Special Focus: Invest in yourself to become a leader

Leadership in theearly years sector is a critical component of providing high-quality care and education to young children. Effective leadership in early years settings requires a range of skills, including strong communication, the ability to build positive relationships with children, parents and staff, and a deep understanding of child development and early learning.

Leaders in the early years sector must also have a clear vision for their setting, be able to motivate and inspire their team, and ensure that they are providing a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment for children.

In addition to these core skills, effective leaders in the early years sector must also stay up to date with the latest research and best practices in early childhood education and be able to adapt their practices accordingly, bringing their team along on the journey. They must also be able to navigate complex regulatory frameworks and ensure that their setting is meeting all necessary requirements for health and safety, staffing and quality of provision.

Phew! Just reading that list is exhausting!

Leadership in the early years is definitely not for the faint-hearted, but equally it is rewarding, watching not only the growth of the children but of the staff team too. Being able to take a setting on a journey of quality improvement that positively impacts the lives of children is a truly wonderful position to be in.

It's clear that leading and managing early years settings is multifaceted and requires leaders to have a range of skills and knowledge. With the current challenges around recruitment and retention, we are often seeing great practitioners being promoted into the role of leader without a robust leadership training plan to support them in this role. This is setting leaders up to fail from the very beginning. So how do leaders acquire the level of expertise required to lead a setting effectively?

Continuing professional development (CPD) is essentiafor leadership as it enables leaders to keep up to date with the latest research, best practices and emerging trends across the sector. The EYFS (2021) tells us: ‘Providers must support staff to undertake appropriate training and professional development opportunities to ensure they offer quality learning and development experiences for children that continually improves.’

Setting leaders are responsible for ensuring their team members regularly participate in CPD. Most settings will have a development process in place that enables all members of staff to work towards qualifications and access training to improve their practice and guide their career path. However, when coaching and training leaders, the team at The Early Years Company often find leaders forget to include themselves in this CPD process!

It is essential for leaders to drive their own learning and development as passionately as they do for their team members. Taking responsibility for their own personal development is key to ensuring leaders remain current, are able to reflect on practice and can lead their settings successfully.

So, when deciding what CPD to access for leadership, what might leaders want to consider?

YOUR LEADERSHIP STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Self-reflection is an essential component to leadership. Start by identifying your areas of strength and areas for development as a leader. What do you do really well and what do you need to improve on? You could use our own supervision feedback as a starting point, or perhaps reflect on your development areas using your job description as a guide. A great way to understand your strengths and areas for development for your team's perspective is to use the Stop Start Continue technique.

The Start Stop Continue technique supports teams to reflect on their performance and provides feedback on how they might improve their practice. To do this, ask your team to share their thoughts on three aspects:

• What they would like you to start doing.
• What they would like you to stop doing.
• What they would like you to continue doing.

Once you have identified these, actively seek out CPD opportunities that can help you build on your strengths and address any weaknesses. This may be a training course, reading an article or text, speaking to another leader and sharing information, visiting a setting for the day, or accessing online material. There are so many ways to access CPD, it doesn’t always have to be a training course.

LEADERSHIP GOALS

Consider your leadership goals, your future plans and career goals. What does leadership mean to you, what kind of leader do you aspire to be and where is your career taking you? Break down your goals into one-, three- and five-year goals and create actions to help you achieve them. Reflect on how the CPD you access can help you achieve those goals and what you need to do to complete those actions. It is helpful to identify the specific skills and knowledge you need to develop to reach your goals and look for CPD opportunities that can help you acquire those skills.

RELEVANCE OF THE CPD TO YOUR ROLE

There are thousands of options, some more useful than others. When accessing CPD, ensure that it is relevant to your current role and responsibilities as a leader as well as helping you to grow and develop as a leader. Look for opportunities that will help you enhance your ability to lead and manage your team. Think about those strengths and development areas and really focus on finding CPD activities that will positively influence your practice, while also giving you a push out of your comfort zone – that's where the best learning happens!

THE QUALITY AND REPUTATION OF THE CPD PROVIDER

During the past few years we have seen a significant rise in online early years courses that aren’t full and relevant and don’t offer a licence to practice. This is incredibly frustrating, as so much time, effort and money is lost in the process. This can be the same for CPD courses. Take your time to research the quality and reputation of the CPD provider you are going to use to ensure that they offer high-quality training that is recognised and valued within the sector. Often you will find courses labelled as CPD certified, but ask yourself what that really means and does it add any value to the course.

THE FORMAT AND DELIVERY OF THE CPD

In the early years sector we consider the learning styles of our unique children, and this should be the same for you too. Think about your own learning style.

How do you best like to learn, how do you process information and how do you retain information? It is important to consider the format and delivery of the CPD, such as online courses, workshops, or seminars. Choose a format that suits your learning style and fits in with your schedule and availability. Consider whether you can access CPD in your working day, and reflect on whether evening and weekend courses are impacting your work/life balance in any way.

COST AND TIME COMMITMENT

Often early years settings have a limited budget for training and development, so consider the cost and time commitment of the CPD you are choosing. Are there alternatives that better fit your setting budget; how can you share the information you've learned to benefit more people?

Often personal reading, research and sharing with peers can be as effective as paid-for courses. Leadership coaching can also be a great way of receiving direct CPD in a useful timeframe that has a real impact on practice. While budget can often be a restriction, the return on investment is usually worth it.

Any CPD activity should show good return on investment (ROI), whether that be a financial investment or a time investment, but how do you know if the CPD is giving you good ROI?

Impact assessment processes will allow you to identify the impact of the CPD activity and whether that impact is balanced with the investment you have put in. For example, you may decide to engage with a leadership coach who visits you monthly. If this coaching leads to improved occupancy, leading to increased revenue, helps you to get a positive inspection outcome and supports you in retaining your staff team, then that shows huge ROI.

However, if you join a course that has no impact, where you learn very little and it doesn’t give you tangible actions to improve practice, it probably won’t give you a good ROI. Measuring the impact of any CPD is essential to help you decide on further CPD plans.

Developing your own skills and knowledge as a leader also role-models to your team the importance of self-development. It should have a positive impact on you, your leadership and therefore the practice across your whole team, leading to positive outcomes for children and families. Invest in yourself, it pays the best interest!

CASE STUDY: ‘Small steps to wider goals’

Becky Haynes, manager at Codsall Community Nursery, describes how she uses goal-setting to help her leadership development. She says, ‘In my previous leadership roles, CPD wasn’t encouraged once you got to the role of leader, it was as if the learning stopped there. This then meant that while I was supporting my own team to grow and develop, my personal growth and development wasn’t deemed important.

‘In my current manager role, I am encouraged to constantly improve my skills and knowledge and given so many opportunities to do this. attend conferences, write blogs, read leadership materials and have attended a leadership training programme.’

Haynes says that her director encourages her to set personal goals as well as goals for the setting. ‘I have set goals that align with my career plans, where I want to be in one, three and five years, and then use a goals-setting action plan to identify the actions I need to take to enable me to reach those goals.

‘I keep a CPD log that aligns withmy goals for the end of the year so I can see the progress I'm making and the learning I am accessing. This is used during my supervisions, where my director and I reflect on my progress towards both my personal goals and those of the nursery.

‘My action plan helps me to consider where I will find the resources, training and support I need. This might be structured training, or reading materials or even attending networking events to widen my network and build relationships with other leaders in the sector. Having this action plan allows me to be in control of my own learning and development, as well as making sure I take responsibility for my career path.

‘I feel like I am driving the growth of the nursery but at the same time driving my own personal development. This also allows me to cascade this down to my team members, all of whom have personal development plans aligned to their own growthplans and they each take responsibility for their own learning depending on where their career is heading.

‘Reflecting on the actions taken and how effective the action has been in terms of moving me towards my goals is an essential part of the process. Each term I take time to reflect on where I'm at and whether I have carried out the actions I set myself. When I see I am taking the small steps towards my wider goals, I feel empowered as a leader and ready to take the next step towards y goals.

‘However, I think that the most important aspect of goal-setting is putting the learning into practice and reflecting on how effective my leadership is and the progress I am making as a leader.’

Kelly Hill is the CEO of The Early Years Company, an organisation committed to supporting the development of early years leaders and their teams. Find out more here