Session Information
26 SES 03 B, Novice Teachers, Prinicpals and Prospective Leaders
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper draws on the findings of a three-year, government-funded study of Early Years Professionals Status (EYPS) in England which was completed in 2012. EYPS was introduced in 2006 to enhance quality in early years provision, influenced by the findings of the EPPE study (Sylva et al, 2010), which suggested that quality in early years provision was associated with having graduate leaders and high quality interactions in a play-based curriculum.
Theoretically, the study drew on established notions of quality in early years provision (Fenech, 2011), theories of agency and professionalism (Miller & Cable, 2011), and insights from research into early years leadership (Whalley, 2008), teacher leadership (York-Barr & Duke, 2004) and organisational leadership (Hannah & Lester, 2009). EYPs’ agency and leadership were regarded as both individual and collective in nature, in that they were able to take direct action themselves, but were also able to draw on support and resources from colleagues in their settings and their professional networks to effect change and improvements.
The study had a range of interrelated objectives. It set out to investigate if EYPS was achieving its aims by examining the following areas:
- EYPs’ views on their ability to carry out their roles since gaining EYPS
- EYPs’ practice in relation to: outcomes for children; impact on leadership roles in early years settings; and impact on other aspects of early years settings, such as the quality of practice and interactions.
- EYPs’ career pathways and trajectories
- EYP’s further training or professional development.
- The issues faced by EYPs in integrating children’s perspectives into their approaches to improving the quality of provision.
This paper focuses primary on the use of social network analysis (SNA) in conjunction with other data to trace and explore the development and influence of EYPs’ leadership.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
De Lima, J.A. (2010) Studies of networks in education; Methods for collecting and managing high-quality data, in Daly, A.J. (ed.) Social Network Theory and Educational Change. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Education Press, 243-258 Fenech, M. (2011) An Analysis of the Conceptualisation of ‘Quality’ in Early Childhood Education and Care Empirical Research: promoting ‘blind spots’ as foci for future research. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 12(2): 102-117. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (1996). Reassessing the principalʹs role in school effectiveness: A review of empirical research, 1980‐1995. Educational Administration Quarterly, 32(1), 5‐44. Hannah, S and Lester, P (2009) A multilevel approach to building and leading learning organizations The Leadership Quarterly 20, 34–48 Helms, R., Ignacio, R., and Brinkkemper, S. (2010). Limitations of Network Analysis for Studying Efficiency and Effectiveness of Knowledge Sharing. The Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 8, 1: 53-68 Miller, M. and Cable, C. (2008) Professionalism in the Early Years Workforce. London: Hodder Pitner, N. (1988). The study of administrator effects and effectiveness. In N. Boyan (ed.), Handbook of research in educational administration. New York: Longman, 99-122 Spillane, J.P., and E. Orlina. 2005. Investigating leadership practice: Exploring the entailments of taking a distributed perspective. Leadership and Policy in Schools 4, 3: 157
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