Nursery care, Singapore

Busy Bees Group, which has a network of 373 nurseries across the UK and Ireland, is helping facilitate international collaboration in the early years sector through its Talent Exchange Programme (TEP).

With facilities in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Canada, Busy Bees was able to provide its practitioners with the opportunity to share practices across continents, to influence early education and help to ensure children, wherever they are in the world, receive the best start in life.

The first TEP was launched in 2016, when nursery staff from Singapore and Malaysia visited the UK and this was followed by a reciprocal visit of UK staff in 2017. A group of 10 practitioners visited nine nurseries for 21 days.

The trip to Singapore focused on key areas, including enquiry-based learning, maths, reading, writing, the environment and parental and community involvement.

OBSERVATIONS AND OUTCOMES

A formalised reading programme is introduced at the ages of three to six in Singapore centres and teachers facilitate and track the development of the reading skills of children at various ages.

The nurseries use high-frequency words, phonetics and sight words as strategies to support reading. Reading aloud, extension activities, peer/small group reading and independent reading are also implemented.

In three- and four-year-olds classes, various strategies were used involving the manipulation of tools and media, such as threading, stacking, fixing, pegging, cutting and pasting that develop fine muscle control and dexterity to encourage writing skills.

Parental and community involvement played an important part in the nursery curriculum, with a rigorous communication programme in place to ensure parents are kept informed, updated and closely connected with their child's school life and learning.

Various community activities are planned to enhance children's holistic development, for example the National Library Board, National Environment Agency, Food Bank and trips are planned as reciprocal two-way collaborations between the school and the community partners.

The UK visitors also learned about the different curriculums and the Singapore Preschool Accreditation Framework (Sparks). Busy Bees Singapore has its own assessment procedure that helps settings to perform successfully in their Sparks evaluations, similar to how a nursery in England prepares for a visit from Ofsted.

TALENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMME

• Cultural expectations, differences and policy have an overarching impact on how childcare is delivered.
• The Talent Exchange Programme provides staff with opportunities to grow and add to their skill sets.
• To take part, Busy Bees conducts a company-wide application process that encourages and recognises those who have a real desire to expand their knowledge of early years education and discover new techniques.
• First introduced in 2016, a series of exchange programmes have taken place across the globe, allowing practitioners to learn from each other and share approaches.
• Participants visit the head office of the host country for training and travel to a nursery where they participate in day-to-day practices and fully absorb the culture.

BENEFICIAL TO ALL

The TEP was an opportunity for UK practitioners to learn about the Singapore approach and share their experiences and knowledge with Singaporean staff, who gained insight about the differences in practice, curriculum and policies. The group demonstrated their teaching methods and practices to the host country.

During the exchange, participants visited the head office of the host country for initial training and a welcome from the directors of the company. They then travelled to a host nursery where they were welcomed as a guest, not only participating fully in day-to-day practices but engaging socially in the host country's culture.

During their exchange visit TEP participants work closely with the children and staff at the host nursery, getting involved in every aspect of care and monitoring different techniques and outcomes. They take part in social events, outside the work environment, and are encouraged to take on the views, experience and methods of others to continue to develop childcare best practice to achieve the best outcomes for children.

Hannah Rushton, academic research and developer at Busy Bees' Burntwood National Support Centre, who participated in the Singapore trip, explains: "I expected to see a formal structure where children were sat completing work from textbooks. However, I was fascinated by enquiry-based learning and the concrete, pictorial and abstract approach that was taken to learning mathematics. Each child thoroughly engaged and made the most of every given learning opportunity."

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Spending time with a practitioner from another country really opens a practitioner's eyes to the similarities and differences in childcare practice.

For example, in the UK, holistic learning approaches are generally encouraged, and parents work in partnership with their child's nursery to understand the value of learning through play. Busy Bees believes that learning should be focused and fun, and the children's interests are built upon to help engage them in their early years education.

In other countries, parents also have a much stronger influence on the learning landscape as they have expectations around more traditional subjects like mathematics and literacy. Yet where the application might be different, the outcomes are still the same. We advocate the use of "learn-through-play" activities, which can include anything from rhyming, to weighing ingredients and sorting blocks by colour and size.

When it came to the differences, the TEP group believed that the daily routine, which is a lot more structured than in the UK, was the biggest learning curve. The daily showers and health checks and compulsory naptime from 1-3pm for all the children - including six-year-olds - in Singapore nurseries took some adjusting to.

Climate also has an impact on care. In the UK we are relatively lucky, as generally the climate allows us to go outside most days of the year and our children get enough exercise that benefits their cognitive and physical development. The heat in Singapore means the amount of time children spend outside needs to be closely monitored.

Differences were also apparent in organisational language. For example, nurseries in Singapore are called "centres", while managers are described as centre principals.

Legislative differences around curriculum, ratios and qualifications have been interesting and promoted a critical thinking approach to why we do things as we do.

Singapore offers a much more formal approach to learning with parents' expectations being culturally very different. Children participate in lessons rather than play-based learning favoured in the UK. The exchange participants observed strengths and weaknesses to both of these with children in the UK being more independent and explorative, but children in Singapore being academically more advanced.

BRINGING LEARNING HOME

Lessons learned and cross-cultural best practices are shared with all Busy Bees' staff across the network. Upon return to their home countries, staff complete a comprehensive report outlining their experiences, what they learned during the trip, how they can implement new ideas and techniques into their day-to-day activities and most importantly, provide feedback to work colleagues so the nursery benefits as a whole from the experience.

This enriching experience helps them to grow as both childcare professionals and as motivated and passionate employees, enhancing their skills in a way that allows them to compare and contrast childcare practices in a different country and learn new teaching and learning methodologies that can be integrated into Busy Bees' existing practice in the UK.

Emma Rollo, manager at Busy Bees Dundee Hospital, says the three-week trip to Singapore has had an "amazing impact".

She adds: "I have been able to share everything I have seen and keep pushing the boundaries for childcare in Scotland. I have shared my new-found knowledge across many more nurseries who are always intrigued to know more about the practice of our colleagues across the globe. One main difference I observed in Singapore was the children's learning achievements and how much they were capable of."

IMPACT

Experiencing different countries' approaches is a huge benefit for the development of staff.

We believe it's important that our practitioners see care as a career and have these kinds of opportunities to learn, progress and develop.

If our staff aren't constantly learning and evolving it means we can't continue to provide amazing experiences and learning opportunities to children. Everyone has to be at the top of their game.

The next TEP trip will be visiting Australia.

As the TEP continues to grow we believe our ‘One Busy Bees' ethos will enable us to share strengths internationally. Giving all children the best start in life and enriching the learning experiences of our dedicated staff teams is always our priority.