'I got fed up with having to rely on agency staff, because although you are paying high fees, you can not let them do very much because you don't know them.
'A person might be qualified and checked, but I can't trust them because I don't know them. I would not want to be in the position where parents had a complaint or even a concern about somebody whom I could not justify.
'My deputy and I are supernumerary and I also employ someone full-time as a floater. It is her role to step in wherever and whenever she is needed.
'Five of my staff work four ten-hour days, so they have a fifth day in the week off in lieu. It means there are four staff here in the morning when the parents come in and who are here in the evening.
'The floater works an eight-hour day covering the core hours in the middle of the day. The additional salary for our supernumerary has been paid back tenfold in the money saved from agency fees. It works fantastically well.
'We have a keyworker system and the keyworkers have six-week surgeries when they talk to parents about their children. If a keyworker is off when the surgery is due, the floater can take it for them.
'The floater needs to be a well-qualified, experienced member of the team.
I am conscious that after 12 to 15 months in this role, someone needs to move back into a regular role in one of the rooms. Although the floater is a very important part of the team, the job carries lots less responsibility than most competent people would want, because you are not responsible for any particular group and all that entails in planning for them.
'It is good experience for someone to take on the role of floater because they get to work in every area of the nursery.'
'For example, my pre-school room is registered for 32 children. When you have 32 children and four members of staff in there can be a heck of a lot of noise but an extra pair of hands makes a real difference.
