The Reality of Setting up Your Early Years Provision for Next Year

Can you relate?

You have to have been a practitioner yourself to understand the strange, wonderful (and often overwhelming) experience of spending time in your setting without the children.

For those of us who have an extended time away from the children over the summer break, one of the first things on our minds is setting up our environment for the year ahead.

This can typically take one of two forms.

Option 1: You remain in the same room 

or 

Option 2: You inherit a completely new space

Let’s look at option 1 first:

My initial reaction to this scenario was one of total depression and overwhelm.

All year I’d ‘hide’ things that needed properly sorting out promising myself I’d make time during the term to do it and then not. I'd then vow that, once the holidays came, I’d tackle it. 

Come the summer holidays, I’d walk in (with my favourite coffee which I may actually get to drink hot for once!)) and I’d just stand in the middle of the room and look around wondering

'Where on earth do I start?'

I don’t know if you can relate to this, but the more I looked, the worse it got. This was my mess (what I could see and, worse, what I couldn’t) and the more I looked, the bigger the task got.

Let’s bring in Option 2 at this point. 

Inheriting someone else’s room (be it your first or not), often brings about feelings of initial excitement (the newness of it all) but is quickly replaced by overwhelm.

If the member of staff you’ve received the room from is still in your school or setting, you may worry about changing things. If they’ve left after many years, you’re likely to open cupboards and find 10, 20, 30+ years of ‘resources’ lurking there (I've been in this situation a number of times over the years and it’s tough).

When I felt like this, I rarely sprang into action (I know some of you are amazing at this and I’m so envious); I just felt totally paralysed by the realisation that the ‘couple of days’ I’d set aside for this wasn’t even going to scratch the surface.

(I still feel like this about clearing out things at home too. The cupboards, clothes, lofts, bedrooms, garages....)

BUT, there is a light at the end of this tunnel and I'd love to share it with you...

Every year I got better at moving past this (with the help of more caffeine and carbs) by realising that the only way forward was to stop seeing the 'whole' and concentrate on just one 'part.'

Just one thing.

The ‘Just One Thing’ Approach

There are so many great benefits of this approach. 

Here are just a few:

• I’ve made a decision that will get me moving again - this feels good. (Feeling ‘stuck’ is awful and such a waste of my limited emotional energy and time)
• I can set the size of my ‘just one thing’ accordingly. (I’m defining the end goal so I can make it as easy or as challenging as I wish)
• I can see what I’m aiming for and I know what I need to do
• Even though this is only one part of the whole, I’ll have reduced the size of the seemingly mammoth task I saw when I first walked in

So, having become ‘unstuck’, I would open just one cupboard or choose just one set of shelves and, this is where the real magic happens, take EVERYTHING out and place them in a space nearby. 

(This is very different from picking up one thing at a time and wondering what to do with it.)

Purge! It feels amazing.

Then sort.

You decide on the categories. They might be according to their purpose but equally they could be:

•  'I don’t know what this is or what it does and need to photograph it and ask online'
•  'This looks like it’s part of something else - where’s the rest?'

Next, rather than putting things back, do the same with the next area or cupboard.

You’ll end up with a load of empty cupboards and furniture which you can clean, mend, paint, whatever you wish and you’ll know exactly what you have available to you.

You then created the ‘head space’ to think about:

• What will look like a mess, will actually be an opportunity for a completely clean slate.
• What did the children love last year and where did they love to do it?
• Have you accessed any new training that has made you want to set up something new in your provision?
• What were the problems with flow, access to resources, ease of keeping areas clean and tidy, quiet and cosy etc. last year and how could these be resolved?
• Where are the lighter and darker parts of your room and how could you use these to your advantage? (Natural light, naturally dark and cosy and opportunities for adding in new lights)
• What is missing and you could source secondhand or someone ‘handy’ could create for you? (Simple furniture, soft furnishings etc.)

Whether you spend an hour, half a day, a day sorting through your provision in this way, remember that the rewards will be enormous.

You spend thousands of hours in this space and it will play a hugely important in how you nurture a group of children over the next twelve months. We ask a lot of our environment and, when we use it effectively,  it gives back in abundance.

So, make sure you take in your favourite mug, drink and a great snack or lunch, notice how you feel when you walk in and then walk in the direction of your first ‘just one thing’.

Karen x

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