3.3 Advice and tips

POLLY BOLSHAW: What tips would you offer to other practitioners to minimise some of the challenges that they might be facing?

SANDRA ROLES: I think if you're looking at staffing, when you initially interview, make sure you really stress about the-- ask the question--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

SANDRA ROLES: --value outdoor play. What would you do if it was raining? What would you do if it was cold? Because even when you do that, when they come to the second interview-- so we have a second-- we have a working interview where they're unpaid, they come in. And we think that's really valuable because that's usually when you see that, actually, they don't really like the outdoor play. And they stand around and they don't really know what to do, or if it's cold they stand hugging themselves.

And our team wouldn't tolerate it anyway because they're involved in the interview process. So I think that's really important because people need to know what they're signing up for. We really-- when we say outdoor play, it's not lip service. We don't just say it and then do it occasionally. We're outside sometimes all day.

So I think that's really, really important. Find the right staff for the setting and somebody that wants to be out there, that wants the children to just experience everything outside.

CHARLOTTE ROLES: Show arounds with parents.

SANDRA ROLES: Make sure you show parents around. Don't let them just sign up. Bring them in and show them because occasionally-- we had somebody a couple of weeks ago. One of our-- we have a head of baby room. She's the head of the one- to two-year-old room, but she manages all four baby rooms.

And she came back and she said, these parents, they're not going to fit here. So she went back and she said, look, I've had the chat. She said you're worried about going outside. You said, what about the cold? You don't want her going out in the cold, and you don't want this and you don't want that. We really, really don't think this is the right nursery for you.

And it's having that strength--

CHARLOTTE ROLES: Confidence.

SANDRA ROLES: Yeah, and not in a derogatory way. We were obviously really nice to them and just said, if you change your mind, you can come back and have a look. But this is what we do. We're trained in lollipop as well, so we're one of the only nurseries that can cross with the lollipop.

And some of the parents that show around say, oh, I don't want them crossing that main road. And we've done everything we can to make it safe, and the experiences that they have are incredible. So it's really important that they can go offsite. And some parents say no, so it's having that--

CHARLOTTE ROLES: We'd rather them know at that stage before signing up rather than starting with us and then not liking it, whereas if we can just be honest from the beginning, they get to actually see us. And we say to them, look, we don't change anything when they come to look around so that they really see a real true reflection of exactly what we're like on a day-to-day basis.

And before COVID, sometimes we'd get show arounds turn up and there wouldn't actually be any children here because they'd all be offsite. So then we'd be like that's a real, true reflection of what we're like.

SANDRA ROLES: Going off-site, having mobile phones. And we have nursery mobile phones so that they tell us where they're going so that we can track them down if we need to bring them back as a parent collecting early or something because we don't tell parents when we're going off-site. We just go off-site.