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Carly became a manager at Seahorse Nursery in 2017. Her role includes conducting tours for new families, organising settling-in sessions for new children, co-ordinating events including pre-school graduation, Halloween parties and a Christmas grotto, leading story- and circle-times with children, meeting parents, mentoring staff, and much more.
She has been a constant support to parents during the pandemic. When nurseries closed during the first lockdown, Carly made sure parents were kept up-to-date with home learning activities relating to the termly topic. She asked staff to send videos to parents so children could still see and hear their teachers, and ensured parent progress meetings went ahead before closure to enable parents to feel comfortable and confident with their child’s home learning.
On the return to nursery after the first lockdown, Carly provided parents with back-to-nursery questionnaires to understand how each family was feeling and help staff meet their needs. She held back-to-work meetings for staff too.
In 2021, Carly was instrumental in the successful opening of the group’s third setting, its second in Wimbledon Park. She efficiently organised the opening alongside her many responsibilities as manager of the existing setting in the area.
She has become the face of Seahorse Nursery within Wimbledon Park, forming relationships across the local community. Throughout the pandemic she maintained close contact with the local retirement home, library, church, synagogue, temple and mosque, as well as other local businesses including the dentist, pharmacy and food bank, helping children understand the value of community.
Carly has a passion for safeguarding, and has ensured that all Seahorse nurseries make this a priority by implementing a ‘Safeguarding Hub’, which she leads alongside practitioners from each setting who have also shown a real interest in safeguarding and wish to develop their knowledge. She organises regular meetings and has helped the team provide talks and workshops on Seahorse INSET days on a range of safeguarding topics.
She is also dedicated to helping her team develop and refine their skills. She has helped a junior deputy manager become a full-time manager, a practitioner become an HR administrator, and several other practitioners become room leaders. She implemented a new professional performance review so all staff have development paths and targets, as well as assigning line managers to every team member to ensure they all receive detailed feedback and personal support.
She also played an integral role in the overhaul of the group’s termly planning system. There is now a far stronger link to the overall termly theme and parents can get more involved with home learning as they are notified of the topic in advance.
Carly consistently goes the extra mile to ensure that children in her settings get the best care and education, parents feel confident, and her team gets opportunities to develop in a healthy work environment.
FINALIST
Lauren Mankelow, Choochoos Day Nursery, Old Station Nursery Group, Kent
CRITERION
Open to senior employees of nursery groups working across some or all of the company’s settings