May 2022 Parenta magazine

Social leadership in early
childhood education and care:
an introduction
The work we do in Early Childhood
Education and Care (ECEC) is driven by a
social purpose – by the desire to make a
genuine difference. We want to make the
world a better place by giving children
the best possible start in life. That means
we need a model of leadership that puts
social purpose at the heart of leading.
This is what the social leadership model
is all about. In this article we’re going to
explain why we developed the model, how
it emerged through global research and
conversations, what the model involves
and how it looks and feels on the ground.
Why do we need the
social leadership model?
While we can all agree that ECEC is first
and foremost about achieving a social
purpose, we also all know that there has
been lots of under-investment in the sector
in most parts of the world. This has made
it hard, if not impossible, to come up with a
clear and unified vision for ECEC and what
it means to lead an ECEC organisation.
The pressure to make ECEC into a viable
business proposition means that many
leaders are having to juggle pedagogical
leadership, community leadership,
organisational leadership and financial
leadership. Leadership starts to look
like quite a thankless task of making
everything balance: balancing the
demands of pedagogical quality with the
financial demands, balancing staff wellbeing
against the realities of struggling
to pay a living wage. What gets lost in
this balancing act is the focus on social
purpose.
We’ve developed the social leadership
model as a way to respond to this
conundrum. We’ve based the model on
the practices of global leaders in ECEC who
are managing to have a significant social
impact. This is not about us inventing a
brand new way of leading, but instead,
we have aimed to capture and document
some of the amazing leadership that is out
there at the moment. By finding it, naming
it and understanding it, we can strengthen
social leadership across the sector.
How did we develop the
social leadership model?
The social leadership model came about
in two halves. First, we looked within
the London Early Years Foundation
(LEYF), where June is CEO, to see how
leadership is discussed and practiced
in this renowned ECEC social enterprise.
Second, we interviewed 14 global leaders
in ECEC renowned for their contributions
to the sector and their emphasis on social
purpose. We wanted to find out what
these leaders do in order to prioritise the
social impact of ECEC. Through these
conversations, we came up with the sixelement
model of what social leaders do
in order to fulfil their social purpose day to
day.
What does the social
leadership model look
like?
Sowing the
seeds of
sustainability
Facilitating
powerful
conversations
Leading with a
social purpose
Investing
in others’
leadership
The model is made up of six elements,
shown below. By applying pressure to
these ‘levers’, social leaders have the
maximum social impact. Let us look at
each one of these in turn.
Leading with social
purpose
This is where social leadership starts and
ends. Social leaders must have a clear
understanding of how ECEC and their
organisation contributes to a better society.
Not everyone has to have the same social
purpose articulated in the same language,
but social leaders do need to know how
and what they do every day makes the
world a fairer place.
Implementing a social
pedagogy
In ECEC, social purpose can only be
realised if the social pedagogy is aligned.
A social pedagogy is a vision of how
learning happens in the ECEC organisation
to support the fulfilment of the social
Implementing
a social
pedagogy
Creating a
culture of
collaborative
innovation
purpose. For example, in LEYF, the social
purpose centres on increasing the social
capital of children and families so that they
are well connected socially, feel belonging
and know how to access social services
and opportunities. The social pedagogy at
LEYF is deeply aligned with this purpose.
On a practical level, there is a clear focus
on children getting out and about in their
local community through regular outings,
whether to the market or the dentist or
a trip into the centre of London on public
transport. If social purpose is the heart of
social leadership, a social pedagogy is the
heartbeat.
Creating a culture of
collaborative innovation
Social leaders know that if you really want
to make a difference within the resource
constraints of ECEC, then working with
others is absolutely essential. Social
leaders prioritise partnerships and
connections that break down traditional
barriers. For example, Jacqueline Lamb,
CEO of Indigo Childcare Group in Glasgow,
has pioneered the integration of speech
and language therapy in ECEC settings
as a way to radically improve the early
support and intervention offered to the
families most in need. She recognised
that within current working models, where
health and ECEC are held apart from one
another, it is pretty much impossible for
children to get the early support they
need. Innovating together, whether within
the setting, with other settings or other
services, is the only way that we can truly
get support to all children and families.
Investing in others’
leadership
We have a copy of June and Mona’s book to give away!
Simply email marketing@parenta.com with the subject line: ‘Social Leadership in Early
Childhood Education and Care’,and ask to be entered into this prize draw. The prize
draw closes on 26th May and we will notify the winner on that day. Or get 20% off
the paperback and both eBook editions of the book when ordered on Bloomsbury.
com between now and 31/07/2022 at midnight BST using code ‘PARENTA20’.
Social leaders love to give others the
opportunity to lead, recognising that
this is the best way to improve day to
day practice and create a much-needed
leadership pipeline within the sector. Social
leaders overturn cultures of permissionseeking
by prompting everyone in the
organisation, whether an apprentice, room
leader or manager, to engage in problemsolving
and continuous improvement. In
the Learning Enrichment Foundation in
Toronto for example, supervisors avoid
giving direct advice and guidance and
are instead trained to coach and mentor
staff to build problem-solving skills among
more junior staff, using the question: ‘What
do you think we could do?’.
Facilitating powerful
conversations
Powerful conversations need to happen
at all levels of an ECEC leader’s activity.
There are pedagogical conversations with
staff and parents, coaching conversations
to improve practice in the organisation
and also advocacy conversations that
need to happen right across the sector.
Social leaders know how to take a typical
conversation and turn it into a powerful
one, changing hearts and minds and
prompting positive action.
Sowing the seeds of
sustainability
ECEC has to be part of the solution to
the huge global issues we face: poverty,
lack of education, climate change,
environmental degradation and so on.
Social leaders commit to integrating
sustainability into every element of their
leadership – from articulating the social
purpose to living the social pedagogy
and organisational culture. In our model,
we use the UN Sustainable Development
Goals as a way that social leaders can get
a handle on sustainability.
Mona Sakr
Dr Mona Sakr is a Senior Lecturer in
Education and Early Childhood. As a
researcher in Early Years (EY) provision,
she has published extensively on
creative, digital and playful pedagogies
including the books “Digital Play in
Early Childhood: What’s the Problem?”
(Sage) and “Creativity and Making in
Early Childhood: Challenging Practitioner
Perspectives” (Bloomsbury).
Email: m.sakr@mdx.ac.uk
Twitter: @DrMonaSakr
June O’Sullivan
June O’Sullivan MBE is Chief Executive
of the London Early Years Foundation
(LEYF), one of the UK’s largest charitable
childcare social enterprises which
currently runs 39 nurseries across twelve
London boroughs.
An inspiring speaker, author and regular
media commentator on Early Years,
Social Business and Child Poverty, June
has been instrumental in achieving a
major strategic, pedagogical and cultural
shift for the award-winning London
Early Years Foundation, resulting in
increased profile, new childcare model
and stronger social impact over the past
ten years.
Twitter: @juneosullivan
6 May 2022 | parenta.com
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