Easy communication with parents

Because we have recently changed the carrier of our online profile books, as soon as we post an entry, the parents get an email informing them. When I wrote the farewell page for Isaac, I was really pleased to get a response from his mum. I found it up lifting, knowing that she does look at the entries put on. You can't help but wonder sometimes if all your hard work is even seen. Now I know - it is.

This is evidence of dimension #19. communicates with families, whanau and caregivers. It is also evidence of dimension #20. contributes to the life of the learning centre, as our centre functions best when there is communication that happens both ways between the parents and the staff - especially the primary caregiver.

Personality types

Nakita came in to Natural Steps for a professional development workshop (22nd November). In a group of three I went in to see her, not sure what it was going to be about. After being handed a sheet of paper, we were asked to circle what words we felt described ourselves the best. I went through and circled my words, and then after gridding and counting, discovered that I was predominately a 'peaceful personality' type of person. When handed the chapter printout from the book 'Pressing the Right Buttons' by Allison Mooney , I read through and it made me literally laugh out loud. A lot of the statements were describing me directly, and I had done a few of the examples during the previous weekend - such as writing a list and doing what I thought were the stink or hard jobs first. One description in the chapter was that peaceful personalities will complete all tasks. "You will be amazed sometimes how much they can get done in an hour". This brought back memories of school homework and my Mother 'nagging' me about not having finished homework. I know this has always been and will always be an issue in some households, but I always completed every job. At least now I feel validated in that it is just my personality - but with that in mind, it is something I want to work on as I know it can be frustrating for others. At least now I have a better understanding of my capabilities and strengths (and weaknesses), but also the opportunity to know the other staffs personality types. Hopefully I can use this knowledge to better communicate with them and work together as a team (and not leave to the last minute???) I'm also going to use this new way of looking at others to plan appropriately for the children's personality types. Although I am in Nursery one and the children are young, they are beginning to show individual personalities. After discussing this with Sharron, we were able to pick out a couple of children's personality types - and thankfully we both thought the same types for the same children. This workshop helps me to meet dimension 2o -contributes to the life of the learning centre Pressing the Right Buttons Allison Mooney Publisher: Random House September 2007