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Looking for Great Early Years CPD? Think Outside the Box

Developing, retaining and motivating staff can be difficult, so when it comes to professional development it’s worth broadening your horizons…

Jackie Hardie
by Jackie Hardie
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Having run a training company that has helped early years settings around the world, and as the current owner of an ‘outstanding’-rated nursery, I place a great deal of emphasis on continuing professional development (CPD).

I have always believed that the essential ingredient to an outstanding setting is an outstanding team, so encouraging and supporting staff is very high on my agenda.

The question is, how far should we all be going to make sure our practitioners are motivated and ready to give the children in their care the very best?

Rewarding hard work and dedication pays dividends, and it is really important that every single member of your team feels valued. It’s also important that they know there is room for career progression and professional development.

In practice, investing in support and development will reduce your long-term costs and save you the headache of repeated recruitment.

Recognising the uniqueness of every team member and adjusting the training you provide to meet their individual needs helps to ensure that everyone achieves their full potential. This requires some thought.

Traditional training courses and workshops have their place, but looking beyond these options for exciting and inspiring opportunities to support the professional development of your workforce is just as important, if not more so – as I hope the examples below will illustrate…

Opportunities overseas

Being passionate about getting the best out of my team I am always on the lookout for new ideas.

While on a skiing holiday in France with a specialist company I couldn’t help but engage in conversation with those running the place, to find out more about the childcare services they offer as part of their skiing holiday package.

Several conversations later I was asked if my nursery would share best practice with the childcare staff in four different ski resorts in the French Alps.

I saw this as a great opportunity, not only to help this holiday company but also to add a new dimension to the professional development of my team.

As a result, my staff and I regularly travel to the Alps to provide expert assistance, deliver training and provide cover for staff sickness and injury.

The opportunity to work with the holiday company has been fantastic. For my staff, working in different settings abroad has given them experiences they would never have found on any training course.

We are fortunate as a company that we always operate with a higher staff ratio than required, which ensures continuity for the children in our care whilst allowing staff amazing professional development opportunities.

Our staff members are trained to the very highest level so whilst out in the resorts they help support and train less-experienced practitioners, ensuring the children holidaying receive the best possible care.

Farm school

Another fresh professional development opportunity came about after some animals visited the nursery.

A group of the children had been reading animal-related stories and the discussion that followed uncovered the fact that while some children had pets, others had not had much contact with animals at all.

Responding to this I invited a local, NNEB-qualified farmer’s wife, who runs an equestrian centre with her riding instructor daughter, to visit the nursery with a couple of their Shetland ponies.

Seeing the excitement this generated and the fun had by the staff and children alike was wonderful. We all learnt more about looking after and interacting with animals, and of course there were other benefits like sensory learning and language development.

The visit was so well received by the staff and children that we made the visits a regular occurrence – but it didn’t stop there. I am a great believer in the need for staff to develop their childcare skills outside of the nursery setting.

We already embrace forest school and beach school and I could see some amazing professional development opportunities for us if we developed ‘farm school’.

Happily, our new equestrian centre friends were only too pleased to oblige and so with support and encouragement from the animal experts, our adventure into farm school began.

The nursery staff members were hands-on from inception and were invited to contribute ideas for the development of the farm school provision, exploring how child-led activities could be accommodated by the farm as well as working out the logistics and leading the children’s visits.

The team worked in partnership with the farm and equestrian centre owners to explore everything from personal health and care in an animal setting and behaviour expectations around animals, through to hands-on learning and engaging with nature.

The staff were also provided with the opportunity of talking to other interested parties, including the local media about their experiences.

Closing thoughts

I want to stress that by sharing these two specific opportunities enjoyed by my team I am by no means suggesting that everyone should offer their staff overseas opportunities, or insisting they develop an interest in animals.

Rather, I merely want to demonstrate how thinking outside the box can result in fresh ideas that will help keep staff motivated, engaged in their role, excited about work and committed to their setting’s cause.


“My job in a nursery has taken me places I never imagined and I now know that professional development can sometimes turn up the most unexpected opportunities.” Early years practitioner Holly Rekesius was only 20 years of age when she was first offered CPD sharing best practice with childcare staff at a ski resort in the French Alps. Making new friends, taking children to ski-school, ice skating with toddlers and enjoying snow play were all new experiences that she delighted in recalling among her colleagues upon her return to work in the UK.

She describes her experience as character building. She was pushed out of her comfort zone helping to coach unqualified staff and working with children in a very different setting to the one she was used to. As a result Holly has a new-found confidence.


“We have forest school and beach school and now we have farm school too.” Finding different ways to complement traditional staff training courses and workshops requires creative thinking – but offering inspirational CPD opportunities can result in a highly engaged, inspired and motivated team, with each team member supported to achieve their full potential.

The development of farm school has been an inspirational process for nursery staff, who together have helped shape this concept of providing children in their care with regular hands-on learning experiences in a farm setting.


Jackie Hardie is the owner of The Nursery, an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ early years setting in Bristol. Visit thenursery.uk.com.

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