Baby Rooms –
Inspiring Leaders
Outdoor play experiences in the baby room
Outdoor play is great for learning, development and wellbeing. When we’re out in nature and fresh air, whether we’re babies, children and adults, we tend to show more creativity and playfulness. There is evidence to show that when we learn…
Keep readingSix types of visualisation to improve practice in the baby room
I am passionate about the power of visualisation, so much so that I think about visualisation as a leader’s superpower. In the baby room, we can use visualisation to work out what we are striving to create, how this compares…
Keep readingIt’s mealtime in the baby room…
It’s the mealtime in the baby room. The babies are in their high chairs ready to be nourished, ready to experiment with food and ready to do the intensive learning and development that happens through day to day routines in…
Keep readingLet’s see it from the baby room educator’s perspective
I bought myself a slightly strange Christmas present – This. It’s the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (3rd Edition), otherwise known as ITERS-3. It’s a tool typically used in the US to monitor process quality in early childhood education environments serving…
Keep readingReflective Practice in the Baby Room: Description, Analysis & Evaluation
There are many models of reflection out there. It can feel overwhelming when you do a course on reflective practice in the early years or read a book about it because often a number of different models are put forward…
Keep readingReciprocity: Nel Noddings’ vision of care in the baby room
Caring for babies involves a lot of giving. We give warmth. We give love and affection. We give emotional support. We give attachment. We give stimulation. We give so much. It’s easy to focus completely on the giving nature of…
Keep readingBabies’ self-determination and agency: looking at how we do personal hygiene and care in the baby room
You’ll know from previous blogposts, that I’m particularly interested at the moment in how babies show self-determination and agency – how they make choices for themselves and how they make things happen in the world around them. I wonder how…
Keep readingBabies’ self-determination and agency: thinking about touch and affection in the baby room
You’ll know from previous blogposts, that I’m particularly interested at the moment in how babies show self-determination and agency – how they make choices for themselves and how they make things happen in the world around them. I wonder how…
Keep readingBabies’ self-determination and agency
What does it mean to provide ‘rights-based learning and care’ in the baby room? What makes anything ‘rights-based’? Children’s rights go hand in hand with thinking about children as having self-determination and agency. Let’s break these two terms down and…
Keep readingWhy do we need to think about rights in the baby room?
I’ve been designing materials for the course ‘Respecting the Rights of Babies: Rights-based learning and care in the baby room’, which starts on Wednesday 22nd November at 11.30am. I thought it might be interesting to explain why I wanted to…
Keep readingA busy six months – I wrote a book about baby room leadership!
It’s been a busy six months. Just under six months ago I gave birth to my fourth child, Nina. As you can imagine, since she was born a lot of life has involved cuddling, feeding and trying to get enough…
Keep readingEveryday advocacy: How baby room leaders are shaping early years education
I recently published an article in Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood called ‘The everyday advocacy work of the baby room leader’. If you don’t have access to the article or the time to read it, here’s a quick summary of…
Keep readingEmbracing creative motivation in the baby room
Motivation is individual to you. What motivates you won’t necessarily motivate someone else. As a leader in the baby room, a big part of the role is motivating your team and this means understanding what makes others tick and how…
Keep readingMotivating Your Team (part 2): Responding to what motivates others
In the previous blogpost, we looked at different motivation types that we might see around us. There are lots of ways to pay attention to what might be motivating your colleagues in the baby room – whether that’s through conversations…
Keep readingMotivating Your Team (part 1): Motivation types in the baby room
Motivating other people is a huge part of leadership. It’s no different for baby room leaders. To support you to motivate others, it can helpful to understand basic types of motivation that might exist among your team and how you…
Keep readingWith the potential extension of free childcare, it’s time to step up professional learning in the baby room
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has announced that following the next general election, a Tory government would introduce 30 hours of free childcare not just for three- and four-year-olds, but for every single child over the age of nine months. While…
Keep readingMapping when, where and how parents interact with your baby room
When it comes to early years, we talk a lot about the importance of connections between professionals and parents. In the baby room, this connection can be even more important. Parents are leaving their very young children typically for the…
Keep readingHow do your core values come to work with you in the baby room?
Everyone has values – whether you can state what they are or not. Your values guide you through your life – they are the things that you think are most important. Some people value love over money, others value prosperity…
Keep reading‘Oh, I’m not really a leader’: transforming self-limiting beliefs as a baby room leader
Working with baby room leaders, one of the things I hear all the time is ‘Oh, I’m not really a leader’. This is even the case when the word ‘leader’ is in a person’s job title: baby room leader. Are…
Keep readingWhat is self-leadership and why does it matter to baby room leaders?
Self-leadership is about understanding yourself and using that understanding to change your behaviours and improve the contribution you make to the world around you. It means reflecting on how you’ve got to where you are and so far and gathering…
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