Leadership in Early childhood education

Part 1: 10 questions to facilitate dialogue with early childhood education mentor

The following questions are devised to ask from the mentor, with an aim of seeking understanding about identification of children needs, selection of pedagogical approaches, understanding of philosophy and Centre practices.

1. How can we apply the information about children’s interests and strengths to plan for future learning of children?
2. What can we do to enhance active engagement of children in learning?
3. How do we make decisions regarding appropriate strategies of teaching?
4. How can we expect that each child will engage with learning and will be an active as well as successful learner?
5. What approaches can help us to assure that equitable learning opportunity is provided to each child?
6. In what ways we work in partnership with families to assure effective planning for learning of child?
7. What are the appropriate ways for us to assess learning of children?
8. How can we use information of children’s assessment in planning of future learning of children?
9. Which ways can be adopted to obtain feedback from educators, families and communities?
10. What ways can we adopt to document the learning journey of children and how can we share the same with parents and families of children?

Part 2: Examination of Centre’s service statement of philosophy

The philosophy of Centre is based on belonging, being and becoming elements of Early Years Learning framework (EYLF) framework. As noted by Heikka & Waniganayake (2011) clearly articulated vision serves as the foundation for defining values which can assure achievement of high learning outcomes for all children. The vision of Centre is well articulated with EYLF elements of children learning. The values of differentiation, support, engagement, empowerment of children, diversity, partnership; serve as the core of Centre’s philosophy. These values are shared by the whole team to assure the provision of high quality education and care to children during their early years of education. The Centre believes that continual support through provision of inclusive and stimulating learning environment can help accomplish the goals regarding children’s learning.

Part 3:

1. As aligned with the quality criteria of National Standard and EYLF, the Centre offers substantial value to the environment and realizes its role in enhancement of children learning. The views of Deakins (2007) on significance of children’s interaction with environment have been acknowledgment by the educators. The engagement of children with both indoor as well as outdoor environment is being encouraged, by making it easy for children to move between classroom and outdoor area. The centre’s classrooms are well equipped with natural light and ventilation, which adds positively in enhancing the aesthetics of the classroom. Different racks are placed with playing and learning resources for children, such as blocks, crafts, toys, a paint canvas and others. The racks are well organized to leave space for children to play and engage. There is also section to allow children to engage with plants, which shows that prospects are provided for developing caring and nurturing abilities of children. Additionally, there is enough space to encourage group activities of children, which shows that aspect of interaction and socialization has been well acknowledge by the Centre (Miller & Cable, 2010). It contributes in emotional and social learning of children. Additionally, children are offered prospects to get engage with outdoor activities. Outdoor environment is designed by considering the aspects of safety into account and children can easily move around. Both the indoor and outdoor environment are organized in the way that children can independently engage with the resources and can enjoy autonomy in their learning.
2. As aligned with NQS element 3.1, the design of the classroom is highly suitable for enhancing learning prospects for the children (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020a). The space at Centre is utilized appropriately to arrange all the learning resources. For instance, different learning corners are made whereby children can choose to engage based on their own interests. There are corners for reading, building with blocks, crafts and nature. Each corner has enough space to encourage single child play, duo-play as well as team play.

Additionally, in compliance with element 3.2 of NQS, the environment is highly inclusive to support exploration as well as play based learning (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020a). For instance, it was seen in video that in outdoor area, a nature tray was arranged by the tutor. The nature tray has encouraged the children to explore the nature closely by witnessing different kinds of animals (such as polar bear) within their habitat. The same is aligned with 3.3 element of NQS, stating that ‘the service takes an active role in caring for its environment and contributes to a sustainable future’ (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020a). The engagement of children with nature serves as great opportunity to promote their sustainable learning (Muijs et al., 2004).

The prospects of exploration, experimentation as well as interaction are offered to children at the Centre. It was also observed that intentional teaching prospects are substantially encouraged at the Centre through utilization of different material of daily use, by engaging the children in different activities that have enabled to learn new concepts. The intentional teaching allows teachers to embark upon range of strategies for attaining purposeful learning outcomes (Rodd, 2012).  Additionally, sinks also make up an important aspect of environment, whereby, children are taught about the way to wash their hands. Overall, the environment is highly inclusive, whereby physical aspects of environment make it inviting, safe and flexible to support learning of all children. Likewise, aspects of exploration, autonomy, empowerment, team work, and exposure to nature, are all encouraged through the environment of Centre.

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Part 4: Importance of family engagement and learning communities

Creation of strong and mutually respectful relationship with families and communities can enable the educators to create an environment which provides best conditions for children to learn. Stamopoulos, (2012) has mentioned that families are in better position to provide information about life and learning experiences of children that devise their learning abilities. Thus, inclusion of families in decision making can assure that children’s learning needs are addressed in most suitable manner (Waniganayake et al., 2012). In similar way, as mentioned in NQS standard 6, schools offer an opportunity to children to interact with and develop sense of belongingness for wider community (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020b). Children need support of educators to extend their belongingness from immediate families to the community. This support is enhanced by developing mutual relationship with the community as well, and allowing their input in enhancement of learning practices for the children (Cartmel, Macfarlane & Casley, 2012). The aspect of shared decision making is promoted at the Centre, as they communicate significantly with families and communities. Online portal has been maintained by the Centre that encouraged dissemination of information among different partners.

Based on the element 6.1 of NQS, Centre needs to maintain active, open and honest communication with families that is initiated through offering enrollment and orientation opportunity to families (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020b). Through this initiative families can maintain check on how their child is settling and can share information about interests, needs and abilities of children. 6.1 also promotes the input of families in decision making, which is supported through open and honest communication managed by Centre (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020b). For instance, families are continually updated through dissemination of information and if any change in service delivery takes place, then families are well informed and their opinions are also encouraged.

Moreover, the 6.2 element of NQS states that; ‘Families are supported in their parenting role and their values and beliefs about childrearing are respected’ (Early Childhood Resource Hub, 2020b). The current communication and partnership oriented values of Centre are suitable to encourage educators for being respectful towards values and beliefs of the families. It allows to respect the opinion of families in decision making about child learning. Finally, standard 6.3 states that; ‘The service collaborates with other organisations and service providers to enhance children’s learning and wellbeing’. The Centre makes reliance on professional networking which allows them to get engage with community members for enhancing learning of children. Centre can further arrange field visits for children, such that children might interact with outside world. For example; students can be enabled to learn about caring and nurturing while offering them a visit to an animal farm. The close interaction with animals and understanding about their needs will help children to realize value of nurturing. Therefore, it can be said that by maintaining interaction with families and communities, Centre can further enhance its existing pedagogical principles and practices, which will benefit educators, children, families and communities as a whole.

Part 5: Reflection of leadership experience

In order to play role of team leader in Early Childhood Education (ECE) setting, it is important to develop clear vision of children learning and to realize that vision effective planning is needed (Raban & Kilderry, 2017). In my role as a team leader, I will work closely with my mentor to assess the interests of children, such that their learning mechanism can be planned accordingly. Close interaction with children will serve as the way to document their routine activities, with the purpose of assessing their interests and needs (Tayler, 2016). Followed by identification of child’s interests, the pedagogical approach will be adopted that suits well to support learning of child. For instance, by assessing the interest of child in craft and art; and by realizing the inclination of child towards visual art, I will assure that learning environment is visually rich and student is allowed to interact with the material and visual objects. Being a teacher, I will consider looking at art with the child, without decoding any image, thing or object, which will allow the child to use her own skills to interpret the art. Child can further be provided with sketchbooks, and encouraging that she voluntarily chooses to draw. It is mentioned by Tayler (2016) that when children voluntarily engage in art making activity, then they are likely to be more expressive as compared to the one initiated by the educator. Likewise, as part of pedagogical approach, child will be exposed to new material on daily basis and will be encouraged to create art, with whatever material she like to use. It is aligned with the views of Cartmel (2019) that creative exploration and material manipulation in innovative manner can help enhancing the art and craft skills of children.

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