I love when my work and research collide and both highlight just how amazing the practitioners that work with Scotland's children are. I work for National Day Nurseries Association and we currently have a year-long campaign to raise awareness of just how fantastic our ELC practitioners are in Scotland and the rest of the UK.
https://ndna.org.uk/firstfiveyearscount/
When we were being asked to raise awareness of our campaign it reminded me of an encounter I had recently while I was out running. I was on our local railway path and I bumped into a practitioner who I have known for 20 years. She was my son and daughter's key worker when they were at nursery and is the kindest most loving practitioner I think I know. She still sends us a family Christmas card despite my children being in their twenties now.
I was running along and I saw her coming towards me carrying a water bottle with some very yucky-looking water in it. We stopped to chat, the usual how are you doing? how are the kids? She was on her way home from work (which is quite a long way from where we were) and still had her nursery t-shirt on. I decided to address the elephant on the railway and asked what was in her bottle? She laughed and told me that she was collecting water from the river for the nursery tadpoles because the children had noticed that the water had gone down. She said they had a long discussion about how water "melts" into the air when it is hot and that she would have to top it up or the tadpoles might die. We then went on to discuss our shared experiences of nursery pets, stick insects, snails, worms, etc.
Our conversation then turned a little more serious discussing the challenges that staff in ELC have faced over the last few years. The pandemic, the issues brought about by the 1140 hours policy, staff shortages and the impact of all of this on children and families. She said that in her many years of working in early years lots of problems have come and gone but she still feels committed to doing her best for her children and their families. She also said that having a close relationship with her colleagues was one of the most important things to her.
What I took from this conversation was how committed she is to maintaining high-quality experiences for the children (let's face it, going the long way home at the end of a busy day to collect manky water in a bottle for tadpoles doesn't get much more dedicated) and how much she valued relationships over the years. I carried on my run thinking about how amazing she is. She has cared for and educated many of our town's children over the years, kept the high quality despite all of the struggles faced by the early years' workforce and still does it with as much love and care as she did when she started, if not more.
And what is key to all this is that she is not alone, I know many practitioners who would also go for a long walk to bring back manky water for tadpoles. I too have been that practitioner driving with escaped stick insects on the dashboard on the way to playgroup just so the children could experience looking after a living being. I could relate many stories similar to this one because ELC staff just go over and above for the love of the children they work with.
My job at NDNA is to work as hard as I can to try to resolve the issues that policy brings to the ELC workers so that they can get on with the day job. Which is where my two worlds collide. I am passionate about the importance of love-led practice and part of my role is to ensure those policy decisions that are made make it easy for practitioners to love the children they are working with and to ensure that they receive high-quality, loving experiences during their time at nursery.
If you agree with me then why not support our campaign. To find out more about our campaign and to sign up to become a supporter here: https://ndna.org.uk/firstfiveyearscount/
Help us celebrate our amazing ELC workforce.
