Nursery group chooses centres of excellence
Katy Morton
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Nursery chain Busy Bees has chosen five of its settings to become 'centres of excellence' as part of a new best-practice initiative.
The nurseries - Brough in East Cumbria, Southport, Evesham, Chatham in Kent and Oldbrook in Milton Keynes - have been chosen to represent the best standards of care across the 129 Busy Bees nurseries.
Settings were judged on their Ofsted inspection results, partnerships with parents and the local community, the ability to support a child's development, and learning and creativity.
The aim of the initiative is to promote a pro-active approach to best practice. During organised visits to the centres of excellence, Busy Bees staff will be encouraged to observe creative displays, free-flow play, learning journals and training. It is hoped that the visiting staff will take back ideas to use in their own settings.
The centres of excellence form part of a bigger Busy Bees project, called 'See the Difference', which aims to ensure that all settings maintain a high level of care and service by following strict criteria.
Operations director Margaret Randles said, 'Busy Bees is committed to offering quality childcare to every child that attends our nurseries. In the passion, enthusiasm and drive our childcare professionals display, we want to give them a visual example of outstanding practice to help develop and inspire their existing skills.
'We believe that all childcare settings across the UK should have this visual role model to develop best practice across the sector.'
Sharon Mackenzie, nursery manager at Busy Bees in Southport, said, 'We were thrilled to be chosen as a centre of excellence. It recognises the commitment of our staff. We are the only nursery to be chosen as a centre of excellence that isn't a purpose-built setting.
'Since being named a centre of excellence, we have developed our staff training to heighten standards and introduced a new IT resource, a Smart Table, to the setting.
'We have already had two members of staff from St David's Nursery in Wales to visit the setting, and I'm going to visit their nursery to further exchange ideas. We plan to continue to build on our good practice and will take into account feedback from other members of staff who visit the setting.'
