Leading and managing in the early years / Carol Aubrey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aubrey, Carol.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Educational leadership.

Elementary school principals.

Elementary school administration.

Nursery schools--Administration.

Nursery schools.

Physical Description:

xii, 187 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles : Sage Pub., [publisher not identified], 2007.

Summary:

Skilled and effective leadership is essential in early childhood (EC) settings such as nurseries, day care centres, children's centres and in reception classes within schools. This book integrates leadership and management practice with a real understanding of early years settings, looking at the many different models of EC leadership and many different types of settings in which EC leadership operates.

This book investigates different concepts and characteristics of EC leadership as well as the roles and responsibilities of EC leaders. It also explores the types of leadership programmes or development which is needed to maximise the effectiveness of EC leaders. Based on work done by Carol Aubrey and her colleagues with groups of local early years leaders from children's centres, foundation units in primary schools and nursery and day care provision, this book is suitable for all those studying and researching early childhood, from Foundation Degree students through Early Years Practitioners to NPOICL participants. It will also be useful for early years practitioners and local authority employees involved with the integrated centres initiative.

Contents:

Introduction: theorizing leadership in early childhood 1

Changing world, changing theories 2

Our leadership investigation 4

1 The early childhood leaders' agenda 7

1.3 What do we know already? 9

1.4 What leadership research applies? 13

1.5 What do we need to know? 16

2 Leadership in English early childhood education and care 19

2.2 Our objectives 20

2.3 What we asked our early childhood professionals about leadership 20

2.4 What we found out 21

2.5 What we made of the findings 36

3 Practitioners' understandings of early childhood leadership 40

3.2 Characteristics of the leaders and staff that we talked to 40

3.3 Definitions and perceptions of leadership 41

3.4 Roles, responsibilities and functions of leaders 41

3.5 Decision-making 44

3.6 Internal and external influences on leadership 46

3.7 Training 47

3.8 Leadership in a changing world 47

4 Early childhood leaders' work 50

4.2 A typical day 51

4.3 Roles, responsibilities and functions 52

4.4 Decision-making 58

4.5 Influences on leadership 60

4.6 Training 61

4.7 Collective views on the video highlights 62

5 Journeys into leadership 69

5.2 A journey? 69

5.3 Career paths of early childhood leaders 71

5.4 Support through the career cycle 75

6 Mentoring as a leadership strategy 79

6.2 Learning from experience 80

6.3 The nature of mentoring 81

6.4 Establishing appropriate ground rules 82

6.5 A framework for staff development 83

6.6 Mentoring for the leader 83

6.7 Future possibilities 85

7 The challenge of leading multi-agency teams 89

7.2 Challenges to collaboration 90

7.3 Questions to ask 91

7.4 What do we know about effective multi-agency working? 91

7.5 Models of multi-agency working 92

7.6 Organization of professional groups 93

7.7 Views on multi-agency working from four integrated centres 95

7.8 What we found out 96

7.9 A closer look at the challenges of multi-agency working 109

7.11 Leadership by the many 115

8 Leading in a time of change 119

8.2 A need for interprofessional education 122

8.3 A model for improving the early childhood integrated centre 127

8.4 Understanding change 128

9 Reflections 132

9.1 Revisiting our initial objectives 132

Appendix 1 Gathering initial views on early childhood leadership 146

Appendix 2 Surveying leadership 147

Appendix 3a The early childhood leader's understanding of leadership 155

Appendix 3b The early childhood practitioner's understanding of leadership 159

Appendix 4 The leader's diary for 'A day-in-the-life ' 163

Appendix 5 Journeys into leadership 164

Appendix 6 Guidelines for setting up a mentoring scheme 167

Appendix 7 Values underpinning multi-agency working 169

Appendix 8 Building effective learning communities 171.

ISBN:

9781412934978

1412934974

OCLC:

181067762