June 2022 Parenta magazine

What does leadership
look like… first thing in
the morning?
What’s a great start to the day? Across
sectors, leaders agree that the things you
do first in the morning make a difference
to how the rest of the day pans out. In this
article, we take a look at what leaders in
early years education can do to help the
day run smoothly. We look at four common
goals that leaders use to set up mornings
that make a difference:
• Finding centre
• Plan with joy
• Prepare for calm transitions
Reconnecting with Centre
A huge part of leadership is being a
port in the storm and role modelling the
culture we want to create. As Jacqueline
Lamb, CEO of Indigo Childcare Group in
Glasgow explains, everyone else looks to
you for guidance about the culture of the
organisation – particularly when the going
gets tough: “It’s vital that staff see the
leader as a positive person still willing to
smile and laugh.”
The capacity to remain optimistic and clear
in your vision for early years education
depends on your own sense of stability
and purpose. Feeling rushed or worried
can get in the way of that sense of
purpose and it can rub off on everyone
around you. This means that one of the
most important steps a leader can take in
the morning is to reconnect with their own
emotional centre and the values they want
to bring to their setting.
Reconnecting with your centre looks
different to everyone. Here are a few ways
that leaders do it in the morning before
starting work:
• Brewing a coffee and taking a
few minutes to drink it in silence
• Going for a run
• Enjoying the walk to work
• Reading a novel on the bus
• Listening to an audio book in the
car
• Cuddling with your children
before getting them out the door
What activities enable you
to reconnect with centre?
Leaders also need to reconnect with
the values that they really believe in for
early years education. We can use the
environments we work in to help us to
remember to do this. It might be the
posters that we put up in the setting for
example, which remind us of the key
values we want to bring to working with
children (these might be joy, play, calm,
health or so on). If you’re in a pop-up
setting, you might need to be more
creative with these reminders – maybe
it’s the colour of clothes you wear to work
and what you associate with those colours
(e.g. yellow for joy), or perhaps you keep
a postcard or photo in your bag to remind
you of what this day is really about.
Plan with joy
Leadership is about planning, but it’s
also about finding the opportunities to be
creative and flexible in your plans so that
you can really embrace the joy of early
years education.
Mel Knight, a baby room leader at Ripe
Nursery School in Sussex, describes how
the baby room team come together and
plan the following week together:
“Everyone chips in with what activities
or toys they would like out for their key
children. Doing it together is so important
because everyone is aware of all the
children’s needs, likes and dislikes. So it
can’t be something that I’m doing alone. It
needs to be collaborative”.
Mel also points out the importance of
being flexible with plans and keeping a
sense of space in the moments that allow
practitioners to seize the moment:
“We are very much in the moment, for
example if we have planned a morning
outside then the weather changes, we
adapt it so we can bring the outside in”.
Having the time and space for this creative
and flexible planning depends on creating
routines for doing this before children
arrive. But it also very much depends on
the relationships a leader cultivates among
the team. Everyone needs to know that
their ideas are welcome and that planning
is a collaborative joyful activity rather than
a checklist that one or two people have
responsibility for. Setting up this culture
depends on interactions throughout every
single day.
Think about opportunities to remind
everyone to contribute ideas to planning.
You might notice that someone on the
team takes particular joy in an activity
during the week. You might mention to
them that you’d love to see some more
planning ideas following on from this
activity. You might encourage staff teams
to connect ideas in more informal ways,
for example, using Pinterest together. In
professional development conversations,
make a point of discussing what ideas
and how many individual team members
contribute to the collaborative planning.
You can set goals around this to help
some members of the team speak up
more often, but try to keep it feeling fun,
relaxed and open. Joyful planning and
in the moment planning depend on
relaxed engagement in a no-pressure
atmosphere.
Prepare for transitions
We all know that when we’ve prepared
the transitions during the day, things
run more smoothly. Leaders know that
these transitions aren’t just details but the
features of the day that really make the
difference. They set the tone for the day.
Think about trying to maintain a calm
environment when things are busy and
children’s needs are coming at you think
and fast. We all need as much to be in
place as possible to support us in these
moments.
Mel, speaking as a baby room leader,
describes how she pays careful attention
in the morning to these details:
“Everyday I familiarise myself with the
register, this can change daily especially
with children off sick or making up
sessions, put out their named baskets for
their lunches and make sure their slippers
are waiting for them by the door! We are
a pop-up nursery so I check that the sleep
room is ready for their individual nap
times.”
The particular transitions will depend on
the features of your own room or setting.
It’s a great idea to regularly reflect on the
details that seem to make the difference in
how transitions feel for everyone. Maybe
there are things you could do at the
start of the day that would really help, or
maybe there are things that you’re doing
currently that actually don’t make much of
a difference to the children’s well-being or
learning. Leadership is about reflecting on
what to do more of and what to do less of.
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).
Mona’s current research is an
exploration of pedagogical,
organisational and community
leadership in EY and how leadership can
be more effectively developed across
EY. Current funded research includes a
Nuffield Foundation project looking at
online leadership development across
the EY sector, a BELMAS project looking
at leadership in the baby room of
nurseries and a BERA project examining
ethnicity in the early years workforce.
Forthcoming books (include an
introduction to social leadership in early
childhood education and care (written
with June O’Sullivan, CEO of London Early
Years Foundation), and an edited volume
on EY pedagogical leadership around
the globe.
Email: m.sakr@mdx.ac.uk
Twitter: @DrMonaSakr
18 June 2022 | parenta.com
parenta.com | June 2022 19