Fluffy Ducks Childcare : Our Hygee Journey

My name is Rhonda and I am a registered childminder based in Lancashire. I have been registered 21 years and have achieved Ofsted outstanding in my last two inspections. Whilst achieving this grading came with happiness for all my hard work, it unfortunately came with consequences. Pressure to maintain this, to be more like a nursery. To spend every minute of the day focusing on “What can we do now”, endless paperwork and planning. Expectations that I had created for myself. Gradually over the last 2years this has taken away my passion for my job, it has left me feeling my home is not my home, undervalued for what I do and dreading each day as it came.

Last year I found the Hygee accreditation through Facebook. The more I looked into this, the more I felt I needed to change, even if that meant changing how I work, the look of a nursery setting, losing my grading on my next inspection. I needed my business to become an extension of my ho...

"If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.” Alfie Kohn

In the Reggio inspired approach there is lots of work to be done on developing our own image of the child and discovering what it is about each individual that makes them capable learners. Our own experiences as children, parents and educators shape what this can be and it's important to recognise the strengths and capabilities our individual children have. 

I believe that young children are capable of high levels of engagement in their learning. But how can they show this if i'm always the one deciding what we should do around the agenda I have as an adult? Doing this sets them up to fail.

Therefore my understanding of the child must be backed up by the practice and environment I create. This can be done by really listening to the child and exploring the curiosities they have and discover what drives them to know more. 

This can be done by identify...

•  Consider seating; offering sofas to sit on that are a bit more comfy

•  A dining table to invite staff to come together over lunch

•  Lovely homely place mats  

• Plants

• Photos in frames of things you’ve done together as a team (Parties, local walks, summer bbqs)

• Soft warm lighting from lamps

• Flowers in a vase on the table

• A selection of teas and coffees

• Fruit basket

• Soft furnishings; cushions, throws

• Lending library of books

• Homely accessories- wicker hearts

• Room spray

• Declutter the space and organise

• Fairy lights

• Garlands (e.g felted leaves)

• Calming colours whites and greys mixed in with some warmer yellows.

• Consider how you migh...

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

― Alexander Den Heijer

For those of you that have been following me for a while now you’ll know that I spent a long period of time working in a challenging Bradford school Nursery. Many children were vulnerable to learning, they started with us typically well below average and they needing a high level of support and nurture to thrive.

At the time in our setting we had a mixture of plastic and natural resources. When I worked in the setting I would find that the resources would be mixed up, transported around the room or children would often walk away from an area without setting it back up for the next person. I often found that the plastic resources were the ones that were dropped on the floor because there was no real consequence of the resource breaking.

This would frustrate me greatly… especially when I looked on Instagram and Facebook and saw such beautiful invitations to pla...