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Teach Nursery 17

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To grow an ‘outstanding’ nursery from the ground up takes patience andcommitment – qualities Mahila Samarbakhsh and the team at Lexden Lodge Kindergarten have in abundance, as TN discovered...

For many people a job issomething you begin at9.00am, leave at 5.00pm andignore as much as possible inbetween. For some, like Mahila

Samarbakhsh, principal of Lexden LodgeKindergarten in Colchester, it’s far more.“To be able to buy this place, we had tosell our own home – we moved to the topfloor and lived here for over three years,”she tells us. “We put everything we hadinto it, heart and soul, because it’ssomething we believed in.”

We’re speaking in late June, almosteight years to the month since the 125-place Lexden Lodge opened its doors tochildren and parents. In that time muchhas changed: numbers have risendramatically and what was once confinedto the ground floor of the expansive,three-storey Victorian former residencehas spread throughout the building andits grounds. What clearly hasn’t changed,though, is the emotional investmentMahila has in her business and her rolewithin it. When she describes her settingas a “dream come true” it doesn’t soundlike hyperbole but a heartfelt expressionof both the satisfaction overcoming thechallenges involved in growing a businessfrom the ground up has brought, and themeaning the nursery and its work has for her.

And it is perhaps this fact above all thathas resulted in the success the setting hashad, for example, its two ‘outstanding’inspections, the first coming just sixmonths after opening. Mahila’s attitudetowards her work is echoed throughoutLexden Lodge, by manager, AngelaMcQuitty, and deputy, Carrie Chapman,and from them down to senior staff,nursery nurses and their assistants, andas a result the children in their care are

“It was a bigproject, it was a

dream come true...”

The children are calm and relaxedbecause they know that they arein safe hands, and their individualneeds are being met

MAHILA SAMARBAKHSH, PRINCIPAL

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18 Teach Nursery

receiving early years care and educationof the highest quality...

1Building a business“I’m always here – I come in at halfpast six every day to open up, and

I’m here until about six thirty everyevening, five days a week. At weekends Icatch up with anything that needs to bedone... I enjoy what I do, I need to behands-on.” For Mahila, running LexdenLodge has meant nothing if not asignificant investment of time – and fromthe very outset, too.

“We fell in love with it because it’s sucha beautiful building,” she says of hersetting’s home, “but it took us a year toget planning permission – it was sittinghere and we couldn’t do anything. It thentook another a year and a half tocomplete the renovation. It had been anursing home, so there was a lot of workthat needed to be done. Everything was amess – we had to change the electrics,the flooring, the walls, the plastering...”

But it wasn’t only the physical workinvolved in making the building fit forpurpose that posed a challenge. Mahila,though she had worked as a nurserynurse herself, admits that she had noprior experience of running a business.Luckily, she had support: “My husbandhad his own business,” she explains.“Though it’s completely different in someways, he had that to call upon, and I hadexperience of working in childcare. So weput the two together to make it work –without him I don’t think I would havebeen able to do it, he played a big part in this.”

Early years expertise was also providedby Angela and Carrie (previously co-deputy managers at the setting Mahila’sown children attended), who with Mahilamake up the nursery’s management

Talkingpoints

Award winnersAs well as having two ‘outstanding’inspections to her nursery’s name, Mahilawas named Business Woman of the Year atthe 2011 Essex Countywide BusinessAwards and saw her setting receive a morethan creditable third place in both the2006 NDNA and Nursery World Awards.The team have also just been awarded theire-Quality counts by NDNA.

Formal dress They say you should never judge a bookby its cover, but what about an earlyyears setting by its staff uniform? LexdenLodge has taken the formal approach: “Ifyou’ve got something that looks moreformal,” Angela says, “it’s an indication ofthe expectations parents should have;it’s a commitment to a standard, astatement from staff that ‘I’m going towork, I’m going to meet expectations’.”

Heading home“When parents decide that they’re goingto join us we offer them a home visit,”Mahila says. “The child’s key person andone of the management team spend acouple of hours there, to see the child inhis or her own environment, and toanswer any questions the parents have.After the visit, there are a number of freesettling in sessions – it’s quite a longprocess before children actually start.”

Fair fees “A simple thing we do to help parents is togive them the option to choose anotherday when we’re closed for bank holidays,”Mahila says. “If the child in question is fulltime, we give the money back.”

“Otherwise, if your child is booked infor Mondays, that’s five Mondays you’dbe paying for in the year that youcouldn’t use,” Angela explains. “It’s out ofa sense of fairness!”

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team. “I wouldn’t have been able to do any ofthis without the help of the lovely ladiesaround me,” Mahila stresses.

Having opened its doors with only fivechildren, and confined to the ground floor,Lexden Lodge expanded quickly. Withinthree years numbers had grown enough towarrant first the opening of the building’sfirst floor and then its top floor; today, it has186 children on roll and over 30 members of staff.

2Committed staffThere are many factors that influencethe quality of an early years setting,but when looking for reasons why

Lexden Lodge is excelling, the attention paidto staffing seems particularly significant. At abasic level it’s about numbers, with supportstaff supplementing nursery nurses betweenthe hours of 10 and 5.30 every day. “For the3–5s we never stick to the 1:8 ratios – we’realways either 1:6 or 1:5,” Mahila says by wayof example; “so today there are 38 childrenon the second floor, and there are ninemembers of staff, to give them support andhelp with extra activities. The fact that we’reable to give our children extra attention issomething we’re really proud of.”

It’s also, however, about the expectationsthe management team have of theirpractitioners, and their attention to detail,whether it’s in regard to the recruitmentprocess, appraisals or to continuingprofessional development. “When we’reinterviewing for new staff it can take us along time to find the right person, becausewe demand a lot,” Angela explains. “We wantcommitment, and we also want those weemploy to genuinely understand that theeffect they have on the children – their livesand the lives of their parents – is profound.They have to take it as seriously, as we do,and they have to give the children the best that they can. It’s hard for our nursery nurses, but they have tremendousjob satisfaction.”

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Teach Nursery 19

Helping practitioners to deliver what’sexpected of them is a key element of themanagement team’s role: “We look at staffand make sure they’re in the right place; thateverything they should be doing is beingdone, and that they’re on task with theirlearning journeys. It’s up to us to make surethe garden is set up when they go out, thatthe risk assessments are in place, so thatwhen they arrive everything’s ready forthem, and they can concentrate on thechildren,” Angela says. “We’re the emollient in the mixture; we draw everything together and make sure it runs as smoothlyas possible.

“And each little problem,” she adds, “weview as an opportunity to develop – if youcan do that you’ve already got a head start.Everybody here knows that if you don’tmove forward you’re actually falling behind!”

3IndependentlearnersAn important end goal of early yearseducation is, of course, to provide

children with the skills and confidence theyneed to succeed when they make the stepup to primary school. To this end, the teamat Lexden Lodge place great emphasis onfostering the independence of those in theircare. As cases in point, Mahila highlights thevalue of the nursery’s Atelier: a small butbright and resource-rich room, inspired bythe Reggio Emilia approach, that providessmall groups of children, from the age of twoupwards, with the opportunity to take on aproject of their own choosing and work on ituntil satisfied with the outcome – the rangeof creative options on offer includes woodand real hammers and nails. Angeladescribes the cooking sessions childrenengage in, during which chances to weighand discuss the origins of ingredients, andmake meaningful decisions about thepreparation process – be they right or wrong – abound.

Efforts aren’t just confined to the activitiespractitioners plan, either; they’re embeddedin day-to-day life at the setting. On one level,the presence of sinks and toilets in therooms is a convenience (if you’ll pardon thepun), but it also enables staff to encourageand support children as they come to learnthat they can turn on a tap and wash theirhands for themselves, and take themselvesto the toilet when they need to go. Similarly,the over-threes are trusted with crockeryand glasses at mealtimes – “Yes, they candrop them on the floor, but they soon learnto be more careful,” Angela says.

“What’s important is that they’re learningabout life in a safe environment, but one inwhich there’s an element of risk,” she says oftheir philosophy. “When there’s an elementof risk, children’s learning is greater; they

understand that they can do things forthemselves. Suddenly they’re more awareand more capable, and when they go up toschool they’re ready to learn because theythink ‘I can do this, I can manage’.

“It’s inherent in each of our rooms,” shecontinues; “there’s an element ofunderstanding about something in everyone that’s age appropriate. To give anotherexample, when the children get to the over-threes, there are rules – so they learn tounderstand that ‘if I do this to this person,this is going to happen, and if I do this againthis will happen, so I need to do it this way’.In every case, the key person is there toguide each child – they can support anddirect, and help their children to know what’sexpected and how to manage themselves.”

Both Mahila and Angela stress theimportance of the individual throughout;every child at Lexden Lodge is planned forand supported according to his or her needs,from the scheduling of nap-times to theactivities they are offered – a commitmentbuilt upon strong relationships betweenchildren and key person, and key person and parents.

4Striking a balanceRunning a large early years setting isa juggling act at the best of times,with competing demands often

clamouring for attention. It’s perhaps nosurprise, then, that when asked what theteam are most proud of about LexdenLodge, Angela points to the successfulbalance that has been achieved. “We balancea lot of things,” she says: “staff ages – wehave as young as 17 and as old as 72 – theirqualifications, and the way that we deploythem in the nursery. We think about theirqualities, how they’ll work together; abouthow new staff coming in will affect thosealready in place – they have to be happyworking together.

“We look at the wellbeing of the children,but you can’t look at that without beingaware that the wellbeing of the staff is part ofthat too,” she explains. “It’s important. There’snot a lot of financial reward in early years –there never has been and I don’t supposethere ever will be – so it’s about somethingelse, and that something else is a feelingfrom the heart that, actually, you’re doingsomething you believe in. If you feel goodabout what you’re doing then you feelhappy, and you’ve got to have an element ofhappiness in there, otherwise how are yougoing to spend nine-and-a-half hours doingthe job?

“Sometimes the balance is ruffled, the boat might rock, but we get it right – and wework hard at getting it right. That matters agreat deal.”Visit lexdenlodge.co.uk

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