Published May 28, 2024 Written by Rebecca Smith

Nursery leadership and management: How to build a team

This blog will cover nursery leadership and management of a team. It will explain the different types of team roles and how you can utilise these to make the team effective.

It will also cover how to develop your team so that they have the right skills to support children in the nursery.

Forming and developing your team

In a nursery, there are a range of teams:

A senior management team, involving senior leaders with the day-to-day responsibility for running the nursery
A full staff team – all those employed to work in the nursery (including its leaders and managers)
A room team – those who work in a particular room within the nursery, such as the baby room.

Good nursery team leaders are:

Able to communicate well, so that team members are clear about their expectations of them and understand what needs to be done
Able to organise the team to achieve the goals and objectives required by the organisation
Respectful, fair and kind; understanding their team members well, listening to them and being consistent in how they deal with individual team members and situations
Able to delegate tasks effectively and support team members to achieve them without taking control
Manage and develop the performance of team members effectively, motivating the team to achieve their goals.

It is important to remember that teams do not stand still. New members come and go, changes occur that may mean you need to reshape and redirect your team.

A good nursery manager involves and engages staff

It is important to communicate clearly and engage your team in important discussions and decisions. This is a key element in ensuring that your staff are empowered, not only to carry out their job role, but also to support and promote the nursery.

Your staff are the ‘eyes and ears’ of the setting; they are the people who talk to parents and children every day, and they will know what works and what is causing difficulties.

Develop a set of values for your nursery team to follow

Having a written set of values that everyone can aspire to is important in creating a strong culture. These need to be concise, easy to understand and easy to remember.

You should aim for no more than 8 – 10 values to embed within your team. Involve your team in refining and agreeing on these values, so that they all share them.

Values must be meaningful to those who will follow them. You may wish to consider the following themes when determining your values:

How you treat each other
Open and honest communication (including listening to others)
Being accountable for actions
Developing trust
Commitment to high-quality work
Being innovative and creative
Contributing to the positive presentation of the organisation.

Think of some suggestions for values you would like to share with your team. These should be values that you are comfortable using to represent your nursery, internally and externally. Share your suggestions with your team members – can they enhance or improve them? Are there any that they would challenge or find difficult?

Develop your knowledge further, by undertaking NDNA’s free online course: Effective Leadership and Management, or our Live Virtual Classroom course, Leadership and Management.

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