Brilliant Baby Rooms.
A seven-month leadership programme for your Baby Room.
We do it together!
So many of you have asked me about supporting your Baby Room, and also told me you don't have the time to figure it out from scratch.
That's what this is.
It's seven months of us working together; one area a month, so by the end of it you've got a Baby Room you're proud to show anyone around, a team who want to stay, and staff who can talk with confidence to parents, visitors and inspectors about what they're doing and why.
We start on Thursday 24nd September. There are 15 places.
How this actually works
Brilliant Baby Rooms is a leadership programme, not a training course. There's a big difference.
A course gives you information and hopes you use it. This is us in the room together, month by month, actually doing the work. Your owner, your manager and the person who leads your Baby Room, all three of you, learning and building at the same time.
Once a month we meet on Zoom for two hours. We learn, we unpick the science together, I bring a workbook full of tools you can use straight away.
You take it back into your Baby Room and try it, your way, for your setting. And when we come back together the next month, you tell me what worked, what didn't, and what surprised you.
Seven months, seven areas, working together on your Baby Room.
What actually changes for you
What do you actually get out of it?
Well, it's not really about a certificate. What you'll get is much more useful than that.
Pride.
It's the pride that shows up when anyone walks in, a parent, a visitor, an inspector, and you're genuinely excited to show them around. You know why the room is set up the way it is. You know what your team stands for. And you're not nervous about the questions any more.
A team who wants to stay.
Because the team who feel confident, understood and part of something meaningful don't leave. They stay, they grow, and they become the reason parents recommend you.
Staff who can talk about what they're doing and why.
Your team can talk to a parent at pick-up, a visitor doing a tour, or an inspector on the floor, in their own words, plainly and honestly, about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what's actually happening for the babies in front of them. No policy speak, no jargon, just genuine understanding.
That's really what these seven months are about building. The list of what we cover to get there is below.
The seven months, one focus at a time
Every month has one focus, and every focus comes with tools you can use right away.
Month 1: Leading a Culture of Emotional Safety
You'll look at the culture in your Baby Room as it is now, and start small but meaningful changes to make the space calmer, more responsive and emotionally secure. Nothing to do with anything failing, this is just where every other change gets its foundation.
Month 2: Starting Strong
First impressions, look-arounds, home visits, settling in. This is where trust starts. We'll get your joining journey working properly, for the families walking in and for the team welcoming them.
Month 3: Raising the Quality of Adult–Baby Interactions
The single biggest lever in any Baby Room. It's not the resources or the displays that make the difference here, it's the way an educator sees a baby, responds to them, notices what they're doing. We'll work on how your team notices, what they say, and how they coach each other to keep raising it.
Month 4: Creating a Room That Teaches
Your physical space is never neutral. It's teaching all day, whether you meant it to or not. This month we redesign the room so it does the teaching you actually want it to do. Less stuff and more purpose, fewer Pinterest displays and more thoughtful zones that actually work for the babies you have.
Month 5: Including Every Baby, Every Day
Inclusion as it works in real life, not the policy version. You'll get three questions you can ask about any baby on any day, plus how to notice early without diagnosing, how to talk to a worried family kindly, and how to make your Baby Room somewhere every family feels their child belongs.
Month 6: Leading for Consistency and Confidence
Now that you've built it, how do you keep it? This is the leadership month. The habits, the routines, the small conversations that hold the room to its standards whether you're there or not. That's the real test, isn't it, a Baby Room that holds together whether you're there or not.
Month 7: Reflect and Share
What did we build? What changed? What are we telling the sector, and what's next? You'll leave with evidence of your journey, a plan for the year ahead, and a Baby Room story worth telling.
What the last cohort said
I've kept these anonymous because it's not really about who said what; it's about what happened for them and their teams.
"Excellent round up last week Clare; it's been so amazing and nurturing this course! Can't wait for the next module and recapping in February! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year x"
"I always come away so inspired and excited to get on! I have the rest of this week off so I had my notepad handy to write down all of my thoughts to come back to once I'm back!"
"I met with a family tonight and I shared lots about the last 3 months and it makes me so proud to talk about everything we are doing :-)"
"After listening to what everyone at the Nursery has done to embrace and run with this programme, I am over the moon. I can feel we really are on a journey both as individuals and as teams and it is super exciting!!!!"
That's the arc I see happen every time. Nurturing at the start, energised somewhere in the middle, proud to share it with families by around month three, and by the end, whole teams on the journey together.
A bit about me
I'm Clare. I've worked in education for over 30 years.
I’m a primary teacher, trained from 3 to 8, I’ve worked across all ages, on three continents. I then became an education researcher working with the top 5% of schools in England and Wales, looking for best practice and rolling it out. I worked with governments around the world building curricula.
And in every single classroom, on every continent, there was a “Jake”.
“Jake” was the child under the table meowing like a pussycat - you know the one. Brilliant, skilful, and so amazingly talented, yet doing everything in his power to avoid work.
And there was Jake's mum. She was the one standing alone in the playground at pick-up, waiting to be called in, waiting to be told what he'd done wrong this time. (Not sure what she was meant to do about it.)
I hated that we were failing children and families like this. I knew there was an answer.
So I went looking!
And in 2012, someone showed me the graph of brain development in the first thousand days.
It was literally like turning the lightbulbs on for me!
I realised if we got it right, from the start for both the child and the parent, we literally gave our children the very best opportunity to reach their full potential and thrive.
So I quit my job to focus on the first 1000 days of life.
So we make sure “Jake” doesn't end up under the table any more.
That's why I built Oliiki.
And it's why I built Brilliant Baby Rooms.
The investment
£2,500 per setting, priced per EY number. Your owner, your manager and the person who leads your Baby Room can all attend.
A £500 non-refundable deposit per EY number secures your place. The remaining £2,000 is invoiced separately, before we begin.
If you're running more than one setting, let me know. We can talk about a multi-site licence.
If you'd prefer to spread the payments, let me know that too. Plenty of settings do.
Cohort of 15 settings. We start on Thursday 24nd September. Registration closes on Tuesday 22nd September.
Questions before you commit? Email me at clare@oliiki.com. I'd rather have a conversation than have you wondering.
One last thing
If you're still reading, something in this is probably speaking to you. Which means you already know your Baby Room could be doing more, and you already care enough to be reading about it on a Wednesday afternoon.
Come and do this with me. Seven months from now, you'll have a Baby Room you're proud to show anyone around, a team who want to stay, and staff who can talk about what they're doing and why.
That's really what we're building together.