Unicorns in the Nursery: Creating cultures of excellence for our youngest citizens

Infants and toddlers need rare and imaginative educators who value the extraordinary in everyday practice.

Metaphors can be useful in helping us shape how we see culture and leadership. In education, one story that circulates often is the “crabs in a bucket” metaphor: if one crab tries to climb out, the others pull it back down, ensuring that none escape. It’s an image of competition, control, and sameness and it can resonate uncomfortably in early learning environments, where stress, compliance, and interpersonal tensions can sometimes overshadow collaboration.

I have written before about the dangers of “bucket thinking.” but sometimes, the best way to shift perspective is to change the metaphor. If crabs represent the drag of negativity, then unicorns may offer us a different lens: perhaps one of rarity, excellence, and imagination.

When I was little, I used to say that when I grew up, I wanted to be a unicorn.

Growing up in regional Victoria in the early 1970s, unicorns weren’t everywhere. They weren’t splashed across lunchboxes, pencil cases, or pyjamas. They weren’t a pop-culture fad or a logo on a toy. They were rare creatures, glimpsed only in the occasional storybook or spoken myth. And maybe that was part of the appeal.

At the time, I couldn’t explain why I wanted to be a unicorn. Now, looking back, I think I possibly do. The fascination wasn’t about glitter or rainbows. It was wanting something different in a world that often prized conformity. It was about rarity, imagination, and excellence. And as it turns out, unicorns have always carried these qualities, long before I dreamed of being one.

Across cultures, unicorns were never ordinary. Ancient Greek writers described them as fierce and uncatchable. In medieval Europe, they symbolised purity and healing, said to neutralise poison with a touch of their horn. For centuries, they stood as symbols of freedom, imagination, and rarity.

Unicorns carried a double meaning: freedom and excellence. Precisely because they were rare, they were prized, celebrated in art and story as creatures that elevated those who recognised their worth. In the same way, excellence in early learning should be treasured because it can be transformative.

This history gives weight to the metaphor. Unicorns are untamed and rare, and that is exactly what the best leadership practices in early learning look like:

• They resist control: real leadership isn’t about micromanaging, but about creating space for others to flourish.
• They heal cultures: good leadership mends fractures and restores trust.
• They stand out for rarity: in a sector often stretched thin, excellence in leadership can be uncommon and that makes it precious.

These ideas matter because in early learning workplaces, you cannot control other people’s behaviours, ideas, or choices.

A room leader cannot force a colleague to engage differently with children. A director cannot mandate genuine passion or creativity. An educator cannot compel their teammate to share the same approach to routines or transitions.

What we can do is set the conditions for growth: modelling curiosity, valuing individuality, and holding space for multiple perspectives. In other words, we can protect the pasture rather than police the herd.

Infant and toddler environments, more than any other, need unicorns. Our youngest citizens experience the world through relationships: the tone of a voice, the gentleness of a touch, the steadiness of routines, the presence of joy. They don’t yet have the language to ask for fairness, respect, or participation they live it through the everyday practices of the adults who care and educate them

This is why team culture matters. A crab bucket team creates environments of tension and scarcity, where routines are rushed, and children’s signals may be overlooked. But a unicorn team one that resists control, values rarity, and leans into excellence, creates spaces where even the smallest moments are treated as democratic opportunities: waiting for a toddler to find their sleeve, listening to a baby’s babble as conversation, slowing down a transition so children feel carried along rather than swept aside.

Infants and toddlers need unicorns because they remind us that the extraordinary is found in the everyday. That excellence is not about perfection but about presence. That imagination is not a luxury but a necessity when working with children who cannot yet speak their preferences but who deserve to be heard all the same.

The other lesson unicorns offer is that while they are rare, they are not necessarily alone. Unicorns find their tribe not by blending in, but by standing tall in their uniqueness.

In early learning, this might mean seeking colleagues who also value imagination, child agency, or democratic participation. It may mean creating micro-communities within services that nurture generosity and growth. Your tribe might be small, but it anchors you against the pull of negativity.

Finding your tribe also models something important for children: that belonging is not about conformity, but about connection. Children learn that being part of a community doesn’t mean being the same it means being valued for who you are.

If unicorns resist the harness, what then is the role of leadership? It’s not to control, but to create environments where difference, rarity, and excellence can flourish. Leaders and teams can:

• Make space for individuality: Honour each educator’s quirks and strengths, not everyone has to teach or lead in the same way.
• Notice the crab-bucket effect: When comparison or competition starts to take hold, address it directly.
• Protect the pasture: Safeguard time, space, and emotional energy for creativity and child agency, not just compliance.
• Choose your stance: Remember, the only behaviour you can truly control is your own, your tone in a staff meeting, your openness to new ideas, your response to tension.
• Aim for excellence, not uniformity: Unicorn cultures don’t just survive, they thrive by pursuing the rare, the extraordinary, the “beyond the checklist” practice.

My childhood wish to be a unicorn when I grew up was probably a desire to live differently, to embrace the rare, the free, the imaginative, and yes, the excellent. In my work teaching infant and toddler pedagogy, that dream still matters.

Crabs pull each other down, but unicorns don’t even look sideways. They move forward, together with their tribe, horns tilted toward possibility, creating the kind of environments our youngest citizens deserve spaces of safety, imagination, and democratic participation, right from the very start.

• In your team, do you see more signs of crab-bucket thinking or unicorn practice? What impact might each have on infants and toddlers?
• How do you personally contribute to a culture of rarity and excellence in your everyday work with the youngest citizens?
• What would it look like for your service to “protect the pasture” and create space for imagination, joy, and child agency alongside compliance requirements?

In the end, unicorn leadership is not about magic or myth. It’s about everyday choices to lead with rarity, imagination, and excellence, choices our youngest citizens depend on us to make.

Karen Hope is the founder of Karen Hope Consulting – Disruptive pedagogy in early childhood education.