Baby Quality Toolkit Taster Pages

Baby Quality
A toolkit to support tuning into babies
Bath and North East Somerset
Clinical Commissioning Group

Foreword
The Baby Quality Toolkit has been designed by Bath & North East Somerset Early Years Service,
to support settings with providing high quality early childhood care and education for our
youngest and most vulnerable children – the under twos. The Toolkit has been developed in
consultation with early years practitioners from a variety of settings across Bath and North East
Somerset. It has been tried and tested and builds on both an acknowledged evidence base and
many years of working closely with baby room practitioners.
This Baby Quality Toolkit fits securely within the Children’s Service vision in Bath and North East
Somerset in that:
We want all children and young people to enjoy childhood and to be well prepared for adult life.
This toolkit will support you to develop the very best high quality provision for every child in
your care.
‘We now know that (very young children)
are far more competent and capable than
we ever realised. No longer do we regard
young babies as helpless, but as
individuals who are born learner.’
Dowling, M. 2014
Children under three years:
the time of their lives
Ashley Ayre – Strategic Director for People and Communities
This valuable Baby Quality Toolkit builds on the success of the Toddler Quality Toolkit and offers
another excellent framework for early years practitioners to support their work with the youngest
children. This essential toolkit takes you on an evaluative journey that will help identify both the
strengths of your practice as well as the various ways in which you can enhance its quality. It
offers a skilful set of reflective audit tools, resources and activities that will enable settings to
explore and improve upon the experiences of babies and their families in order to develop the
best possible provision. We now know that creating an optimal environment in the first critical
years of life can have a long term impact on health, wellbeing and our capacity to learn. All key
aspects of providing a supportive and nourishing relationship and a stimulating environment for
babies are addressed in this toolkit. It will help you to ensure you offer both a safe haven for
babies and a secure base from which to explore and learn about their world.
Dr Janet Rose – Principal, Norland College
2 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

Contents
• Foreword 2
Section 1
• Introduction 5
• What is it like for me here grid 8
• Top Tips for practitioners working with babies 10
Section 2 – Activities
• Introduction 12
• Developmental quiz 13
• How well do you really know your babies? 14
• Tuning into the environment 15
• The role of the key person 17
• What is it like for me here? 18
• Holistic observation 19
• Partnership with parents/carers 20
• The role of the practitioners 21
• Attachment 22
• You can’t do that with babies, or can you? 23
Section 3 – Audits and Resources
• Introduction to the audits 25
3.1 Leadership and Management
• Audit 27
• Amazing babies 29
• Growing and supporting your baby room 30
• Observing adult/babies communications 31
• Reflecting on daily routines 33
• Top Tips for daily routines 35
• Resource Directory 36
3.2 Inclusion
• Audit 38
• Inclusion resource 40
• Top tips for identifying and supporting babies 41
• Inclusion audit 42
• Resource directory 43
3.3 Environment
• Audit 45
• Reflecting on the environment 47
• Outdoors 49
• Books for babies 50
• Collections to support mathematical
development 51
• Resource Directory 52
3.4 Learning and Development
• Audit 54
• Experiences for babies 56
• Treasure baskets 59
• Long term planning for routines
Nappy changing 60
• Blank long term planning 61
• Resource Directory 62
3.5 Characteristics of Effective Learning
• Audit 64
• Top Tips for Characteristics of
Effective Learning 66
• Schemas 67
• Resource Directory 69
3.6 Personal and Social Development
• Audit 71
• Role of the key person 73
• Observing an effective key person system 74
• Reflecting on grouptimes 76
• What is it like for me at group times 78
• Resource Directory 80
3.7 Communication and Language
• Audit 82
• Communication friendly audit 84
• Top Tips for communications 85
• Traditional songs and rhymes 86
• Top tips for engaging babies at singing times 88
• Resource Directory 89
3.8 Physical Development
• Audit 91
• What is it like for me at mealtimes 93
• Top tips for snack and mealtimes 95
• Top tips for physically active play
environments 96
• Resource Directory 97
3.9 Working in Partnership
• Audit 99
• Building relationships with families 101
• Top tips for working in partnership 102
• Wow stars 103
• Resource Directory 104
3.10 Transitions
• Audit 106
• Evaluating transitions 108
• Top tips for transition 109
• All about me 110
• All about me guidance 113
• Resource Directory 119
Section Four –
Development Planning
• Development planning introduction 121
• Development Plan 122
• Case study format 125
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 3

Section 1
Introduction
Many things can wait
Children cannot
Now is the time
Their bones are being formed
Their blood is being made
Their senses are being developed
To them we cannot say ‘tomorrow’
Their name is Today
Mistral, G. 2000 poem quoted by JC Arnold
in Endangered, Your Child in a Hostile world
4 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

Introduction – Baby Quality Toolkit
The Baby Quality Toolkit has been designed by Bath & North East Somerset Early Years Service to support practitioners to provide high
quality care for the youngest children in their settings. It provides tools that can be used to reflect on, and where needed, improve provision.
As practitioners supporting babies, you have one of
the most important roles in a child’s lifelong
development. Research shows that a baby’s brain
develops the most in the first two years of life. Babies
need to experience positive, quality opportunities to
ensure their brains form many connections, ready for
lifelong learning.
Babies are highly motivated to learn and make
connections from the minute they are born. They
need stimulation and exciting experiences to engage
this innate love of learning. The Baby Quality Toolkit
will give you the tools and resources to self-evaluate
what you are already doing well, and what could be
improved to ensure the babies in your care are
receiving the highest quality experiences.
To learn effectively children need to feel safe and
secure, this can only happen when they hold a strong
attachment to a significant adult, this can be achieved
when you have an effective key person system in
place.
The following documentation has been developed
from our original, highly regarded Baby Quality
scheme It has been shared with early years
practitioners who work in a variety of settings across
Bath and North East Somerset through a working
party in which practitioners discussed their practice
and trialled some of the tools. We hope that you find
the resources and guidance useful in enhancing your
practice and the care and education you are able to
offer the babies and young children in your care.
What is the Baby Quality Toolkit?
The aim of the toolkit is to help you as a setting to
reflect on your current practice by using a range of
activities and audit tools. The Baby Quality Toolkit will
support settings wanting to develop the provision
offered to children aged 0 -2 year old, regardless of
each setting’s starting point.
The toolkit will support you in:
1. Evaluating your baby provision, to identify what is
going well and what could be improved.
2. Improving identified areas, through a range of
activities and resources.
3. Working with parents/carers, to support the
development of babies including transitions.
The toolkit will encourage you to identify and
celebrate what you are already doing well, it will also
help you to identify areas of your practice or provision
that you may want to develop further. Most
importantly it will help you support babies and young
children to receive the highest quality experiences.
Why is high quality provision
so important for babies and
young children?
“The quality of a child’s early experience is vital for
their future success. It is shaped by many interrelated
factors, notably the effects of socio-economic status,
the impact of high-quality early education and care,
and the influence of ‘good parenting’. What parents
and carers do on a daily basis with their children is
important. Providers who forge strong partnerships
with parents and carers, and work in partnership to
develop the home learning environment, help them to
improve their child’s progress and make a better start
at school. High-quality early education is crucial in
countering the effects of socio-economic
disadvantage. These vulnerable children need the
very best provision.”
Ofsted, 2014, Are your ready? Good practice in
school readiness
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) seeks to
provide:
• quality and consistency in all early years
settings, so that every child makes good progress
and no child gets left behind;
• a secure foundation through learning and
development opportunities which are planned
around the needs and interests of each individual
child and are assessed and reviewed regularly;
• partnership working between practitioners and
with parents and/or carers;
• equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory
practice, ensuring that every child is included and
supported.
Statutory Framework for the EYFS, March 2017
These EYFS principles underpin all aspects of the
Baby Quality Toolkit to support you in developing and
providing the very best high quality provision for
babies.
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 5

‘Children’s brains are developing very rapidly,
with 75% of the brain growth occurring in the
first two years of life. The experiences that
children have at this young age physically
affects the structure of their brains.’
ICAN 2012
Early language development programme
‘Quality is not ... a ceiling that
is reached, or a line that is
crossed, but it is a continuous
and on-going journey of
improvement against
outcomes for children.’
Bertram and Owen June 2007
How will the Baby Quality Toolkit
work?
The tools will enable practitioners to reflect on their
current practice and how they meet the specific
needs of babies.
The toolkit will support you to:
• keep the baby at the centre by considering
‘what is it like for me here?’
• reflect on the challenges and delights of working
with and caring for this particular age group.
• reflect on what an enabling learning environment
should look like.
• reflect on the invaluable role of the practitioner in
supporting babies and young children including
working in partnership with their families.
• develop high quality provision.
This diagram shows the process for using the Toolkit:
Complete cohort
overview
Activities
Cohort Overview
“Assessment and monitoring children’s progress
plays an important part in helping parents, carers and
practitioners to recognise children’s progress,
understand their needs and to plan activities and
support.” DfE (2014) Statutory Framework for the
EYFS.
At the start of using the tool kit it is important to be
clear about how you monitor children’s progress. It
has been recognised by Ofsted that providers who
offer the highest quality provision “quickly identify
children’s starting points and use discrete adult led
teaching sessions as part of a range of provision to
accelerate progress.” Ofsted (2014), Are you ready –
Good practice in school readiness.
After completing the cycle of the toolkit, you should
review the progress your babies and young children
are making by using the ‘cohort overview’. This will
help you to embed the cycle of assessment and
highlight the progress that your children have made.
Implement
identified
development
Complete
audits
Prioritise areas
to develop
6 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

You may want to link any areas of significant progress
made by the babies and young children in your care
to any changes you have made within your practice
or the provision you offer as a result of your work with
the baby quality toolkit.
Activities
The activities and observations will help you to gather
information and evidence to support you in
completing the audits accurately and meaningfully.
You may want to complete some or all of the activities
before starting the audits.
Principles Grid
The principles grid will form the basis of your selfreflection
and show any developments and impact
made. As you work through the sections of this toolkit
it is important to keep referring back to the principles
grid to affirm you have a holistic view of quality early
years baby practice.
You can add your findings from the individual audits to
this grid to give you a holistic overview. You can repeat
this when you re-visit the audits which will show the
impact of your developments and hard work.
Audits
The audits have been taken from the principles grid
and are presented in smaller sections to make the
process of self-evaluation manageable and enable
you to reflect at a deeper level.
They are not designed to be used purely in isolation,
as all of the areas overlap and are interconnected.
By highlighting the different statements that you feel
are embedded within practice, the audits will help you
to look at what you are doing now and decide what
you would like to change or develop in the future. It
will be important to re-visit the audits after a period of
time to see how your practice has moved forward.
Top Tips and Resources
In some sections you will find ‘top tips’ and a variety
of resources relating to that particular aspect. These
are to enhance your initial thinking, and to provide
you with key snap-shots of information that will
stimulate discussion.
Directory
Following the completion of each audit there is a
directory signposting you to resources, websites,
books, materials and training that you might find
useful in supporting your developments.
Development Plan
Once your strengths and areas for development are
identified, you can use the toolkit development plan
to guide your thinking and set the steps you will need
to take to achieve your goals.
When writing your development plan remember to be
realistic about how many actions you want to include.
Some developments may be more important than
others, some may require immediate action and
others might be easy to implement with little planning.
The development plan will ensure that you have
thought about which actions or tasks will be needed
to achieve each of your goals. It will also help you to
think about realistic time scales and team capacity,
identifying who will lead on each of the actions and
tasks and when these will be completed.
What does involvement in the Baby
Quality Toolkit mean for me and my
setting?
You can work through the baby quality toolkit at your
own pace, and in your own bespoke way, depending
on the needs of your setting. There is no time frame;
however you may wish to be part of a cluster group
to support your thinking and reflections. You will need
to commit to working through the process together
as a team and decide as a setting how you want to
implement the tools. It might be useful to identify a
Baby Quality lead to oversee the implementation of
the toolkit in your setting.
We hope you enjoy using the Baby Quality Toolkit
and discovering the joys and delights of working
with babies!
Bath and North East Somerset Early Years Service
Thanks to the early years settings that trialled and
contributed ideas to the making of this toolkit.
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 7

What is it like for me here?
The ‘what is it like for me here’ principles grid is a self-reflective tool, to help you evaluate your current baby room practice. These sections and ‘good
practice’ statements are the overarching principles to guide your early years practice for our youngest children.
The statements have been written in the baby’s voice to support you to keep the child at the centre of all your reflections and developments and to remind you to keep
the question in mind, ‘what is it like for me here?’ This grid has been broken down into smaller sections throughout the toolkit to make the process of self-evaluation
manageable and enable you to reflect at a deeper level. However, these smaller sections of the grid are not designed to be used purely in isolation as all of the areas
overlap and are interconnected. This principles grid will form the basis of your self-reflection and show your personalised developments and the impact made. As you
work through the sections of this toolkit it is import to keep referring back to this principles grid so you have a holistic view of good early years baby practice.
I love it when you...
Leadership and
management
Inclusion
Environment
Learning and
development
Characteristics of
effective learning
• have time to think about what
this place is like for me
• consider all aspects of my
learning and development are
equally important
• involve my parents/carers in
my learning
• prioritise supporting me in the
prime areas of learning.
• recognise that staff who look
after me value my
development as a baby
• understand how important my
first two years of life are, and
have staff that can support this
• recognise that staff members
are your most valuable
resource
• support me to make choices
and allow me to say no
• ensure that practitioners who
look after me know and
understand how I develop
• identify and respond to my
individual needs
• notice me and praise what I do
well
• include me in all activities I
want to do, adapting where
necessary
• find out the uniqueness of me
and my family
• value my culture and support
this through my play
• use some words in my home
language
• notice when I don’t want to be
involved and allow me my own
space
• understand that my behaviour
is a form of communication
• know how I should be
developing and notice if I’m
not
• let me follow my own routine
• give me lots of different
sensory experiences, and
natural materials, at my level
• organise resources around the
room so I can choose and
reach
• enjoy what we are doing
together
• provide opportunities for me to
use all my senses when
playing
• allow me the time to play for
as long as I want to
• give me time to explore,
observe, experiment, discover,
concentrate
• provide me with flexible
resources that can be used in
many different ways
• display things at my level so I
can see and touch
• watch me, and think about
what I am doing, and how to
extend my play and learning
• take time to reflect on what I
am doing, and how you can
extend this
• recognise that my parents/
carers play an important role in
my learning and development
• provide experiences that are
appropriate to my
development
• give me play opportunities that
reflect my individual interests
and life experiences
• give me opportunities to play
with my friends, and
independently
• recognise that everything you
do helps me to learn and
develop
• allow me to follow my ideas and
resist temptation to take over
• give me the space and
opportunity to move freely and
to explore
• enjoy helping me play
• extend my thinking by
supporting my chosen
activities
• allow me to take risks and
learn from my mistakes
• let me extend my own learning
by moving and using
resources in my own way
• help me try new things, and
take risks
• ensure that everyone knows
what I like and what I don’t like
• understand my style of
learning and recognise my
unique characteristics
• give me time to have a go
before you help me
• know that I learn in a different
way to my friends, and in my
own time
8 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

Date 1st completed:
Date 2nd completed:
You can add your findings from the individual audits to this grid, by highlighting the
statements you have identified you already do, to give you a holistic view.
You can repeat this when you re-visit the audits again and this will show the impact
of your developments and distance travelled.
I love it when you...
Personal and
Social Development
Communication
and Language
Physical
Development
Working in
partnership
Transitions
• help me develop a positive
self-image
• understand my growth and
development
• notice my non-verbal signals,
especially when I am anxious
• explain to me what’s
happening and why
• support me to understand
how to play and interact with
others
• involve me in decisions about
me
• ensure I see someone every
session who knows me well
• as my key person attend to my
personal care the majority of
the time
• ensure that I’ve been noticed
and spoken to throughout the
day
• get down to my level so we
have eye contact
• communicate with me in a
warm and responsive way
• remember that although I may
not yet speak, I communicate
In many other ways
• let me know what’s happening
next, and it is displayed in a
visual timetable
• communicate with me in a
variety of ways including baby
sign
• listen carefully to me when I
communicate with you
• talk about what we are doing
together, even though I may
not respond
• sing to me, and make up funny
songs and rhymes
• value my attempts to
communicate by copying me
• read me stories
• make meal/milk time enjoyable
and sensitive to my needs
• feed me a variety of food
within a balanced diet, and
help me to wash my hands
before eating
• notice when I need to sleep
and put me in a place where I
feel safe and comfortable
• give me opportunities for
tummy time or to pull myself to
sit and stand
• give me opportunities for
freedom and movement most
of the time
• allow me to explore when we
are out and about (not
strapped in a pram!)
• let me explore my natural
environment outside
• provide me with resources to
practice my fine motor skills
• allow me to feed myself, i may
make a mess but thats ok
• make time to speak to me and
my family when we arrive and
leave
• are interested in what happens
at home
• involve my parents/carers in
my learning
• share with my parents/carers
what I have been doing.
• talk to my parents/carers
about how to respond to my
needs
• know who to talk to when I
need more support
• talk to other people who care
for me
• recognise that I am part of a
wider community
• show an interest and build a
relationship with me and my
family
• think about and plan with
colleagues and parents/carers
to help me cope with change
• realise how important it is to
visit me in my home before I
start in your setting
• talk or sing to me when you
are changing my nappy
• use my experiences from
home to help me feel settled
• plan my transitions carefully
including when I start in your
setting, and when I change
rooms
• plan for my new key person to
spend time with me in the
baby room, where I feel
comfortable
• take the time to gather
information about me before I
start, from those who know
me best
• notice and understand that it is
hard from my parents/carers to
leave me
• take time to plan my individual
transition
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 9

Top Tips for practitioners working with babies
I am
a baby
High quality
practitioners
Who’s my
key person?
Brain
development
Please remember to have realistic
expectations of what I should be
doing, but don’t underestimate
what I can do.
I have only been in the world a
short time and I need to feel safe
and secure to be able to learn
and develop.
I’m a baby and I need
practitioners looking after me who
are knowledgeable and
experienced.
I am vulnerable and I need people
to care for me and understand
what is best for me and my family.
I need practitioners to care for me
who are in-tune with me and
understand my needs.
Remember I am only a baby; I rely
on you to care for me and support
my needs. Spend time with me
and my family and get to know
who I am and what I like to do.
Will you be available and know
me well enough to be there when
I need you?
The key person role is not just for
me but also for my family.
How you relate to me and the
way that you support me in the
environment effects the formation
of neural pathways in my brain.
It is important that all practitioners
that look after me know about the
importance of attachment and
how my brain develops.
Relationship
building
You can’t over
cuddle me
Where’s
my silky?
Daily
routine
When I separate from my family it
can be an anxious and emotional
time for us all. The role of the key
person is crucial in building a
trusting and genuine relationship
with both me and my family.
My parents/carers will feel less
anxious if they are recognised as
an equal partner and their
expertise is welcomed. This will
help me feel settled during the
transition.
I’m a baby and I may need lots of
cuddles and contact to help me
to feel secure.
When I’m new I may need even
more cuddles with my key person
while I learn about my new
environment.
Leaving me to cry won’t help me
to settle or feel secure in a new
environment. I need my key
person to be there for me when I
need them.
Take the time to find out if I have
a comforter or a special toy as
this is important to me.
Think about where I can keep my
comforter so I can always get to it
when I need it.
And most of all remember, it may
be a smelly and dirty looking
blanket but it’s important to me.
A lot of my day can be taken up
with personal care; these are an
important learning opportunity.
Is the daily routine planned for me
or do I have to fit around
everything else?
Nappy changes are an intimate
time and I love it when my key
person takes the time to talk and
sing with me.
10 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

What is an audit?
Before starting the audits, it is important that the whole staff team understand the purpose of using this toolkit to reflect on practice
for the babies and youngest children
The audits encourage you as a team to identify and celebrate what you already do well, along with looking for areas of your practice
and provision that you could develop further, to ensure that the babies in your care receive the highest quality experiences.
The audits are designed to:
• gauge practitioner confidence about working with
babies and young children
• be completed in an order that works best for you
• include all practitioners so they feel fully involved in
any changes and developments that are identified.
This will also help all staff to fully understand why
changes are being made, which in turn will help to
embed these changes
• be completed as a staff team or by individual staff
members. You may find it beneficial to ask each
practitioner to complete the audits individually to
ensure every voice is heard, before then collectively
agreeing your areas of team strength and
developments
• facilitate reflective discussions about specific areas
of practice with babies and young children. The
audits are likely to show opinions from across the
staff team enabling individuals to share in their
personal reflections skills and knowledge to
support each other’s professional development
How to complete the audits?
• There are 10 audits altogether from sections 3.1
– 3.10.
• Remember to date each audit as you complete it
so that you can track the impact your learning has
had on your practice.
• Before highlighting the hexagon audit statements
there are questions to support your team to reflect
at a deeper level. The questions are designed to
encourage the team to have an open and honest
discussion about current practice, with a focus on
everyone being able to articulate how you know
what is working well and what could be improved.
• On the following page there is a space for you to
evidence your teams reflections. This will support
your team to talk confidently about areas of
strength and identified areas to develop.
• Working through the questions will help you to feel
confident in identifying which of the hexagon audit
statements reflect your current practice. Highlight
the ones which are fully embedded.
• Naturally there will be some of the hexagon audit
statements left blank and are these the areas that
you may want to develop or evaluate further.
Once the audits are completed – what next?
• Following the completion of each audit there is a
directory signposting you to resources, websites,
books, materials and training that you might find
useful in supporting your developments in each
section.
• You can add your findings from your individual
audits to the principles grid at the front of the
toolkit, this will then create a holistic view of your
strengths and areas for development.
• Once you have identified your strengths and areas
for development using the toolkit, you can use the
development plan to support you in implementing
and documenting any changes.
• It will be important to re-visit the audits after a
period of time to demonstrate any impact of
change. Remember to re-date each audit when
completed.
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 25

Section 3.1
Leadership and
Management
‘The key which underpins all effective
leadership and management is the culture
of mutual support, teamwork and
continuous improvement.’
Moylett, H, and Stewart, N, (2012)
Understanding the revised Early Years
Foundation Stage.
26 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

Leadership and Management
Consider…
• How does the vision and values of our setting, and our policies and practices reflect the needs of babies?
• How are practitioners selected and supported to work with our youngest children?
• How is our setting ethos evident in practice and how does this celebrate the uniqueness of each baby and their family?
• How does our daily routine prioritise time for embedding the key person approach?
• How do we ensure that our baby room staff have a secure knowledge of child development and use this to plan age appropriate activities?
• How does our routine/structure provide a sense of emotional security for babies, by enabling them to know what will happen next and helping them to feel more relaxed?
I love it when you...
have time to think
about what this place is
like for me
involve my parents/
carers in my learning
consider all
aspects of my
learning and
development are
equally important
prioritise supporting
me in the prime areas
of learning
recognise that
staff who look after
me value my
development as
a baby
understand how
important my first
two years of life are,
and have practitioners
that can support
this
recognise that
practitioners are
your most valuable
resource
support me to make
choices and allow me
to say no
ensure that
practitioners who
look after me know
and understand how
I develop
Date 1st completed:
Date 2nd completed:
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 27

Evidence: How do we know? How do we evidence this?
What is working well?
What do we need to develop next and why?
28 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council

Amazing babies
Humans develop more in their first two years than at any other time in their life. Their early experiences
are crucial to lifelong learning and prospects. This emphasises why the role of the baby practitioner is so
important, and why having knowledgeable, passionate, experienced baby room practitioners is crucial.
Play involving
facial expressions
builds brain patterns
for recognising
feelings in self
and others.
Babies are born with
very sophisticated
hearing and can work out
where a sound is coming
from just 10 minutes after
being born.
75% of babies
brain development
occurs within the
first 2 years.
Children’s language
development by age 2
is the single most
reliable indicator of
later success.
Babies don’t just
enjoy the outdoors;
they need it as they are
gradually integrating their
senses and building up
their physical systems.
New born
babies are
drawn to shapes
that resemble
a face.
Babies cannot have
too much contact, so
cuddle them as much as
you like! Babies need touch
to soothe and stimulate them.
Physical contact is essential
for healthy brain
development.
Babies brains
process information
about sixteen times more
slowly than adult brains.
This is why babies need
time to respond.
For babies to
develop more
connections and
therefore have well
developed brains, they
need secure
attachments.
Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council 29

Growing and supporting your baby room team
Practitioners are the most important and valuable resource within the baby room. This resource gives you the opportunity to explore how you grow
and support your baby room practitioners.
Team
• How would you describe your baby room team approach?
• How do you recognise, celebrate and share the uniqueness of working with
babies with the wider team?
• How does the baby room team work within the whole setting team?
• How does the practice in the baby room reflect your settings vision and
values?
• How do your team meetings empower baby room practitioners to have a
voice?
• What is your understanding of being ‘emotionally available’ to each other?
• How and why do you reflect on and evaluate baby room practice as a team?
• How do you agree as a team what are your priorities to develop for the baby
room?
Support and Supervision
• What are the benefits of providing staff supervision?
• Why it is important that the whole team understand the purpose of
supervision?
• What agenda will supervision sessions follow to ensure that all staff have the
same opportunities?
• Where will supervision sessions take place to ensure a safe, undisturbed and
appropriate environment?
• How will you ensure time is protected to complete supervision?
• How are you going to ensure that all staff feel empowered and confident to
raise uncomfortable issues if and when they arise?
• How are CPD opportunities identified and discussed?
• What support opportunities do practitioners have to meet their identified needs?
• How does supervision link with the appraisal cycle?
Coaching and Mentoring
• How are coaching and mentoring used to support practitioners in their
practice?
• How effective is coaching and mentoring for baby room practitioners?
• How do you ensure that coaching and mentoring is offered by the most
appropriate person?
• How do you know if coaching and mentoring is empowering practitioners to
address areas they find challenging enabling practitioners to move forward
as a team?
• How well are you tuned into each other so you offer sensitive and
appropriate support?
• How do you recognise and support each other with the everyday pressures
of working with babies?
• What would you do if you couldn’t identify an appropriate mentor and
coach within the setting to meet the need?
Continued Professional Development (CPD)
• What are the strengths within the team?
• What aspects need developing to make the team stronger?
• How do you ensure the team is kept up to date with current research
surrounding babies and their learning and development? How does this
inform everyday practice?
• Who identifies and plans appropriate CPD opportunities for each baby room
practitioner and how does this fit with the identified developments for the
room?
• What opportunities do the baby room team have to come together to
access bespoke CPD for babies?
• What opportunities do the baby room practitioners have to share their skills
and practice with the wider team?
• How is CPD shared within the team and how do you evaluate its
effectiveness?
30 Baby Quality – A toolkit to support tuning into babies © Bath & North East Somerset Council