Leading and Managing in the Early Years

Carol Aubrey

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781849207553, 9781849207546
• eBook ISBN: 9781446259856
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

…a major contribution to the limited literature and research on leadership in childhood education.? - Professor Tony Bush, Editor of Educational Management, Administration and Leadership.

?This important book focuses clearly on evidence, describing the realities of leading and managing settings in times of rapid policy changes. Carol Aubrey manages to combine theory, research and practice in a book that will be invaluable to a new generation of early years professionals.? - Angela Anning, Emeritus Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Leeds, UK

?..skilfully draws on sound empirical research to present a grounded theory model for leadership in early years education. ….of interest to researchers, students and practitioners internationally.? - Professor Nithi Muthukrishna, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

This Second Edition of Leading and Managing in the Early Years explores and integrates leadership and management practice with a real understanding of early years settings.

Revised and updated, this new edition includes:

- Two new chapters on private day care and reflective practice and action research

- Further coverage of reflective practice and reflective leadership skills

- More on EYPS as well as integrated centre leadership

- Practical suggestions for working with resistant groups and individuals.

Carol Aubrey investigates different concepts and characteristics of Early Childhood (EC) leadership as well as the roles and responsibilities of EC leaders. She also explores the types of leadership programmes or development which are needed to maximise the effectiveness of EC leaders.

This book is essential reading for students in Early Childhood courses, Early Years Practitioners and local authority employees involved with the integrated centres initiative.

Carol Aubrey is Professor of Early Childhood Studies at the University of Warwick.

CHAPTER ONE

THE EARLY CHILDHOOD LEADERS’ AGENDA

This chapter explains the main purpose of this book, its rationale and its structure. It identifies the starting points and key questions to be addressed: what do we know already; what leadership research applies; and what do we need to know? It also outlines what each chapter seeks to do.

1.1 Introduction

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This book is about early childhood leadership in England at a time of great change, with young children and their families a high priority within national debate and plans in train for high-quality integrated children’s services at national, local authority and community level. Our hope is that it will also make a contribution to the international debate about new constructs of early childhood leadership. By introducing new and emerging forms of interprofesssional leadership, new realities for the field will emerge and the knowledge base will expand. The Green Paper Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003a) and the subsequent Children Act (DfES, 2004a) had the overall aim to improve outcomes for all children through the reconfiguration of mainstream services around children and families. Key themes included strong foundations in the early years; a stronger focus on parenting and families; earlier interventions and effective protection for vulnerable and ‘at risk’ children; better accountability and integration of services locally, regionally and nationally; and reform of the workforce. The five outcomes for children that services should help them to achieve were:

• being healthy, that is enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle;
• staying safe, that is being protected from harm and neglect;
• enjoying and achieving, that is getting the most out of life and developing skills for adulthood;
• making a positive contribution to the community and society and not engaging in antisocial or offending behaviour; and
• economic well-being, that is, being protected from economic disadvantage that might jeopardize life chances and achieving full potential.

The 10-year childcare strategy Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children (HMT, 2004) and the Childcare Act (DfES, 2006a) to implement this policy built upon the Green Paper (DfES, 2003a) and Children Act (DfES, 2004a) with the aim to help deliver the outcomes by providing long-term goals and clear direction. Indeed, as the research that underpins this book was being carried out, local authorities were reforming their education and social services to create integrated children’s services, with children’s centres and extended schools being introduced by the leaders taking part in this study, a common assessment framework and an integrated workforce strategy, and a common core of training was being introduced together with a new integrated inspection framework for the early years developed by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).

The Labour government had stated its commitment to eliminate child poverty by 2020 as a high priority. This led to a policy agenda from 1997 that has generated a national childcare strategy in 1998 (DfEE, 1998) that included expansion of nursery education and childcare from birth to 14 years and generated a programme of so-called Sure Start local programmes and early excellence centres, as well as a programme of neighbourhood nurseries. Also established was the ‘foundation stage’ as a distinct phase of early education for children aged from 3 years to the end of reception year in school (for 5-year-olds). As well as the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (QCA, 2000), a Birth to Three Matters (DfES, 2003b) guidance framework had been introduced for all practitioners working with children under 3 years and now a single Early Years Foundation Stage framework (DfES, 2007) is unifying guidance from birth to 6 years, taking as a starting point the five outcomes set out above. The first ever Children’s Plan (DCSF, 2007b) was published, setting out the future for children’s services, with a vision of change to make England the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up in. The needs and wishes of families were to be placed first, with clear steps set out to make every child matter. This included an expansion of free early education places and an increase in the number of graduate early years professionals.

The agenda for change in early childhood services is complex and leadership across the sector, with children 3 to 5 years in private, voluntary and state provision, is critical to the quality of children’s experience. Key findings from the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) study (Sylva et al., 2004) indicated that settings integrating education with care provided the best quality and that there was a high correlation between well-qualified staff and better outcomes for children. All this argues for early childhood leaders who not only run effective, safe and caring environments, but who are also leaders of high-quality early education, care and development.

1.2 Context

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Our focus is on early childhood leadership practice that is intended to make education, care and development more effective. To be useful, it will be both practical, in giving concrete details and examples of leadership practice, and principled, in the sense of providing a basis in both evidence and theory to underpin the practicalities. The endeavour arose from skilled early childhood leaders collaborating with researchers working in a university, with expertise in the area of gathering evidence and theory. The experiences, evidence and analysis provided by these leaders was an essential resource for this work. For this reason, we are assured that other leaders will take seriously and benefit from our leaders’ experience. We have also benefited from the wisdom of Professor Viviane Robinson who reminded us of the need to redirect attention to effective educational leadership research so that we made stronger connections with learning, pedagogy and assessment and fewer links to ‘generic’ leadership skills. As she pointed out (Robinson, 2006: 63), generic leadership research provides important guidance about the influences and processes involved in leadership, and about the character and dispositions required to exercise the particular influence we call leadership:

it provides little or none of the knowledge-base needed to answer questions about the direction or purpose of the influence attempt. In short, while generic leadership research can inform us about how to influence, and about the values that should inform the influence process (e.g. democratic, authoritative, emancipatory), it is silent about what the focus of the influence attempt should be.

She cited Firestone and Riehl (2005: 2) who recalled that:

in the past educational leaders were judged routinely on their effectiveness in managing fiscal, organizational and political conditions … New leaders are increasingly being held accountable for the actual performance of those under their charge with a growing expectation that leaders can and should influence learning. Hence it is important to understand how leadership, learning and equity are linked.

This indicates the clear need to identify what effective early childhood practices and outcomes are – a theme to which we shall return.

1.3 What do we know already?

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As Anne Nelson noted in the Foreword, the collaboration to be described here grew out of a leadership seminar jointly planned and presented by the University of Warwick and the local authority, that brought together researchers and 25 local early childhood leaders, identified by Anne, the local early childhood adviser, as exemplifying effective practitioners. These represented the full range of foundation stage provision thus involving private day nurseries, through voluntary daycare and foundation stage units in primary schools, to Sure Start programmes and an early excellence centre (now all designated as integrated children’s centres).

Our starting point crystallized around three questions – what do we know already; what existing leadership research applies; and what do we need to know? The first two questions allowed the practitioners and researchers to pool their current knowledge before considering what the next stage of their joint investigation should be. The first stage of the process was to gather views on early childhood leadership. In order to achieve this end, the leaders were invited to consider five key questions:

• What does leadership mean in your setting?
• What factors contribute to the effectiveness of this role?
• What factors hinder the effective fulfilment of this role?
• What are your staff training needs?
• How can we build knowledge, skills and capacity in the field?

Participants worked in groups that allowed leaders at a similar phase of professional development and relevant experience to collaborate. Each group provided a written record of their discussion and then these accounts were analysed in order to identify key themes, issues and surprises.

Leadership in your setting

First, in terms of what leadership meant to the variety of leaders present in the diversity of settings represented, was having a clear vision and working towards this. Thinking strategically was emphasized and this was described as understanding the foci and direction that early childhood education was taking as well as the issues involved, in other words, awareness of the wider political, social and educational context. It also meant raising the profile of early years education and care and developing a shared philosophy. Fundamental to this was the recognition of its multidisciplinary nature. A central goal was valuing learning and having a commitment to ongoing professional development was important to this aspiration. In terms of generic leadership skills, having appropriate role models who had the ability to inspire, to motivate and communicate was emphasized.

Factors contributing to the effectiveness of this role

Second, in terms of factors contributing to the effectiveness of the leadership role, the ability to promote early years across a range of agencies and interest groups – the senior management team, staff, parents, governors and the wider professional community – was prerequisite. Stability in leadership with a firm commitment to working towards specific outcomes was regarded as the basis for this. Commitment to continuing professional development and support of staff was thought to contribute to effective leadership. Moreover, it was felt that effective leadership was underpinned by a range of skills that included confidence to empower, enable and delegate, motivation and enthusiasm, willingness to celebrate existing achievements, communication and listening, mediation and negotiation skills.

Factors hindering the effective fulfilment of this role

Third, in respect of factors hindering fulfilment of the leadership role, it was felt that there was a real lack of clarity at the national level about the foundation stage that has been in a state of change and development over several years. It was believed that a lack of status for the early years led to education for this age group being generally regarded as ‘easy’ and something that any professional could do. Lack of knowledge about early childhood was characteristic at all levels, from senior management teams, governors, local authority advisers, inspectors and trainee teachers. It was felt that for early childhood staff working in school settings, this could also lead to isolation and low levels of responsibility. Lack of status, it was thought, was reflected in a general lack of resourcing in terms of staffing, lack of time for planning, management training and professional development.

Staff training needs

Fourth, a need for accreditation of early childhood leadership and management at varying levels with appropriate funding was identified. Training, it was thought, should comprise knowledge of the principles, capabilities and skills of leadership. Theory and knowledge about early childhood education and care, current legislation and initiatives was regarded as important. The development of skills in devising and writing policy and design of the curriculum was regarded as important, as well as development of staff appraisal in whatever form (selection, recruitment, training, one-to-one observation, mentoring and ‘moving staff on’). Effective communication skills for a variety of audiences, building and maintaining positive relationships and effective conflict management were also thought essential.

Building capacity in the field

Finally, how could new knowledge, skills and capacity be built in the field? National acknowledgement and recognition of the need for accreditation of training for early childhood leadership with identified funding streams for training and training the trainers was proposed. The need for trainers who knew the early childhood field in terms of knowledge and experience was emphasized. At the local level, cluster-group meetings with direct early childhood leadership training, support and advice was proposed, as was more time to reflect. Setting up networks and mentoring systems across the sector was also recommended. A need for an awareness of and links to existing National College of School Leadership (NCSL) programmes was indicated and, in particular, opportunities to have access to courses such as the new National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) programme (Whalley et al., 2004, together with the NCSL, DfES, 2007c) that was currently available only to children’s centre leaders and deputies. It was clear that those present felt there were distinct training and development needs in the early childhood leadership field. The workshop also identified the need for a more systematic review of the formal knowledge base associated with early childhood leadership.

It seems clear from early childhood leaders’ own accounts that they believed there to be generic leadership and management skills and practical applications that transferred across sectors. At the same time, valuing learning was at the heart of the process, with a related commitment to ongoing professional development. This highlights the need to move beyond theories, models and skills of leadership to test leadership impact on outcomes for children (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2005; Leithwood and Louis, 1998; Silins and Mulford, 2002). Indeed, an evidence-based review (Bell et al., 2003) has revealed the limited evidence of links between leadership and the processes of teaching and learning. The challenge for early childhood leaders, moreover, is to manage the challenge of increasing provision available while ensuring that high quality is maintained. The Childcare Act (DfES, 2006a) requires additional services, promising a children’s centre in every community but with no additional resources. The challenge of recruiting, training and ‘moving staff on’ by the very leaders who will have responsibility for driving forward the new agenda is underlined. These leaders have the major responsibility for promoting outcomes related to health and safety, personal, social and emotional well-being as well as learning from 3 to 6 years and increasingly from birth to 6 years. All this is to be achieved in centres that demand well-trained staff with a variety of professional backgrounds in order to meet the diverse needs of both young children and parents. For the private and voluntary sector leaders there is the added tension of balancing affordability and sustainability.

This section of the chapter has focused on what leaders knew already and it has begun to consider what sort of leadership research applies, which is the ...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction to the Second Edition
• Glossary
• Introduction: theorizing leadership in early childhood
• 1 The early childhood leaders’ agenda
• 2 Leadership in English early childhood education and care
• 3 Practitioners’ understandings of early childhood leadership
• 4 Early childhood leaders’ work
• 5 ‘I don’t like the idea of making a profit … exploiting those on low wages … ’
• 6 Journeys into leadership
• 7 Mentoring as a leadership strategy
• 8 The challenge of leading multi-agency teams
• 9 Leading in a time of change
• 10 Reflective practice and action learning
• 11 Reflections
• Postscript
• Appendix 1 Gathering initial views on early childhood leadership
• Appendix 2 Surveying leadership
• Appendix 3a The early childhood leader’s understanding of leadership
• Appendix 3b The early childhood practitioner’s understanding of leadership
• Appendix 4 The leader’s diary for ‘A day-in-the-life …’
• Appendix 5 An audit of the effects of market forces in the childcare market
• Appendix 6 Journeys into leadership
• Appendix 7 Guidelines for setting up a mentoring scheme
• Appendix 8 Values underpinning multi-agency working
• Appendix 9 Building effective learning communities
• Appendix 10 Questions to ask when preparing for the action research cycle
• References
• Index