Thank you for completing the Preschool Behaviour Good Practice Checklist, here is some advice about how to access support if you are concerned about your setting's score.

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I am Richard Daniel Curtis, a former Early Years Teacher and behaviour expert.  Over the past fifteen years I have worked with hundreds of educational settings and thousands of children, helping to turn around the behaviour that worries staff.  I run The Root Of It, a multi-award winning special needs service, we get to the root of children's difficulties.

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The behaviour basics

Many owners and directors of settings that look after young children are concerned that they don't have in place the basic behaviour management steps that inspectors may be looking for when they visit.  Once in place these steps lay the foundation for good practice for their staff and help to ensure that the staff team are being consistent with all of the children in their care.

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Having worked with many hundreds of Early Years settings, I recognised that not every owner knows the 7 Behaviour Management Steps, let alone if all of their staff do.

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The 7 Behaviour Management Steps are:

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1. Understanding groups

2. Boundaries, Rewards and Consequences

3. Visual signs

4. Transparency and consistency

5. Understanding social and emotional development

6. Understanding your own reactions

7. Engaging activities

 

Underpinning all 7 Steps are Praise and Positive Language.  Not only should the management team know these steps, but it is vital that all staff are aware of their role in each of these Steps.

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Unfamiliar with these steps?

Now don't worry if these Steps are unfamiliar to you, our understanding of behaviour and the way the brain processes learning good behaviour has changed enormously over the past 5 years.  This means that the good practice advice that we give has changed to reflect the needs of the young children you work with.

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How can I help?

I was speaking at a conference of Day Nursery Owners in 2016 and it became clear that almost every owner in the room was missing at least one of these 7 Steps.

 

So to help them I recorded an eLearning course on the 7 Steps, suitable for the owner and their team to go through in their own time.

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Knowing how hectic it is in an early years setting, I made each of the videos about 5-10 minutes long, so that it wouldn't take staff away from the floor for too long.

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Even more training...

I also added some other courses too, on social, emotional, play, brain development, on ADHD and Autism, on attachment difficulties, to really make the difference for busy preschools.  I wanted to give their staff certified (yes, they can download a certificate after completing every course) training without having to pay for expensive in-person courses, cover or even closing the setting.

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Pricing for teams...

It was really clear to me that access to this site had to be a no-brainer, I had to make sure that we were offering amazing CPD for a low cost.  So rather than charge per course, it needed to be ore economical to get access to all of the courses for all of the team.

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This is what the pricing would have looked like if we did it by charging per course:

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• Attachment Difficulties (RRP £29)

• Behaviour management (RRP £79)

• Brain development (RRP £29)

• Social development (RRP £29)

• Emotional development (RRP £29)

• Play development (RRP £29)

• Autism Awareness (RRP £29)

• ADHD Awareness (RRP £29)

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But we wanted to REALLY help preschools, so we packaged all £282 of training up into packages, that settings could start and stop at any point:

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1-4 staff = £36 per month

5-20 staff = £72 per month

20-40 staff = £144 per month

Unlimited staff on one site = £180 per month

Unlimited staff on multiple sites = £360 per month

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These prices include VAT and cover access to all of the courses!

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Avoiding contract tie ins...

We know how annoying it is to be tied into a lengthy contract, so we didn't do that.  Instead, once a setting has signed up, they (not us) can cancel at any time by using the link we sent them.  We don't refund any money already collected, but that does stop future payments.

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Managing staff training...

We've set our website up, so that as a preschool signs up, they add their staff as users, this means that each member of their team has their own login, their own access to courses, their own progress recording and their own certificates.

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Device friendly

We understand that many people will be accessing this eLearning on devices, rather than a traditional computer, so right from the start we built the site to be fully accessible to learners and admins on all devices.

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So what do people think?

We asked someone who owns multiple nurseries to give us his views, this is what he said: