity.

I feel passionate about children being able to use their own imagination and having a key role in deciding where they will take their learning next. By providing lots of natural, real objects and materials, and by offering open ended resources our children are free to feed their imagination instead of plastic toys that only have one pre-set outcome. As part of this vision, we have beautifully refurbished our ‘Oaks’ 2-5’s Nursery unit. This room has a calm and cosy Library, neutral and warm wooden furnishings, and much more floor space for children to freely follow their own interests and fascinations, something I am keen to promote. I would like our setting to continue improving in this way, across all rooms and age groups.

Since becoming manager in November my focus has been to see the nursery through modernisation, which has been both an exciting honour and valuable learning experience. This has included preparing staff and parents for the transitioning of our assessments and development information to electronic learning journeys, officially launching in September 2019. I wanted to improve our parent communication and feel that the Famly programme will be a key part in achieving this.

I have also been carefully analysing how well the children are developing across all areas of learning and along with the team we have made action plans for new resources and training as well as support plans for children to ensure that each individual can reach their full potential and is making steady progress.

My other priorities have been updating and introducing new nursery policies and continuously building staff knowledge and skills through courses and in-house training. Something which I have been interested in is ‘teachable moments’ and how we can master the quality of our interactions with children. We started a discussion in our staff meeting and it has been very rewarding seeing other practitioners sharing my vision for rethinking the way we view ‘teaching’ in our setting in favour of a less formal more child interest led approach. We focus on children as individuals.

I am extremely proud of our nursery and team, they are highly qualified, experienced and enthusiastic practitioners providing an excellent level of care and fun, safe and stimulating environments. I would love for you to book a visit to experience our nursery for yourself, meet myself and the team who can answer your questions and tell you everything you would like to know about what we have to offer your child.