In the first episode of Season 2 of the Early Bloom Podcast, we’re welcoming back to the podcast a guest from Season 1: Lucy Lewin. Lucy is the owner of Little Angels Uppingham Nursery, the founder of the Profitable Nursery Academy, a business coach and a passionate voice in the industry.
During our conversation we cover:
- How Lucy dealt with the emotions of an inadequate judgement
- The difference between a leader and manager
- Whistleblowing in the early years and having professional courage
- The Gen Z educator
View transcript (generated automatically)
0:00
Hello, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Early Bloom Podcast.
0:04
I’ve been really excited for today’s conversation because we’re welcoming back the lovely Lucy Lewin.
0:09
Lucy is a passionate early years leader, the founder of the profitable Nursery Academy and a business coach.
0:17
You may also know her from LinkedIn, where she shares her insights gained from years of experience running her own nursery.
0:24
Lucy, welcome back.
0:26
That was so lovely.
0:27
That made me go a bit.
0:27
No pressure, no pressure now, no pressure now.
0:31
How are you?
0:32
What have you been up to since we saw you last?
0:33
Goodness me, what have I been up to?
0:36
We have been really busy in the Academy and it’s been a really great time.
0:40
We had a slippery fish of a year in 2024, didn’t go to plan.
0:47
Bit of a bit of a negative experience with our friends at Ofsted, but I was wanted to get to this part where the emotion is now settled and the learnings come out.
0:59
And I just think for me it has been one of the most influentially, amazingly negatively but awesome learning experience.
1:11
OK, nice way to put it yeah.
1:14
And it take it has taken just over a year to get to this place because the emotions were raw.
1:20
But being a leader in early years, I think it’s, it’s really added a depth to my experience, you know, so when I’m talking to people now that have been through it, rather than always being a good setting, I’ve now experienced the emotional side of an inadequate judgement.
1:39
So yeah, that leads us, leads us quite nicely on to what I wanted to talk about today.
1:43
So leadership and management just touched on it a little bit there.
1:47
And also we would like to talk about a positive safeguarding culture.
1:52
How can you as a leader create that?
1:54
Obviously there’s been lots in the news lately about safeguarding and the rising incidents being reported.
2:01
So it’d be great to like talk about that.
2:02
So I guess for you, you’ve turned your nursery around eight years ago.
2:08
It’s from where you were.
2:09
And like you say, going through the inadequate, that takes a lot of leadership and also management.
2:14
But obviously the two often get mixed up with each other.
2:18
So I guess start starting off.
2:19
What is the difference between a leader and a manager?
2:23
That’s a really great question.
2:24
So my understanding through theory and my own lived experience is I believe leadership is about vision.
2:34
OK.
2:34
What our teams need are people who they can follow, buy into, feel inspired by, lean into.
2:45
And what I’ve understood is my role as the leader is to see the business where it is in the future.
2:53
So for example, when I’m working on my business, I’m looking at where we are in the next 6/12/18, even 24 months.
3:04
And that ensures that all the decisions that we make, even in the moment are driving towards a future goal.
3:12
So it’s almost a little bit dreamy.
3:15
It is a little bit not real.
3:19
I don’t want to use the word fantasy because I’d like to think it’s rooted in some kind of proper strategic thinking.
3:24
The only way you’re going to get far if you actually dream of these big things.
3:27
So it’s that’s being a leader is having that vision and seeing it in that way.
3:32
And it might seem it’s a bit crazy in a bit too over there in the distance, but that’s the way that you have to think as a leader.
3:38
And, and, and who would you want to follow?
3:40
Do you want to follow somebody that’s going come on, we’ve got this, you know, and I think they always used to laugh at me at nursery because when I was the manager and I like, I will explain what that is in a second.
3:52
I forever told people my little mantra was it’ll be fine, It’ll be fine.
3:56
And I sometimes think it used to frustrate the team because it always was okay.
4:01
Now don’t get me wrong, there were times when I’d be like, guys, it be fine, it will be fine.
4:06
And I ran into the office, probably cried and went it’s not good.
4:12
But what I did in those times was I sought out really good people to talk to.
4:18
So I leaned a lot at the time into my local authority advisor.
4:21
There has been many a time I’ve sat on the fire escape in the upstairs of the office of my nursery sobbing about, you know, just close the doors.
4:29
I can’t do this.
4:32
So manager for me, I believe is somebody that looks after the day-to-day OK.
4:38
They are the people and they are needed.
4:40
And I actually think what you need is both.
4:44
If you’re not fortunate like me and have to perform both roles, my best advice is that you would block out time to be both because I think they take different types of thinking.
4:56
Because to me, a manager is the person that’s in the detail.
4:59
You know, they are the person that has to ensure that the ratios are correct, that there is enough paper towels in the hand holders.
5:07
You know, they are doing all of those day-to-day things that sometimes as a leader are a bit frustrating because they can feel like the they’re weighing you down.
5:20
But actually, if somebody doesn’t print the registers or somebody doesn’t take care of the details, you as a leader can’t flourish or thrive because the details aren’t happening.
5:30
And actually, it’s that if you can find it in another person, I believe you are truly gifted.
5:38
And I’m forever grateful for all of the people that have walked alongside me as my managers because I understand it is a tricky job to walk alongside me with all my great ideas.
5:50
But at the same time, grounding is really important.
5:53
And I just think leadership and management in early years are two different skills.
5:59
Foresight and then attention to detail, but also having the courage in both of them to speak out.
6:07
I think one of the things I’ve always strived to do is rather than me being right as a leader, I want to get it right.
6:16
So that sometimes often will be me admitting that my idea that Crazy 1 isn’t actually doable and being OK with other people within my team having better ideas than me.
6:31
Because again, I think often as a leader, you feel like you have to be the one to come up with the answers.
6:37
The best solutions in my business have come from the team where I’ve actually created a space for them to think.
6:45
A great phrase that we practise using a lot actually is, you know, when someone comes up to you and they’ll be like, oh, what do you think about?
6:53
And then, you know, whatever The thing is, which rather than going to a solution from my brain, what we’ve worked a lot on within my company is saying to people, I know what I think, what do you think?
7:06
But that takes a lot for you as a person to then rephrase that and spin it back on them because they’re coming to you for your advice, your ideas.
7:16
And I think that also is a good quality of a leader that you’re then showing that employee that they can do this thinking themselves.
7:24
And in some ways, you’re creating the next leaders in your business.
7:27
And that’s exactly it.
7:28
Back in 2013.
7:30
So goodness, 12 years ago now, no longer 13, we did went through the investors in people process.
7:37
Best thing I ever did because what it allowed me to do was really hone in on what it takes to be a people centred organisation.
7:46
And I know that sounds silly because quite often we think as early years we’re all about the people.
7:51
But I sometimes wonder if we’re all about the children and we can be all about the families, but do we forget to be about our team?
8:01
And what what he taught us then was about growing our future leaders?
8:06
He said, see your business as like a greenhouse.
8:09
And I talk about a lot of this in recruitment and retention and that, you know, like recruitment being about planting seeds and retention being about growing this beautiful garden.
8:19
And yeah, in this greenhouse of your business, you need to have people at all the different stages.
8:24
You know, you need to have that tray that just looks like a tray of dirt and then the one where little tiny buds are coming through all the way through to the blossoming flowers.
8:34
And when I look at the most success, successful, sorry people in in my nursery, they are the ones that have grown from the beginning.
8:42
Look at my chief operating officer right now, Kelsey.
8:45
She came to me as a pregnant 19 year old who didn’t want to complete her university studies because she just found out she was pregnant.
8:54
Now, you know, she’s worked her way up through the curriculum development through to manager now to like overseeing the operations, not only of 1 nursery, but all of the client work that we do as part of the Academy.
9:06
And she’s what, mid 30s?
9:08
And that’s amazing.
9:08
She told me for saying that because she’s definitely early 30s.
9:11
But that’s a credit to you as well for you seeing that potential in her as her 19 year old and you helping her throughout her career to be where she is now.
9:19
And she’s wanted to stay with you and be at your nursery and do it with you and your business.
9:24
And it’s a credit to you.
9:25
That’s about inspiration, isn’t it?
9:27
That’s that leadership thing.
9:28
So you know, a really good leader does inspire the next generation.
9:33
And the amazing thing about that straw as well is the person now managing the nursery, Emma is like my third generation of manager since me.
9:43
So since like, you know, you alluded to the the wonders of 2018, I couldn’t pay my staff then I was broke, broken and burnt out, right?
9:52
I was the manager, I was the leader, I was everything.
9:57
And actually, it was doing nobody any good.
10:00
You know, I, I thought being a leader meant I had to do it all.
10:05
And I actually think really being a leader is inspiring others to want to do it with you, not for you.
10:13
And I’ve, I’ve chosen those words really carefully.
10:15
It’s definitely about doing it with you.
10:17
And we get it wrong.
10:19
And sometimes people don’t match.
10:21
And I’m one of those people where if you come to work with me and it’s not for you, it is OK.
10:30
Like I think we’re told constantly this noise around recruitment and retention, recruitment and attention, There’s no, there’s no workforce, there’s no people.
10:38
So sometimes we desperately hang on to people that just don’t fit.
10:43
And I think, again, courage.
10:45
You know, if you wanted, if I had to sum up in one word, what is a really good characteristic of a leader and a manager that spans them both, it’s courage.
10:57
I think you need to be courageous in the conversations you have.
10:59
I think you need to be courageous in the decisions you make.
11:04
And I think you have to be courageous when you fail because I, the only reason I have positive things is because I’ve failed.
11:14
And I when I fail, I don’t just like do a little trip if I’m failing, it’s a massive humongous double somersault flip on flat on the floor.
11:24
Do you know what I mean?
11:25
So I just think balancing the right people, utilising them within their strengths and having the courage to fail, but the confidence as well to admit that you’re wrong and just want to do it right and get it right.
11:45
Yeah.
11:45
And I think you touched on there how you said about sometimes someone might not fit and you might think had these great visions and you think they might when you’re interviewing them, but they don’t.
11:54
And that’s where sometimes leadership, I think can go a little bit the other way.
12:00
And a bit more of a poor leadership is if you’re keeping their members of staff in an environment where maybe they’re not feeling entirely comfortable, they’re trying to like work on something, it’s just not quite the right fit.
12:11
And then this can then lead to the toxic, toxicity.
12:15
Never can say that word.
12:16
And that we often find in early years and I think there’s often a lot of conversation around poor leadership, poor management creating these negative cultures.
12:26
So I was wondering like how, how do you in your setting avoid, avoid that?
12:31
I mean, and you’ve touched on it with being like a good leader, but in terms of in the rooms themselves and stuff and you’re not in the room.
12:38
So how are your room leaders navigating that?
12:40
I think you and I have had many a conversation, haven’t we around like how, how do we, how do we clean?
12:46
How do we get the toxic out?
12:47
And I think my teams, my nursery isn’t exempt from the that sometimes rearing its head.
12:57
I think we work in emotive business where our care deficit is quite huge sometimes, you know, because we care for a living.
13:07
Our job is to care.
13:09
And if care was a currency, I think, you know, how often do we take from it but not put it back.
13:15
What has revolutionised what we do is some really candid conversations.
13:23
And what I mean by that is I read an amazing book called Radical Candour by a lady called Kim Scott.
13:28
And in her book she talks about, it’s a quadrant basically of the different types of of personality and feedback.
13:36
But in that she talks about caring personally enough about people to challenge them directly.
13:42
And I have a little story about this massively inappropriate for this.
13:46
But don’t panic.
13:47
It’s not too inappropriate.
13:48
It’s not PG.
13:49
It’s still you.
13:51
But I always use the analogy of a bogey on your nose.
13:55
Look at that.
13:55
I saw you go.
13:55
Oh, my goodness, where’s she going?
13:56
Minutes, Right.
13:57
Yeah.
13:58
So, I mean, very apartment early years.
14:00
Yeah, exactly.
14:01
But you know, when somebody has got a bogey on their nose, your relationship with that person directly influences how confident you feel about saying to them.
14:13
So Paul Kelsey, if she’s got a bogey on her nose, I’m literally like, I’ll sort your face out, you know?
14:18
Whereas to a stranger, it can actually be a terrified, like be honest, would you tell a stranger the the barista in the coffee shop, would you say to them if it was even if it was like, like it’s like taking over half of their face, Like it’s literally hanging down.
14:35
Like how they can’t feel it is beyond you.
14:38
No, I wouldn’t.
14:39
And it’s the same like you say, but it’s the same with like something in your teeth and stuff like that.
14:43
And I, I think now when you get comfortable with someone, you do it’s a bit of a joke.
14:46
You just don’t tell them just for a joke, but you know that you would in general.
14:49
But yeah, now you put it into that.
14:50
It’s a great way to see it.
14:51
But that’s the same with feedback, right?
14:53
And that’s all about courage.
14:54
And that is about for you.
14:57
You square that round peg right in your mind, whether consciously or subconsciously, you say to yourself, actually, they’re going to feel really uncomfortable if I tell them.
15:07
So actually, what’s easier for me is to not say anything.
15:13
But let’s be honest, if you had a bogey on your nose, would you want to know?
15:15
100% exactly.
15:17
Don’t right now.
15:18
No, you’re good.
15:19
I’d tell you, but do you know what I mean?
15:21
It’s that whole like, it, it, it’s rumbling with that sense of uncomfortableness in yourself to do something that is for somebody else.
15:30
You don’t know how they’re going to react, What you do.
15:32
You can pretty much guess they’re going to be mortified and they’re going to feel embarrassed.
15:35
You’re actually going to probably make them really uncomfortable, but for the greater good, after that initial horror of oh, my God, have I?
15:44
Oh, gosh, sorry.
15:45
Oh, it’s gone.
15:46
I actually made my own nose right now.
15:49
Yeah, they actually feel better.
15:51
And they will be eternally grateful for you.
15:53
You know they will remember you the next time you go into that coffee shop.
15:56
You aren’t getting the best service from them because you were candid with them.
15:59
You were honest.
16:01
You were uncomfortable in yourself for a moment for nothing.
16:06
All it did was make somebody else’s life better.
16:08
And I think that’s what we’ve done in our team, right?
16:11
We made some rules, right?
16:13
And we kind of made a bit of a a manifesto to ourselves in each other where we spoke about we will always be candid.
16:20
We will always care personally to challenge directly.
16:24
We will always do it from a place of kindness and love.
16:27
And again, that’s the missing part of this cake that you can’t leave behind, right?
16:32
Because none of this is done with malice intent.
16:35
This is a little bit of stoicism.
16:37
This is, you know, if people can, they will.
16:40
And actually believing that you’re doing this to improve somebody else’s life.
16:47
But also it’s about that willingness to accept that we all have our own models of the world and how you view something might not be how I view something.
16:57
Your views are no more valid or right than mine.
17:00
And actually, and we learnt this a lot from the children, if I’m honest, you know how you children coexist.
17:08
There doesn’t seem to be as much animosity in an early years classroom.
17:14
OK, you you get that little bit of are you my best friend?
17:17
Are you my best friend?
17:18
Are you my friend?
17:19
But if you watch children, even if you as an adult can sense that there’s maybe some mismatching of personality, maybe they just don’t want to play with each other, they can still be in the same space.
17:33
So actually it’s a little bit of how do you do that as adults?
17:36
How do you be friendly towards somebody without needing to be their friend?
17:41
And I think that’s a really hard thing to balance in nurseries because there is often you get a friendship and a best friend in the room or I don’t know, manager and deputy best friends and that sort of thing.
17:54
It can that’s what you see come up quite a lot like, oh, so and so these two are friends.
17:59
I don’t feel like I fit in in this room because they’re friends.
18:02
But when you frame it in the way that, yeah, they might be friends, but you can also be friendly to them.
18:07
And it doesn’t mean that you have to feel like you’re not part of that room or part of that team just because them two are friends.
18:15
And I think that is something that’s so important for all like nurseries to kind of take on and change the shift in the way that we see friendships in a nursery in staff friendships and stuff.
18:25
It’s really interesting because I’m a Gallup strengths coach and Gallup do a lot of research around workplace well-being because what we believe as strengths coaches is if you focus on what people can do, then the world is more wonderful place, right?
18:42
And they did a study recently that proved unanimously that when you have a best friend at work, you are happier, you are more engaged, you are, you know, you start all of those wonderful things about going to work.
18:57
You’ve got a sense of belonging, you want to be there.
19:00
So you can see why having a best friend at work is really important.
19:07
But something that you know, and you touched on this in the intro and I think we’ve kind of LED into it quite naturally, is as much as it is imperative to have friendships at work, whether they be professional friendships, either IE friendliness or those proper friendships where you see people socially outside of work.
19:27
There is a real side to early years that I just think needs shining a light on more, and that is whistleblowing.
19:37
And I think the hardest person to blow the whistle on is your best friend.
19:44
And whether that’s your work bestie or your outside of work bestie that you happen to work with.
19:51
Because actually what you will do with that person is in your own conscious mind, you will justify the reasons that they’re doing the things they’re doing.
20:03
Whereas actually and probably you should be doing something about it.
20:09
And I think it is such a delicate balance in early years where we want these loving, caring environments.
20:18
We want to love and care for the children.
20:20
We need to create loving and care towards each other.
20:25
So how do I blow the whistle on you then?
20:26
You know, how do I find that courage to sit there and say, do you know what, Fliss?
20:33
I don’t like what I just saw.
20:35
And actually, I know that that’s not right, but we’re going for pizza and chips after work.
20:40
Yeah.
20:41
What do I do?
20:42
How can I?
20:43
Yeah, if I go and blow the whistle and then I’m sat opposite you at dinner and I’ve just got this cloud in some ways over your head thinking, oh, my gosh, my friend could be getting suspended or something happening because of this and it’s all my fault.
20:57
But then, yeah, you have to remove yourself from the situation there and think, well, no, you’ve protected a child, You’ve potentially stopped something further from happening, like you’re doing the right thing.
21:10
And I think that is the message that is so key to get out, that even though it may feel like you’re doing the wrong thing to your friend, you’re doing the right thing in that work environment for the child as well.
21:22
And I think, yeah, it’s been brought to the forefront massively with all the news and the BBC programme with Genevieve.
21:30
And I think now we’ll see a lot more about it.
21:34
And I think it’s important to put the message out there to people that don’t work in early years that this rise in the number of incidents isn’t just because it’s a bad thing, it’s a positive thing.
21:48
And like you say, they should probably should be way more because there’s probably many friends that don’t report things.
21:54
And I just think, right, if you walk past something that you know is below standards, you’ve just set a new culture, right?
22:02
You’ve set a new low standard.
22:04
So actually finding, and I’m going to use that word again, it is courage to speak out is and it’s OK, OK.
22:13
And I think children need us to speak out because often they don’t know any different and we do.
22:20
So you are absolutely right.
22:21
I would always say to people, let’s scenario plan this.
22:25
So if you come to me right and you say, right, Lucy, I’ve got a really difficult situation.
22:29
I’ve just seen something.
22:30
I mean, we’re not talking major safeguarding here.
22:33
We’re talking those low level bits where you could turn away and your conscience be almost clear.
22:41
I think a good example is on people have watched the programme was I think there was a CCTV clip of the way that a child was handled.
22:47
That’s like the things that I think very often in nurseries don’t, doesn’t get picked up on.
22:52
Yeah, because we think, oh, you know, nothing has been reported as a leader, right?
22:58
You maybe watch the CCTV and you think, oh, that looked a bit but, and I, I promise that a lot of times this will be a thought process.
23:06
Nothing’s been reported.
23:07
So maybe I’m seeing it differently to what actually happened in the moment because that does happen as well, doesn’t it?
23:12
You know, I have genuinely watched CCT for CCTV footage of situations that look something in the black and white.
23:20
But then when you go into context, there is more to it.
23:24
But let’s just say on these situations, there’s not the first thing I would be saying to you is thank you so much.
23:30
You know, what you have done is absolutely right.
23:33
But then we’ll start to talk about, let’s just imagine that this is not your friend.
23:40
What would you do with the information?
23:42
OK, If it’s not, if it’s somebody that you have no emotional connection with, would you see that situation as something that was more than you’re seeing it when you’re protecting somebody?
23:53
And quite often the answer is yes.
23:56
But I also think psychological safety is almost the theory of what we’re talking about now.
24:03
And in organisations that have psychological safe places, reporting of accidents and incidents actually goes up because people feel safe enough to talk about the things that aren’t going right.
24:19
And I just think when it comes to children I would rather receive 100 waste of time reports then miss one.
24:32
And there is a really dark side to our job and one that as much as all of the cornflour belly giggles and just the amazingness of early years has, we have a massive responsibility to these children.
24:51
We can’t have toxic positivity.
24:53
We can’t gloss things over.
24:55
We can’t use busyness as our excuse.
25:00
You know, one of the things that literally riles me is when I talk to people and I say, well, why didn’t you do anything about it?
25:04
I was too busy.
25:06
I’m sorry you were too busy to potentially safeguard a child.
25:10
OK, well, this is not the career for you then.
25:12
You know, nothing is more important than documenting that thing and to leaders and managers, think about the culture.
25:21
Have you made document in situations or conversations or even feelings really easy?
25:31
So we put it online.
25:32
OK, we created an online form.
25:34
The QR code is shared everywhere around the building.
25:36
The team have it on their iPads.
25:38
They can even download the form onto their own mobile phone.
25:43
Because what that does is it gives them the opportunity to put that piece of information somewhere and they can rate it as I just want you to know this, I don’t know what to do with this.
25:58
Or can you take some action on this?
25:59
And that goes to the manager.
26:01
It goes to the manager and but also you can send it direct to me.
26:05
OK, so one of the other things is, is the great Question Time as if it’s the manager.
26:10
Yeah, I used to say to my team all the time, I am not above the rules.
26:16
OK, So if you ever see me do something that you don’t like, either go to somebody else in the management team or go to LADO like the local authority designated officer’s sole purpose for being is to keep us in check.
26:34
And I just think if you are worried about a member of staff and you also are worried because what I often see as well is the perpetrator can quite often be the bestie of the manager, what do you do then?
26:47
You know, would you feel happy coming to me telling me that my best mate is the problem?
26:54
Probably not, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything with that piece of information.
26:59
And actually as leaders, when you get those pieces of information, don’t start filtering them.
27:04
Oh, you know, oh, I knew those two didn’t get on with each other.
27:08
Act on everyone because every one of those is a development conversation.
27:13
You don’t have to be aggressive with it.
27:14
Aren’t you getting this office now?
27:16
She said this.
27:18
But you can definitely sit there and think, OK, what’s going on here?
27:23
Yeah.
27:23
And it maybe brings things to light that you you didn’t maybe know about the team dynamic and that sort of thing.
27:30
So then it’s like even if it’s not a major because you like you say you can rate it, can’t you how serious it is.
27:37
But if even if it’s like one of them more lower scale things that can even be like a touch point for your next like staff meeting and things that you talk about and you do in a meeting.
27:46
We also say as well, the one rule that we have is we will we won’t talk about people that aren’t in the room.
27:52
So if you came to me and you wanted to talk about Claire, I would actually say to you, I’m quite happy to talk about your thoughts, your feelings, where you’re at.
28:06
But if you’re going to keep bringing somebody else into the room in where you’re at, they need to be in the room.
28:12
And I think in early years, again, that’s brave and that’s bold because it’s very easy for you to sit there and call somebody.
28:20
It’s very different to have that person sat next to you.
28:24
And I think creating a safe space again and the where is really important and the how.
28:31
Like no, tables don’t do that thing.
28:34
If you’re going to sit in a room of three, make sure you’re all sat at the same level on the in a circle, because the balance of power must be neutral.
28:46
Yeah, I can’t have you and me sat one side and the person we’ve called in sat the other, which it often probably is around a desk.
28:53
Around a desk.
28:54
Yeah, Yeah.
28:55
To think about that, think about the messaging that you’re sending because you’ve got to, you’ve got to make this neutral as a leader.
29:01
You’re on either side.
29:03
And that’s how we start all of these conversations, I’d say to you, right.
29:06
And let’s say it is Claire.
29:07
I say, right, Fliss, I said we’re here today because I, I feel like we need to have a conversation around some things that are happening.
29:16
We’ve brought Claire in because I, I believe it’s between the, the, the two of you and I’m here to facilitate that.
29:23
There’s no right, there’s no wrong.
29:24
And I ask that you’re going to be respectful to each other because both of you have got really good ideas.
29:31
Both of you have obviously got some strong emotions around this, but this space is safe.
29:37
And we’re going to talk in here until we get to the point where everything has been said.
29:42
But when one person is talking, the other listens and we don’t talk.
29:47
And actually, if we have to sit in silence between the questions, we’ll sit in silence between the questions.
29:52
And I sometimes will do that.
29:54
If two people are, I can feel them getting emotionally reactive.
30:00
I will actually tell them both that they have to count to 20 before they say a response.
30:08
But it’s like you spin that around and like we work with children every day and you have that process of when you’re observing, you sit and you watch before you intervene it or before you’re invited in and it’s the same.
30:20
It’s basically the same thing.
30:22
So like be instead of you jumping straight to the gun and thinking this is what straight away come into my head.
30:27
I need to do this.
30:28
You’re sitting and having that 20 seconds of reflection and you can approach that conversation in a much different, better light.
30:37
In some ways.
30:38
We have some fun with it sometimes as well.
30:40
We do what we call mirror and matching.
30:42
OK, so that’s about sitting opposite somebody in a chair.
30:45
And I will tend to do this if I can feel that I can’t.
30:50
They’re just not, they’re so angry with each other that they can’t think.
30:54
OK, so I’m like, right, little exercise.
30:56
And I put them next to each other and I’m like, right, I want you both to sit, you know, in a calm position.
31:02
Sorry, right.
31:04
And you know, like feet Grange on the floor or you both take a couple of breaths.
31:08
Then I’ll pat one of them on the shoulder and I’ll say, right, what I want you to do now is copy what she’s doing or he’s doing completely, literally be like you’re the mirror to them.
31:16
And then I’ll tap the other one and say, right now swap over.
31:19
And what you can actually do by mirroring somebody’s body language is you can start to feel what they’re feeling.
31:27
And what that can actually do is it can neutralise A tense situation.
31:31
And it’s, it’s fun to watch.
31:32
As I say, I can imagine I just burst out laughing at sometimes, but it breaks that tension exactly.
31:38
You know, you either end up with an empathy to what the other person’s feeling or what the 2 will find is that they think I’m absolutely, but what’s it crazy?
31:47
So they find a commonality and it’s that they’re they both think I’m I’m old or strange or they both want it to end.
31:54
So they make up.
31:54
So, but you know what I mean?
31:55
I’m sometimes I’m about them.
31:57
The result, not necessarily the method, right?
31:59
So I just think it’s really important to have those conversations because we do need to whistleblow.
32:09
Like, you know, you touched on that programme and I just think you and I have spoken quite a bit about Gen Z’s in the workplace, right?
32:16
And I’m excited actually for this next generation or this new generation of educator because as a leader and a manager, they are taking no prisoners, OK?
32:28
Their predecessors were workable, right?
32:33
Or no, manageable, mouldable.
32:35
OK.
32:36
They would if I said do this, they would say OK, they’d probably walk away.
32:45
But if they would do it, gender Eds, I love him.
32:49
I will say, can you do this?
32:51
You know what?
32:52
I’ll say no.
32:54
Why?
32:55
Why?
32:56
Best question you can be asked as a leader, if your organisation, your teams are not asking you why, then you need to go and find out why, because that was.
33:06
And you’ll say I’m sorry.
33:08
And it does take you back a bit of azla.
33:10
Sorry.
33:11
Yeah.
33:11
Why?
33:11
Well, you know what?
33:14
Sometimes I actually go, that’s actually a really good question, why are we doing that?
33:20
And then I’ll do the other one.
33:21
OK.
33:22
If not that, then what?
33:24
And they’ll go, oh, blah, blah, blah.
33:26
And I’m like that there we go innovation right there.
33:31
Yes, do what he said, what he said, do what they said because it’s true.
33:35
You know, we don’t have all the answers and actually questioning why is an amazing.
33:43
I say it’s the most powerful.
33:44
It’s the smallest yet most powerful question or sentence that you can have create a team.
33:51
I always say it’s like the, you know, Finding Nemo, the the seagulls that I know they’re saying mine, but I almost say I want like that seagull effect.
34:00
Why, why, why, why?
34:02
Because again, we facilitate that kind of question from the children, don’t we?
34:07
Like we, we gently encourage children to ask why all the time and be curious.
34:12
Let’s do it with adults too.
34:16
I’ve actually, you know, you talked about my LinkedIn.
34:17
I’ve just done a post actually about pedagogy and androgyny.
34:22
I never know how to say that one, but basically one is, isn’t it the study of how children learn?
34:26
And the other is the study of how adults learn.
34:29
And what I find really fascinating is in adult learning, we’ve moved to this place where if I asked you to sit for six hours at one of our training courses with nothing but a pen and a notebook, you would probably leave the course and give me the worst feedback ever.
34:43
Because we’re now conditioned to want movement.
34:46
We want breakout breakouts.
34:48
We want things to doodle with, want sweets on the table.
34:52
So why does school still look like that?
34:54
And I think as leaders and managers we need to remember that.
34:56
I think we can learn so much from pedagogy and how we teach our young children to about how we lead and manage the the bigger people.
35:06
Yeah.
35:06
And I think coming back to safeguarding as well, when I often think about when I was a practitioner and I’ve done my safeguarding training, it’s often sat in front of a screen.
35:14
And it’s like how much of that is actually going in, especially if that’s not your preferred learning style, which I know it’s not mine.
35:19
Yeah.
35:20
So like you have to like foster in this positive safeguarding culture as a leader and a manager, you need to be doing different training that’s actually going to instil them safeguarding practises in your team.
35:33
You know, and, and controversially, I’ve always had a very open safeguarding culture in my setting.
35:40
And what I mean by that is rather than some of the conversations just being a little bit elitist and for the senior leaders only, I’m like you, I believe the best way to contextualise safeguarding is to allow the people to relate it to the children that they’re caring for, for in the moment.
36:00
Conversations that bring that professional curiosity.
36:07
Because if you are a young person and this is your first job, how do you know if that’s not OK?
36:14
Yes, you’ve done, like you said, you’ve done the safeguarding course.
36:17
You’ve learned the bits that you need to know.
36:18
You know, you can name the different types of abuse.
36:20
You can, you know, talk about all of these different things.
36:26
But then the day-to-day, what does that actually look like?
36:30
You know, And I think sometimes the training is so far away, even the best written case studies are so far away from what it’s actually really like.
36:41
So one of the things that we have within our planning meetings, because we don’t have team meetings anymore, but one of the agenda points in a planning meeting is safeguarding.
36:50
So they will actively talk about not only open cases, but that kind of emerging safeguarding.
36:59
And when they also talk about safeguarding, they don’t just talk about safeguarding the children, they talk about how they’re going to safeguard themselves.
37:04
And I think again, that’s really important.
37:06
And it’s important that we spend time when we do our INSET days, again, a proportion of that is spent looking at things like serious case reviews or unfortunately, you know, the documentary on, on Genevieve.
37:21
And I think as leaders and managers, we need to really pay a bit more proper respect to that side of it because I think we have a duty to serve the children and families and a duty to protect the people that work with us.
37:43
And again, if we’ve, I mentioned toxic positivity, if we’re forever seeing, oh, it’ll be fine, that’ll be fine.
37:51
And not challenging, not being curious, not trying to look for the missing pieces.
37:58
Remember, we, it is not our job to cast a judgement.
38:00
We are not there to be judge and say whether or not a family is right or wrong.
38:07
The best advice I was given by a chair of a safeguarding board was just because parents don’t parent like you would, doesn’t mean they’re not parenting to the best of their capacity.
38:17
I think that’s really key in safeguarding.
38:19
But I also think what’s really key is understanding that we’re information gatherers.
38:25
Our role is to see it, document it, see it, document it, not even really question it, see document, share.
38:36
And I think as leaders, we then take that, we collate, and if we’ve got even the smallest niggle of doubt or question or our own professional curiosity, we share it.
38:50
Yeah, we don’t sit on that information because that information could be the missing part of a puzzle that somebody is looking for.
38:58
And I, again, I will say to my team, one of the things is we’re not cats.
39:03
We don’t have 9 lives.
39:05
So we can’t brush things under the carpet for the sake of what?
39:11
Because we just can’t be bothered with dealing with what happens if we talk about it or report it or tell Ofsted or tell the local authority.
39:20
No, I, I don’t, I don’t want it to sit on my shoulders, right?
39:24
I, I believe that the more outspoken we can get about systemic poor safeguarding or the systemic culture around toxic positivity or it doesn’t happen around here, that honestly, when I hear leaders or managers say, Oh no, we don’t, we don’t have any safeguarding concerns.
39:46
I’m like, OK, Hun, can you go on some training please?
39:48
Because if you’ve got no concerns at all whatsoever, that’s a concern.
39:52
And again, that’s what I sometimes talk about.
39:56
Look for what’s not there, not always what is there because sometimes more is said in what is not written down or said than actually in what is being vocalised.
40:07
So I think understanding that that is a massive responsibility and one that is.
40:16
Everybody’s, it’s not just the managers, you know, we can all play a part in a positive safeguarding culture.
40:22
And it’s about speaking out and it’s about speaking out until you’re heard.
40:26
And if I tell you and you don’t do anything with it, go above you and above them.
40:30
I want to say this is one thing that I see quite a lot in like the earliest Facebook groups and stuff.
40:35
Like often people post like anonymously saying like, I’ve reported this but nothing’s been done.
40:40
Or more so like I’ve seen recently is things like they give her like a maybe a little bit of a scenario, not all of it.
40:47
And I’ll say, is this worth reporting?
40:50
And it’s like, yeah, you’re clearly thinking something’s wrong, go and do something about it.
40:56
But then you wonder like in maybe in that setting, they don’t feel comfortable or going back to the friendship sort of thing.
41:03
It might be it’s one of their friends or whatever.
41:05
But yeah, I think definitely you have to know that it’s OK to go and report it and don’t just assume that it’s like, so it’s fine.
41:14
Like I’ve never seen that before 1 off that sort of thing.
41:17
And I think that’s just the main message if anyone takes from this podcast 100% is don’t feel scared to report.
41:23
Yeah, everything I think educator level, definitely document it, speak out, shout out.
41:31
And for leaders and managers, look at that system that you’ve got in place.
41:35
How easy is it for your team to tell you?
41:41
And I don’t mean knock on your door and vocalise it, I mean how can they tell you when they are at home stressing over it in in the bedroom at night or on the bus mulling it over.
41:54
How easy have you made reporting it to you?
41:58
Because they’re the moments we need to capture.
42:01
We need to capture the times when like that, if it’s gone on Facebook, you need to know as a leader and manager and actually, what does that say about the culture in your setting?
42:12
If they’d rather turn to a social media platform than come to you, or at least if it’s not you yourself, they don’t feel safe enough within their team to talk about it or even speak to like, one other person who then might say, oh, no, you should go and do something about this.
42:28
Yeah.
42:29
And I just, you know that for me, look at your systems.
42:34
And again, I’m not talking buy into something really expensive.
42:39
Google and Microsoft both have the ability to make forms on there that are, I know Microsoft sits behind a subscription to Microsoft, but if you haven’t got a Microsoft subscription on your laptop, you’ve probably got a goo.
42:53
You can have a Google One for free.
42:55
So you can set these things up for free and they are really simple to use.
43:01
And I just think it’s in these little simple but effective systems that we can revolutionise cultures.
43:10
And I always say be brave.
43:14
You know, if more people were brave, we will only save children if we speak out.
43:20
We will only protect children from harm if we find the courage to talk.
43:26
And I know they’d do the same for us.
43:29
But, you know, this is our duty.
43:31
This is our responsibility as humans to protect our children 100%.
43:36
Yeah.
43:37
I think that’s a really nice way to sort of round it up as well.
43:39
I came to a very natural, natural end, but I would I’d love to end the podcast, podcast, podcast asking you to complete the sentence.
43:52
OK, to me, working in the early years is I love that.
43:58
Oh, I’ve got I haven’t even said my answer yet and you’ve made me go goosebumpy.
44:01
So to me, working in the early years is a gift, right?
44:06
I genuinely believe we are architects of future generations, brains.
44:12
We hold the future of humanity in our hands for a moment, for a day, a week, a month or years, right.
44:23
So that responsibility comes with you needing to find your inner courage that in a sense of doing what’s right, not being right, doing what’s right.
44:34
But for me, early years this year, just that it’s a gift and it is one that we are the custodians of those children and we have a responsibility to fill their little hearts with love, fill our own hearts with love and just ensure that their lives are fun.
44:52
And actually, these are my nurseries values.
44:54
Sorry, but it is that fun, flexible and full of love because that’s our duty.
44:59
100% love that.
45:02
Well, thank you, Lucy.
45:03
No worries.
