How to plan effective staff supervisions

In England, staff supervisions are statutory for any staff member working directly with children and their families. Staff supervisions, whether a regulatory duty or not, are useful opportunities to have thoughtful conversations with staff, allowing us to work collaboratively as managers to cultivate a culture of trust and develop strong working relationships.

With little guidance given on what a staff supervision should include, how regular it should be and who it should be for, it can be tricky to find effective strategies to manage these staff reviews. In this article, we’re going to highlight some of the common problems faced when looking at supervisions and offer some suggestions to make the most of these special times with staff.

What is a staff supervision?

Effective supervision provides support, coaching and training for the practitioner, and it promotes the interests of children.

Early years foundation stage statutory framework

Staff supervisions are prime opportunities to discuss any matters of relevance with individual members of your team. This can relate to personal matters, such as any holiday plans or changes to circumstances that might impact their availability or suitability to work. It can also relate more directly to the working environment to suggest areas for improvement, raise issues within the environment or suggest ways to develop professional knowledge. When thinking about the children we work with, staff supervisions can also be an ideal time to discuss key children in-depth and highlight any emerging signs of learning and development or welfare.

When it comes to our responsibilities in early education and care, nothing takes greater precedence than safeguarding. Staff supervisions offer a unique opportunity and great sense of confidentiality to discuss specific children and concerns that might emerge, relating to their development and milestones, behaviours and engagement or other welfare issues.

Important: Supervision spaces do play an important part in maintaining a safe environment but any safeguarding concerns should be flagged as soon as they appear, rather than waiting for supervision to arise, following your specific safeguarding policy and/or consulting wider advice.

Troubleshooting for supervision

"Not enough time in the day!"

Early education and care settings are on the go from the moment the doors open to the second the doors close… and often long after as well. In order to maintain a child-centred approach to everything we do, it can often be challenging to arrange lengthy meetings with staff who are responding to unpredictable needs of the children in their care all day long. For this reason, it can be difficult to find opportunities to release staff from the room due to ratio guidance and ensuring safety for everyone as well.

Is there a day of the week that is quieter than others? For example, if your register is lower on a Thursday, why not try to arrange for a bank staff member to work over-ratio for an afternoon and take the opportunity to undertake staff supervisions in this time?
Take the opportunities as they arise. Make staff aware that their supervisions are due and harness the moment when it comes. During nap time, for example, where the room may be able to spare a member of staff for their meeting. These might be more ad-hoc, but allow effective supervisions to take place more regularly when we are flexible and understanding about how and when they are conducted.

Reluctance to share

Being honest about challenges at work can be difficult when reporting to management for many reasons including fear of consequences or damage to reputation. It’s important to ensure an open policy and honest discussions in order to have fruitful conversations during staff supervisions and pave the way for change.

Give staff the opportunity to request who they would like to have involved in their supervision. Instead of an opt-out approach, asking staff if there is anyone they do not want involved, give staff the positive approach to choose who attends their supervision. Using supervisions to strengthen relationships with managers they already feel comfortable with make it easier to confide in matters that are bothering them.

What do we discuss?

Whilst the frequency and length of staff supervision is not stipulated by regulation, it is important that every member of staff working with children is invited to supervision. The variety of roles within early education and care can make their responsibilities very different as well, resulting in a range of discussions within supervision. Because of this, it can sometimes be tricky to know what needs to be discussed, especially when time is of the essence.

Use templates to guide your conversation. Templates provide a structure to your supervision that allows you to work through questions together. These can also be given to staff members in advance to ask them to fill out comments in advance. This is likely to give them more time to think more carefully about their responses, resulting in a deeper and more productive conversation when the supervision arises.
Open ended questions work well to encourage staff to take the lead on the conversation and raise issues that might not be covered by more direct questions. This makes for an effective supervision that becomes more personal to the individual and more productive for the setting overall.

Things to remember

Staff supervisions are mandatory in England for all staff members working with children and their families, but they are also incredible valuable opportunities for all early education and care professionals so should be done whenever possible.
Whilst supervisions are sometimes in danger of becoming a ‘tick box’ exercise for those who are required to manage them, effective supervisions are a brilliant way to gain deeper insight into the experiences of staff and understanding more about the niches of their working environment.
Staff supervisions do pose some challenges – most logistical – in finding time and resource to make them happen but finding ways to make them work can be done!

NDNA have a vast range of policies and guidance to support creating meaningful and comprehensive supervisions for all staff. Take a look!