Working here at Tiny Tree is a fantastic experience that will benefit anyone working in childcare. We have a child-centric development plan for all of our staff. Everyone is fully trained in the latest childcare techniques and legislation, and prepared for anything.
In this post, we’ll look at what makes Tiny Tree such a special place to work.
Business Sense
Graham and Amika Abbott are the directors of Shine Childcare Ltd who manage Tiny Tree Day Nursery and Holiday Club. Coming from backgrounds in HR and finance, they approach childcare in a distinctive way. With an open door policy for staff and parents alike, they have worked hard to develop open lines of communication and formed a close working relationship with all of the team.
Graham said:
‘Because of our experience in the business world, we like to think that the way we run Tiny Tree makes us stand out from the crowd. Training is at the heart of our programme, making sure that our staff always feel capable and prepared for anything that might happen.’
Ofsted Prepared
Part of this preparation is what Graham calls ‘Ofsted ready every day’. While the nursery has an ‘Outstanding’ rating with the inspector, no one can rest on their laurels. Amika runs regular training sessions with all the staff, including role play, to help develop the knowledge and practice of every staff member. Role play scenarios can range from situations such as ‘an inspector calls’, where staff are asked to show what they would do in the event of an Ofsted inspector coming to the site, including asking for identification and showing how to bring the person into the nursery, through to the unexpected, such as a grandparent showing up to collect a child who is not on the approved pickup list.
The Cohorts Programme
At Tiny Tree, all of the children are given a development plan unique to them. This helps staff to identify what areas the child is improving in and what might need extra work. We identify what activities an individual child is doing at every stage, work out what should come next, and train the staff to deliver this before it is required.
The Cohorts programme then collates this information across the whole nursery so that the management team can see which areas overall require additional support across the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
For example, in a recent assessment of our activities, one key area that we found needed additional work in was maths. To remedy this, we trained our staff to deliver fun and engaging activities around numbers and counting, boosting the entire programme in line with EYFS for all age groups.
This continuous programme of development and assessment ensures that all of the children in our care leave school-ready, with a good understanding of all the key areas of the EYFS framework. It also ensures that all staff are continuously training, coming up with new and exciting activities for all the children in our care alongside the latest government guidelines.
If you are looking for your next role in childcare and feel Tiny Tree is the right fit for you, please take a look at our vacancies