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Dr Fenech teaches the 鈥楲eading and Managing Quality ECE Services鈥� unit and tells her early childhood education students that no matter how good a teacher they are, the governance and leadership of the service will impact them and their practice.

鈥淓ffective governance and leadership will strengthen their practice, while ineffective governance and leadership can weaken it,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

鈥淕ood governance and strong leadership are essential to delivering quality outcomes for children in ECEC, and these quality contributors are recognised in the National Quality Framework (NQF), Quality Area 7.

鈥淏oth effective governance and leadership support quality early childhood education. And we also know that effective leadership within a service requires the backing of a governing body that is committed to providing quality ECEC,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

Dr Fenech shared that a recent by Harrison and colleagues, which investigated services鈥� quality improvement, found that governing bodies 鈥� whether this be a parent management committee, a not-for-profit community organisation, a sole trader, or a corporate chain 鈥� need to support its service leaders if the quality is to improve.

This support can include having clear policies and procedures and systems that manage risk, to providing leaders and educators with the programming time they need, opportunities for professional development, and recognising and remunerating leaders and educators for the work they do.

鈥淲hen we think about managing risk in ECEC, we usually think about making sure that the children attending our services are kept safe.鈥�

鈥淭he COVID-19 pandemic, however, has really extended this focus to the safety and wellbeing of staff,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

Leadership and management responses to support staff

Recent COVID related ECEC research found that having to work throughout this health crisis has impacted the physical health and emotional wellbeing of many educators.

These studies also identified a number of leadership and management systems responses that supported both staff wellbeing and retention during the crisis.

These responses included:

• implementing critical incident plans and infectious disease policies specific to Covid;
• having clear communication processes that involved information dissemination and consultation;
• introducing practical strategies aimed to minimise physical risk;
• establishing wellbeing programs and resources;
• enabling and supporting staff through change management processes, for example, when using technology in new ways with children and families; and
• acknowledging the efforts and achievements of staff, and advocating publicly for recognition of the work they were doing.

Services are well equipped to respond to crises in these ways, allowing them to sustain quality ECEC on an ongoing basis, if they are meeting Standard 7.2, Dr Fenech shared.

鈥淭his Standard speaks to two key and interrelated aspects of effective leadership: a positive organisational culture, and the building of a professional learning community.鈥�

Service culture and philosophy

According to the Australian Institute of Indigenous Governance, culture is 鈥渁 whole system of knowledge, beliefs, ideas, values, powers, laws, rules and meanings that are shared by the members of a society, and together form the foundation for the way they live.

鈥淐ritical to a service鈥檚 culture is their philosophy. We know that sometimes a philosophy statement is something that is developed by one person, or that is done to tick off the meeting of Element 7.1.1.鈥�

鈥淲hen leaders work with all stakeholders in the service 鈥� children, families, staff, management 鈥� to develop the philosophy, it works like glue that holds everyone together and provides the foundation for practice: what educators do how they are they doing it,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

Professional learning community for ongoing improvement

As noted in recent , services whose quality rating improved to Exceeding demonstrated a commitment to developing and working with their philosophy in these ways.

鈥淏uilding a professional learning community that is committed to ongoing improvement 鈥� irrespective of whether your service is rated as Working Towards or Excellent 鈥� should be embedded into a service鈥檚 culture and philosophy,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

鈥淭wo things that we see effective governing bodies and leaders doing are firstly, approaching professional development as being much more than one off mandatory training sessions, and secondly, bringing educators together, so that professional development is undertaken in teams, not in isolation by individual educators.

鈥淭hese approaches are collaborative and inquiry based, where the learning is shared, practiced, discussed, and supported in an ongoing way.鈥�

Dr Fenech referenced the work of Chris Woodrow and Linda Newman who talk about how in this approach, new knowledge and approaches to practice are developed within the service context, 鈥渞ather than transported in from 鈥榦utside鈥欌�� (p. 5).

鈥淭his is not to say that educators shouldn鈥檛 be engaging in, for example, professional development conferences or forums. What it does mean is thinking about how 鈥榦utside knowledge鈥� might translate into practice within the context in which the service is operating,鈥� Dr Fenech said. 鈥淭he educational leader is well placed to lead this work, working with teams of educators, but of course needs to be resourced to do this important work,鈥� Dr Fenech said.

In addition to the references Dr Fenech has shared, she encourage all readers to access ACECQA鈥檚 extensive range of , to support their work in meeting the requirements of Quality Area 7.

References

• Logan, H., McFarland, L., Cumming, and Tamara, & Wong, S. (2021). Supporting educator well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of leadership in early childhood education and care organisations. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 46(4), 309鈥�321. ; The Front Project (2020). Early learning and COVID-19: Experiences of teachers and educators at the start of the pandemic.
• Woodrow, C., & Newman, L. (2015). Recognising, valuing and celebrating practitioner research. In L. Newman & C. Woodrow (Eds.), Practitioner Research in Early Childhood: International Issues and Perspectives (pp. 1-16).