A memoir by Jo Bunn

The Small World

Inside an "Outstanding" Nursery

"I started keeping notes at first just to stay sane, and then because I realised I was the only one who had thought to bring a pen."

— Jo Bunn

Buy the book Read an extract

Monday, July 4th

The Anatomy of a Grape

"She'll hate you soon enough. Just wait and see."

It was 8:30 AM on my first morning in the Cubs room.

The air was thick with the scent of cooling porridge, warm milk, the eye-watering tang of a fresh nappy, and the fruity-chemical scent of cheap baby wipes. Within a week, I'd stop noticing it entirely. By the end of the month, I would smell of it myself without knowing.

The door swung open.

Diane Mercer didn't walk into a room. She conducted an atmospheric sweep.

She marched over to the snack table where Jade, the room leader, was prepping fruit.

"The grapes, Jade," Diane said. Her voice was low - that specialised, disappointed tone that made you feel like you'd personally let down the entire Early Years sector.

Jade looked up, a paring knife in one hand. "What about them?"

"They're too big. If I can't trust you to follow a basic health and safety update on snack prep, how am I supposed to trust you with the room registers?"

No one said anything.

Diane didn't stay to help. She marched back toward the office, leaving Jade to slice the grapes into even tinier, microscopic slivers.

Jade didn't look at me. She just kept cutting.

"She has a thing about grapes today," she muttered. "Just keep your head down. If she doesn't see you, she can't pick on you."

From The Small World: Inside an Outstanding Nursery - a real diary, kept in real time.

From the author

If you've ever worked somewhere that looked fine from the outside - if you've ever tried to explain to someone who wasn't there why it was harder to leave than it sounds, why the folder of evidence felt like the only thing you had - you already know what this book is about.

Harrow Gate Farm Nursery had an Outstanding Ofsted rating. A freshly painted fence. A brochure full of words like passion and excellence and family.

I kept a diary because I needed somewhere to put it. Two years of it, written in laundry rooms and car parks and at the kitchen table at midnight. Then I filed a formal grievance. Then I discovered the metadata.

This is what I did with all of it.

Tuesday, December 19th - The Mug

"This is for you. To help you remember your place."

She opened it. The room went instantly silent.

It was a mug. Bold, red letters.

Ten minutes later, it was in the bottom of the ladies' toilets bin.

Happy Christmas from Harrow Gate.

From the Sandpit Files

Things that have names, once you know to look

Intermittent Reinforcement

A manager alternates unpredictably between warmth and hostility. Not in a pattern. Not on a schedule. The target doesn't think "she is controlling me." The target thinks: what did I do wrong? How do I get back to Tuesday?

The Ghost Ratio

A manager can be counted in the legal staffing numbers while spending the day in a closed office. The register protects the manager. It does not protect the babies.

The Mummy Trap

An experienced recruit is praised for her maturity and maternal instinct. A psychological debt is created. The example she is asked to perform is the manager's.

The Great Backdate

Missing records, manufactured from thin air before an inspection. It requires real Early Years expertise to do it convincingly. The inspector never knows.

What Readers Are Saying

The Small World has been read by Early Years practitioners, by people who have experienced workplace bullying, and by people who finally had a name for what happened to them.

I've worked in Early Years for over a decade. I read this with my hands shaking. Every single thing in it is real, the ratios, the folders, the way a manager can make you doubt your own memory. I wish I'd had this book years ago.

Early Years practitioner, 11 years' experience

She has named the thing I couldn't name. I left a job like this two years ago and still couldn't explain to people why I stayed as long as I did. Now I can. The Intermittent Reinforcement chapter alone is worth the cover price.

Former nursery coordinator

Read it in one sitting. The voice is extraordinary, dry, precise, funny, and then suddenly devastating. The Twenty Minutes entry will stay with me for a long time.

Reader