Business development: creating a family room that all can enjoy

There is more than a touch of luxury to Lincolnshire Montessori's new family room. In keeping with the Georgian building it occupies, the decor is tasteful, with wooden floors, leather sofas, rugs and shelving units. It's a place where children and parents can relax, removed from the hustle and bustle.

Development manager Nathan Archer says the room is destined to play an important role in strengthening services for families and developing the nursery's business as a whole.

The 9m x 4m space was formerly used for storage, but he felt there had to be a much better use for it. As relationships with parents grew and ties with the local children's centre became stronger, the unused room suddenly presented lots of possibilities.

'The floor had already been fitted so furnishings were not a massive outlay. We are delighted with the end result,' he says. 'The idea for creating this room has come from getting to know all our parents and gauging what they would like to have.'

THE BIG PICTURE

Feedback from parents suggested the need for a comfortable space which could be used for activities with babies and younger children in particular, and a place where parents could come on their own.

Mr Archer says, 'We run a lot of treasure basket groups in the main hall, but it is a big space and it can be intimidating for younger children. We wanted to create an environment that felt more homely for families, where we could run these kinds of activities in a more comfortable way.'

He also envisages the room being used for one-to-one meetings with parents, independent education plan reviews and as somewhere parents can sit and read about the Montessori approach.

Most importantly, the room is designed to reflect the emphasis that the EYFS places on relationships with parents.

'It feeds into the bigger picture,' says Mr Archer. 'We are currently strengthening our links with our local children's centre in Caistor, which is a virtual centre. We will be linking with the health co-ordinator, breastfeeding support service and childminder network, and our room will be used for related meetings and activities. This gives us a fantastic opportunity to get new parents into our building and look at our baby room, and potentially generate new clients.'

He adds, 'We are also seeking funding from trusts for a community nursery nurse to run a series of groups in the room and oversee our co-ordination with the children's centre. This is an exciting project for next year.'

VANESSA BROMLEY

Vanessa Bromley is Lincolnshire Montessori's birth-to-threes lead and has just become accredited in baby massage. She is fired up about introducing this to the nursery and believes the new room, which is 'lovely and warm and private', provides the ideal environment.

'Lincolnshire County Council's Birth to Fives service is very pro-active and I recently attended a workshop which really focused my mind on how our nursery could provide more for babies and very young children,' Vanessa says.

'Baby massage was an area that particularly interested me and with Nathan's help, I accessed a three-day course. We were spurred on by the idea that this training could later be delivered as a presentation to our EYPS group.'

Vanessa recently finished her foundation degree and was keen to get started on something new. 'The course involved three full study days, with additional homework. I also had to write up two baby massage case-studies.'

She intends to run hourly sessions four times a week and expects a big take-up.

'There is a real demand around here for baby massage,' she says. 'Cuts to children's centre services mean that it is not widely available and private sessions are over-subscribed. It's great that we've now got an ideal space to deliver these and I'm looking forward to teaching parents the strokes so they can massage their babies at home.'

SNAPSHOT

•  Lincolnshire Montessori opened its first site in Stallingborough in 2000. It provides full daycare for up to 89 children in a purpose-built site and employs 27 staff.

• Its Caistor nursery opened in 2009, with Montessori primary school on site, and it is registered for 114 children. The nursery is housed in a Grade II listed coaching inn, with barns and tractor shed, and sits in ten acres of land.

• Both nurseries are graded outstanding by Ofsted.