INTERVIEW QUESTIONS put to the educational leaders

1. Describe your position as educational leader:

As Ed Leader my job is to think critically about Education and Care professional

practice and what that looks like in our Centre and the sector as a whole. I lead the

development and implementation of the educational program and curriculum

through professional and collaborative relationships with my team of educators and

teachers.

How long have you been the educational leader?

Since the role was introduced by ACECQA into the sector in 2012, so about 9 years.

What is your qualification;

Bach of Education Primary

Bach of Early Childhood Education

Dip of Child Care and Education

What are the key roles and responsibilities for you as the leader?

• The development of professional relationships. Mentoring, guiding, and

supporting educators and teachers.

• An understanding and appreciation of the individual learning styles and

experiences of each educator and teacher

• The Development of a clear and shared vision of the curriculum documents

and pedagogical approaches for achieving learning outcomes for children

• A passion for professional learning, continuous improvement, and the

amazing work we do in the Early Years.

• To be an advocate for children and high-quality early learning programs.

2. Can you talk about your leadership style and how is it demonstrated in practice

Collaborative Leadership is a leadership style I embrace as it builds on my philosophy

of teams working together to achieve the best outcomes for the children and

families of our Centre.

Collaborative Leaders aim to achieve the following:

• shared goals

• building relationships that respect diversity and cultural differences.

Understanding how different viewpoints, challenges and issues that too often

divide groups can be bridged.

• Transparent and ongoing communication

• making connections with different groups, organisations and programs,

neighbourhoods, between families and other specialists, schools, and

community leaders towards achieving a common goal.

• Critical Thinking: Thinking about how others are impacted by the decisions

we make.

• support Self-Directed and Engaged Learning by developing learning

communities where people closest to the problem are supported to question,

explore, critically reflect, and interact to develop solutions and innovative

approaches.

3. Can you talk about the rewards of this position- and provide examples?

There are many rewards working with a team who share a passion for working to

achieve the best outcomes for children in the Early Years.

These include collaborating with the team and individual educators/ teachers to

critically reflect on practices to determine if there are ways that we could improve

our practices. Then actually observing how these changes in practice improve the

work we are doing with children.

I really enjoy mentoring the team, but I also love learning new things from them and

watching as they share their passions, ideas and new discoveries with the children

and families.

However, by far the biggest reward comes from the children and their smiling faces

as they arrive and depart the Centre each day. I love that we are an extension of

their family and we are a safe, nurturing, and fun place to come and play, discover

and learn each day.

4. What challenges do you face in this role? Can you talk about how you are meeting

these challenges?

I am the Director as well as the Educational Leader and time during the day for both

roles is always a challenge.

I make sure that I spend time in each of the rooms chatting with the educators /

teachers and children every day. This also gives me the opportunity to observe

relationships, pedagogical practices, and programs in action. I also meet with the

educators / teachers outside the room to plan and develop shared goals.

Also, the role of the Educational Leader can be quite isolating as there is usually only

one person in this role at each service. When I first took on the position, I felt I was

left to work things out for myself in relation to what I was required to do. This was

quite a stressful time and there was little support for the role. There are now

networks, Facebook groups and greater support from ACECQA to help with the role

and this has provided greater clarity around expectations for the role.

5. How do you demonstrate quality practice through your leadership role?

The first point of call when considering quality in the Early Childhood Education is the

National Quality Framework. The Framework is our Bible and the Exceeding Themes are

what we aim to achieve as a team. As Educational Leader I am always referring to the

Framework and Quality Areas.

I regularly chat with the educators/ teachers to determine what they need from me as

their Educational Leader. Through these discussions I am able to critically reflect on my

own practices and therefore the quality of the leadership and support I am providing the

team.

6. How has your role as educational leader influenced education outcomes for children;

what are examples of this?

One of the biggest pedagogical changes we have made at the Centre is the introduction

of the Abecedarian Approach. This has had a significant impact on the educational

outcomes for the children at our Centre. As the Educational Leader this was an approach

that I had been doing some professional reading about, and I was curious to discover

whether as a team it was worth investigating further.

The Abecedarian Approach is a set of evidence-based teaching and learning strategies

that maximise children’s learning outcomes by enriching and enhancing educators’

practice. The approach consists of four elements that promote intentional and

meaningful adult-child interactions.

These are Language Priority, Learning Games, Conversational Reading, and Enriched

Caregiving.

The Abecedarian Approach really resonated with our team. We developed a shared goal

of learning more about the approach and how we could embed these practices in our

Centre. Over a period of two years our education team actively participated in

Abecedarian training and began to embrace the strategies within our daily curriculum.

We have now embedded the strategies in each room and the children are thoroughly

engaged with each of the elements of the Approach. We can observe the many benefits

of the Abecedarian Approach in the children through their developing language and

literacy. We have also noticed that children develop a greater sense of Belonging and

secure attachment with the educators / teachers through the Enriched Caregiving. We

then began to support families to use the Abecedarian Approach and have developed a

Library of resources for families to play the Learning Games at home with their children.

We have now included the Abecedarian Approach in our Centre Philosophy.