Session Information
01 SES 01 B, Leadership in Early Childhood Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Europe has a strong history of development in early years which is reflected in its history and influence in leading the world in early education and childcare through its pioneers and policies (Cohen and Korintus, 2017). Within international policy drivers one area of attention has been professional learning and development for the sector (OECD, 2012). This has led to discussion about the qualifications, status and professionalization debate for early years sector (Kay et al. 2021, Oberheumer, 2015).
In England the context for professional learning and more specifically the early years sector is complex and the diversity of terminology and qualification with constant change, both confusing and unhelpful ( Nutbrown, 2021). The Covid 19 pandemic highlighted both the importance of early years and the challenges facing the sector (Pascal et al. 2020). Subsequently, there have been several policy initiatives to address aspects of the issues raised. These include the sector being incorporated within the government’s response to teacher retention and recruitment which is affecting much of Europe (Nutbrown, 2021). This response, known as “The Golden Thread” (DfE, 2021) sees professional learning as a continuous thread from initial qualification and has created new early years professional learning opportunities as a response. European countries such as Sweden have established professional learning for leadership (Forssten Seiser, 2022), and are held up as exemplars of best practice in early years. Their national leadership programme is a mandated requirement of leaders in all phases to complete within four years of their appointment as principal (Norberg, 2019, Skolverket, 2015, Skolverket, 2020).
This paper critically reviews the English policy making in early years professional learning through the framework of the National Professional Qualification of Early Years Leadership (NPQEYL ) alongside the Swedish model for leadership development. It analyses the design and implementation of these programmes as aligned to the process of enacting government initiatives, with view of offering lessons for future policies on professionalisation through leadership professional learning. This leads to our research question:
How are policies for developing leadership in Early Years contributing to the wider professional learning for professionalisation?
The scope of this critical review is to examine exant literature on leadership professional development in early years. Underpinned by Giddens (1984) structural theory we adapt the developments and critique of Whittington (2015) to create a conceptual framework. This argues that equal attention should be paid to structure and agency. In our interpretation we have identified the three following themes:
- Curriculum
- Professionalization/Professionalism
- Agency
The rationale for this choice is that to understand activity we must attend to institutional embeddedness for example: in policy initiatives. Agency is enhanced by control over resources and this links to how we look at policy development and the ways in which implementation of initiatives is enhanced by leadership agency (Whittington, 2015). Effective change interventions have to take both structure and practice into consideration. This resonates with the implementation of both the Swedish and English leadership initiatives.
Method
A two stage process was adopted. Stage 1 was a literature review on publications and policy documents for leadership professional development with a focus on the Swedish National Principal programme and English National Professional Qualification in Early Years Leadership. Stage 2 is the analysis of these documents according to three key themes identifed within the conceptual framework adapted from the work of Whittington (2015), based upon the orginal ideas from Gidden (1984).
Expected Outcomes
From this analysis and review we expect to present suggestions on how leaders mediate the social systems against societal influences on organisations within a policy landscape.
References
Cohen, B.J., & Korintus, M., (2017) Making connections: reflections on over three decades of EU initiatives in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), Early Years, 37:2, 235-249, DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2016.1181050 Forssten Seiser,A., (2022) The Impact of the Swedish National Principal Training Programme on Principals’ Leadership and the Structuration Process of School Organisations. Sweden Research in Educational Administration & Leadership Volume: 7, Issue: 4 / December 2022 Giddens, A., (1984) The constitution of Society, Cambridge: Polity Kay, L., Wood, E., Nuttall, J., & Henderson, L. (2021) Problematising policies for workforce reform in early childhood education: a rhetorical analysis of England’s Early Years Teacher Status, Journal of Education Policy, 36:2, 179-195, DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2019.1637546 Norberg, K. (2019) The Swedish national principal training programme- a programme in constan t change Journal of educational administration and history 51-1 pp5-14 Nutbrown, C., (2021) Early childhood educators’ qualifications: a framework for change, International Journal of Early Years Education, 29:3, 236-249, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2021.1892601 Oberhuemer, P. (2015) Parallel discourses with unparalleled effects: early years workforce development and professionalisation initiatives in Germany, International Journal of Early Years Education, 23:3, 303-312, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2015.1074560 Pascal, C., Betram, T., Cullinane, C., Holt-White, E., (2020) Covid- 19 and social mobility impact brief #4 -early years Research Brief July 20220 Sutton Trust Skolverket. (2015). Rektorsprogrammets måldokument. [The National Principal Training Program]. Stockholm: Skolverket. Skolverket. (2020). Rektorsprogrammet. Måldokument 2021-2027 [The National Principal Training Program 2021-2027]. https://www.skolverket.se/getFile?file=7660) UCL (2022) NPQEYL: National Professional Qualification for Early Years Leadership. UCL Centre for Educational Leadership. Webpage. Accessible from: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/ucl-centre-educational-leadership/national-professional-qualifications/npqeyl-national-professional-qualification-early-years-leadership [Accessed October 2022] Whittington, R. (2015) Giddens, structuration theory and strategy as practice. Cambridge University Press
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.