www.thebabyroom.blog

According to our research (https://thebabyroom.blog/report-1/), achieving high-quality provision for babies requires a clear, shared vision for babies’ experiences, relationships, and care. Vision-building lays the groundwork for nurseries and baby room teams to develop a shared sense of purpose and pinpoint the values they want to guide their day-to-day practice with babies. Kate Smith, the baby room leader at The Beehive Day Nursery, recently led her team through vision-building for their baby room. In this blog post, we share their experience of pinpointing a shared sense of purpose and how this has shaped their practice with babies.

Vision-building with the baby room team

The Beehive Day Nursery is located in Somerset, England. Their baby room has 5 staff members, and on an average day caters to 15 children aged 3 to 24 months. The baby room team have fortnightly team meetings where they can share observations from the week, update the team on any changes in the room, and share general updates. They also have daily ‘briefings’ where they create a plan for the day and decide what they want to achieve with each baby.

Kate recently led a vision-building session for the baby room team during their fortnightly team meeting. It transformed into an open space where her team reflected on the values they wanted to guide their daily practice and what they wanted to offer the babies in their care. Through reflective dialogue, the team landed on two main tenants of their vision: communication and consistency.

Communication: Kate’s team wants to keep a flow of open communication between educators themselves and families to stay abreast of key children’s interests, achievements, and needs. With parents, it’s important to have open, reciprocal relationships where information can be shared. To do this, Kate’s team makes the most of handovers at either end of the day, as well as their nursery’s messaging system. It is also important for the baby room team to communicate between themselves, ensuring everything flows throughout the daily routine and that children receive consistent, attuned responses. Baby rooms are dynamic environments with the children’s needs evolving each day. Kate’s baby room team holds communication at the centre of their vision for the baby room to ensure everyone is on the same page- from the educators themselves to families.

Consistency: Kate’s team also wanted consistency to be at the centre of their vision for the baby room. In our conversation, Kate described how consistency is important for the baby room, especially for rising twos. They need their key adults to respond similarly to their behaviour between nursery and home, helping them understand that they are safe and loved and learn boundaries as they explore and grow. Kate’s team has found that this is the foundation for supporting behaviour in the baby room as well as settling in. In each instance, babies thrive when consistency is maintained. This tenant weaves back into communication as well: For consistency to flourish, there needs to be open communication between educators and between home and nursery.

How vision-building shapes quality provision

Vision-building became a clear touchstone for quality practice in The Beehive Day Nursery baby room. As in much of the early years sector, the baby room is a dynamic and buzzing space. There are changes in staffing coupled with babies rapidly developing, new babies settling in, and two-year-olds moving to the next room. With their values of communication and consistency defined through vision-building, the challenge became maintaining them in an ever-changing environment.

For Kate’s team, their vision is a touchstone in each team meeting, helping them to ensure all actions align with what they value. The following example illustrates how a clear vision can help team’s face everyday situations with clarity and purpose:

‘The baby room has had a few cover staff join recently. They know the children and regularly help in the nursery, but the baby room team wanted them to feel more integrated into the room. To help with consistency, we decided to add a whiteboard with sleeping and feeding times for each baby. This gives us a way to share what’s happening with cover staff, and it can be easily updated.’

This example shows how baby room teams can keep coming back to their vision as a guide through daily situations. Kate’s team reflected on the situation through the lens of their vision, identified the gap between their vision and their practice, and took steps to close it.

Tips and resources for vision-building with your baby room team

Vision-building is a process that lays the foundation for quality provision. When thinking about vision-building with your baby room team, Kate recommends, ‘creating space for openness, listening to your staff, and getting as many opinions as possible.’ The vision should come from the whole team, affirming that each baby room educators’ voice matters and making everyone responsible for bringing the vision to life.

If you’re interested in vision-building with your baby room team, check out our free resources, linked here: https://thebabyroom.blog/baby-room-vision-building-resource/