ROLE OF PRACTITIONERS

Role of Practitioners in Early Years Setting



Role of Practitioners in Early Years Setting

Purpose and Aims

Research has shown that the quality of early year's provisions is directly linked to the quality of leadership and management of early year's settings. The extant research also shows that the qualities of preschool settings are almost always characterized by strong leadership, where leaders and practitioners share a clear vision of the setting's practices. This paper presents the key findings of a national evaluation of early years leadership across a range of children centers in England. The focus of the study is to explore children's centre leaders' perceptions of leadership, and the impact of their professional qualification -the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) -- on their professional practice. Introduced by the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services in 2005, the NPQICL was developed to support the professional needs of children's centre leaders, especially in the role they play in meeting the Every Child Matters (2003) outcomes for all young children.

Literature Review

Research has shown a significant correlation between the quality of provision and the leadership of early years settings. A key study on 'Effective Leadership in the Early Years Sector' (ELEYS), undertaken by Siraj-Blatchford and Manni (2008), has provided empirical evidence for the importance of early years leadership and the role of early years leaders. The study reveals that effective preschool settings are almost always characterized by strong leadership with relatively minimal staff turnovers, where leaders and practitioners share a clear vision of the setting's practices, especially in relation to pedagogy and the curriculum (Siraj-Blatchford and Manni, 2008). Developed as an extension of the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) and Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) projects, the ELEYS study explored two key questions: What does the extant literature and research tell us about effective educational leadership in the early years? And what characteristics or patterns of leadership can be identified in the REPEY sample of effective settings?.

The study was essentially qualitative in nature, using semi-structured interviews, focus groups, observations and field notes as its data collection methods. The sample of the study was drawn specifically from the 12 settings previously identified by the EPPE and REPEY projects as being effective and of good quality provision. Importantly, the findings from the ELEYS study showed that effective leadership was a fundamental factor contributing to the quality of early years settings, and this in turn had a significant impact on the overall improvement and achievement of the children's educational outcomes.

The study revealed that a trained and skilled leader or manager, with the capacity to reflect upon and engage with changing contexts, capable of communicating and ensuring the vision of the setting, had a direct impact on the overall quality of the setting. As Siraj-Blatchford and Manni (2008) assert, 'there is no doubt that effective leadership and appropriate training for the leadership role is an increasingly important element in providing high-quality provision for the ...