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It's easy when there's a special day or time of year to dress all your provision around that particular theme. In my first year of teaching when it was bonfire night I would dress all my areas of provision around this particular theme for the week. Enhancing each area with things like;

-Firework themed play dough mats

-Adding red and yellow cellophane and kitchen roll tubes to the junk modelling table

-Putting black sugar paper up on the art easel and luminous paint colours.

Taking this approach to learning each week meant that there was always something in each area of the provision that the adult had decided the children should make often with the adults own example. Or maybe it would have been a tick sheet activity that everyone would have been called to take part in. Getting everything ready the week before was exhausting and I would often feel disheartened when I had set an activity up and the children used it in a different way.

This type of approach can leave very little...

The whole fam under one roof, Christmas bakes in the oven, winter roaring outside the front door: It doesn’t really get much cozier than Christmas.

Christmas…oh that’s right I mentioned the C word and it's only the start of November! I have Michael Buble de-frosting as we speak and in this weeks blog post I’m going to be sharing my first few ideas with you for supporting behaviour over the festive period. 

Over the last few months we’ve been getting ready for our Christmas training events at KSEY Consultancy and I know that so many of you are super organised (a bit like me!) and want to get things ready early. I always used to use my half term week in October to do the majority of my Christmas shopping and start writing my Christmas cards…a job I really do love doing.

As I said we’ve been planning Christmas for a little while now…we worked with our fabulous photographer back in August to get some great Christmas Product snaps, we’ve booked in our Complimentary Christmas Event for Me...

I am the Area Manager for Daisy Chain Nursery and over the

last year the nursery owner has worked hard transforming the

nursery into a home from home approach. The company has 2

settings and I work to support both settings whilst managing

the Liverpool site. The nursery Owner works closely with

myself and the teams and has completed a lot of the

environment work and the research behind it, educating the

teams along the way.

When the initial decision was made to change the nursery

approach we started by adapting the furniture and muting the

colouring to provide a more natural approach. We immediately

noticed a change in the behaviour of the 2 year old children

and also the children who have special educational needs. more

comfortable. hey seemed a lot calmer and the environments in

general seemed to be calmed as the children were being

stimulated by the toys and the activities rather than being over

stimulated by the general environment.

We began the process in the ...

Reflection is a huge part of Early Years practice – from

the beginning of our training journey we are encouraged

to evolve and develop our own professional identity, by

exploring practice, making mistakes, and learning how to

be more effective in our roles. This principle is something

that truly is at the heart of the Lullabies ethos, and we

have recently embarked on our own journey as a team.

Lullabies Nursery and Pre-School opened in 2016, in the

centre of Glenfield, Leicestershire. The old Georgian

building lends itself perfectly to a nursery environment and

we worked hard to keep some of the original features to

stay true to the character of the building. We have four

classrooms across two floors as well as 3 outdoor areas for

the children to access, including a forest school. As the

nursery enters its third year our nursery Proprietor, Emma

Platnauer and nursery Manager, Chelsie Shaw, were keen

to reflect on the nursery’s journey so far, and our vision for

the fut...

I feel very fortunate to do the job that I do; work with a range of early educators and support them in their reflections to move practice forward. It’s great to see the transformation a setting has had after working so hard on areas of their practice.

Today I had the chance to visit one of the wonderful local nurseries I’ve been working with for the last year. This was a chance to hear and see the progress they’ve made in not only their ethos but how this has translated into their learning environment.

Emma is an inspirational leader who also leads with a love-based leadership style. Making sure she invests time in getting to know each member of her team and giving them opportunities to lead in areas that are their strength. At the same time, she also understands the importance of supporting staff and has a clear system in place for professional development. Over the last year the team have worked hard on creating a shared and consistent ethos across the three rooms of th...

We are so incredibly lucky this week to be joined by the highly creative Zoë a Reception Lead Teacher. We are going to be looking at how we can resource to create curiosity, intrigue and excitement and then use this as a hook to deepen levels of learning. 

Finding the perfect items to enhance my Reception setting has been a labour of love and turned into a real passion and perhaps a little bit of an obsession! I scour the second hand venues and sales, charity shops, local selling pages and car boot sales as well as eBay, Wish, Amazon. Wherever I am I consider how I can use these items to enhance my provision; to bring an element of wonder,  to create an aspect of curiosity that goes beyond picking something up for the first time. This intrigue will fuel imagination,  invite a friend along for the journey,  transform into something completely new or take them to a once uninhabited place. Sometimes it is an unbelievable bargain that cannot be passed up on. I think I have a collecto...

I'm just so excited to share with you the valuable insight of Nursery Owner and Lecturer Laura Sanders on the success of building Intergenerational Play in her setting. 

One of my most fond memories of visiting my Great Aunties were their immaculately placed silver mirrors and brushes on a dressing table, with their pearl necklaces hidden away – too special for sight.  The concept of an outdoor toilet was mind-blowing, as was the fact the Robinson family – a family of 12 children had all grown up in the four walls of a three bedroomed terraced house for over 127 years.  Being a little girl, in sandals and a dress that twirled in the wind in their cobbled garden –with no grass, leaves a memory, a feeling. It forms part of my pedagogy.

I struggle to remember conversations or play. I remember being too scared to speak. Being around a generation that was almost 90 years older had no significance at that point.  The words “let’s go and visit the aunties” usually sparked a groan or...