Please accept this blog input as evidence of my application for 23thingsLeadership badge 10 - Collaborating and influencing Leadership.
Throughout the 23things process I feel that I have address this badge clearly. Through my role as Equity and Excellence lead I am positioned into Early Learning Centres / Family Centres to improve the quality of the service to improve outcomes for those children / families who are considered to be at the most disadvantaged and subsequently close the poverty related attainment gap. I work with the management team, practitioners and families to implement change and to embed Quality Improvement Methodology into the Early Years environment and practice.
I need to have a vision of what I wanted to achieve, how I was going to achieve it and how would I know I had been successful. Through my Health and Wellbeing Leadership I guided the process of improvement, I planned how we were going to achieve the desired outcomes and prioritised the tasks. Through a combination of management and leadership I coordinated the effort with all educators, delegated the tasks to all staff, however, I modelled what I wanted to see to reassure the other staff that it wasn’t out of their capabilities to complete. I was required to monitor that the tasks were being complete and support staff when this was not happening. Once the data was collected, It was my responsibility to collate and analyse the data so I could report the results, evaluate and predict the outcomes and further change the approach so that the outcomes would be achieved. As part of the project design, I was required to state what resources I required and how mum they would going to be. This then had to go to senior management to approve. I had to ensure that all educators / groups had the correct resources to comfortable to the job required of them.
I saw my role in this project more as a leader than a manager and I had to support the other staff to become leaders in their own rights. After sharing my vision for the project, discussing opening with the team what we were doing, why we were doing it and who was doing what I provided a focus through the use of the Natural Health Award and RHET Tastie Tatties competition and using these links to develop areas of the setting, I modelled the HWB projects, providing a narrative to what I was doing and why I was going, when I saw a member of the team doing something good, I directly praised them and used their work as examples of best practice. Quickly I realised that implementing this change unlocked emotions in the team, so I went and trained as a Mental Health Champion and became a safe base for staff to open up and talk to me about their concerns about their work or working environment. Any promises I made about helping them I would ensure that I would keep, this build relationships and trust which fed into our work and improvement methodology. I feel that I inspired and motivated my fellow educators because prior to me leaving the nursery, I spent time handing over my work to another educator who had volunteered to take the leadership forward, this particular educator was quite reserved and wouldn’t speak up in meeting, however I feel that I supported her to unleash her own potential and recently she has been intouch with me to ask for support in applying for a promoted role.
Having looked at the Bluebird Care video, which of the descriptors do you think are demonstrated in the story
I observed that the leadership are dedicated members of the team who have a passion for A* service for their clients but also to the team.
They have a very clear vision and USP“ best care matters” “ high quality” service and to support the clients to stay in their own home for aslong as possible
Clear learning and development programme open to all staff and actively encouraged. “ You can do it attitude”
CI – stated that the team are
” Proactive” “service motivated”, ”Aware of nation wide legislation”.
Staff motivated and confident, understood the important role that they played in the companies vision
Stepping into leadership “ feeling empowered”
Leadership all about passion, and the Management team demonstrate in the video that they are passionate to provide the best care possible. The team trust the Senior Management team,
Lolly pop moment = praise from customers which they feed back to the carers and vice versa- this builds up positive relationships between the team and the clients.
The carer stated that they “ Believes in you”, Insires “ We do have a voice”
In what way do they express appreciation about the service, staff, quality of leadership practice and overall sense of direction (vision)?
They do this in a number of different way :
· Having daily meetings so that there is a strong communication ethos in the company
· Openly recognise those “ Lollypop” moments
· “blue bird” to be placed near a staff member if they say something which the team feels it requires recognition.
· Using “ Step into Leadership” as a tool in supervision so that the carers can work through the criteria and earn badges which that can wear on their uniforms
The staff are motivated and happy in their work as they feel that they trust their management and want to come to work.
What difference does it make?
The team moulds together which means that, when change occurs, they are more like to trust the management to lead then through the change.
The outcomes are as followed :
The staff are motivated to follow the vision that the directors have from the company
The staff are upskilled through the “ step into leadership”
The staff feel valued and willing to get the extra mile
Ultimately the quality of care for the clients will be second to none.
My vision for the future of my current setting is to provide a high quality service to our stakeholders ensuring both Equality and Equity in our approach and our environment.
The experiences which have informed my vision is working in a range of settings from both the Scottish and English Educational systems, I have seen some which work and some which require significant amount of input to improve the quality of the service. I keep up to date with a documents bother local and national, ensuring that I have a reference point from each document ie – Realising the Ambition and Vision 2030:Learning for sustainability . I have professional conversations with my peers within the Equity and Excellence team in my Local authority, sharing best practice, getting advice etc.
I am using my vision in several different ways in my current setting they are as followed
· Developed a Planning document which incorporates RTA, CofE and ITMP- this will ensure that we are following the child’s interest and being responsive in our planning.
· I am working with the nursery team and stakeholders to develop our outdoor spaces. This includes developing both a parental and team steering groups, consultations processes with all stakeholder ( including the children). My vision is to develop a leadership role within the outdoor area to ensure that there is depth and breadth in provision.
· I have developed home learning bags for the children to take home. These have themes ie- emotions/ heuristic play etc. The plan is to develop learning groups from the parents.
· As I am part of the Equity and Excellence team, I am required to demonstrate improvement methodology to improve outcomes for children in the SIMD 1 &2. I am currently working with pre-schoolers talking and listening. I am doing this in a few different way; firstly, I have observed all pre-schoolers, spoken to the team as well as learning journals and tracked them according to benchmarks to talking and listening. This provides us with a statistical baseline for improvement, I share my finding with the team and make a plan on how to improve their outcomes ( looking at different interventions) this requires to team to invest in what I am doing and ultimately upskill them.
This will improve staff morale, as they can see the impact that they have on the children and families, the children will benefit because they quality of learning will improve, which, hopefully will contribute to closing the attainment gap, families feel supported and involved in the ELCC and feel that they have a voice.
Im a new Equity and Excellence lead, therefore, I am being challenged. I understand that I require training and mentoring and I am confident to say to the team that I was an Early Years Practitioner only a couple of months ago, so I understand how hard it is. I am in the process of building relationships with the team. I am only 8weeks into my new role, so we are still forming and norming. I spend as much time as possible on the floor with the team, providing support, modelling good practice and taking some of the work load off them so that they can enjoy doing their roles. I understand that we all have our own unique sets of skills and interests, and I am keen to utilise them to develop a forward thinking team.
My strengths are that I have a clear vision, I can project plan and I can work as part of a team. Sometimes, this comes as a detriment because I sometimes forget that I am part of leadership, and, because I do show my vulnerability at times, when its tome to be assertive, or tell someone what to do or the fact, they have done something wrong – which is something I had to do today infact, I find it challenging to find the words in case I upset them or knock their confidence – so its leadership communication is something I really need to work on
We are at the beginning of fulfilling my vision for my new setting. So far I have had positive and negative feedback. I feel I’m proactive, so I want to get things done, however, I had to stop and reflect on my practice because the team require time to adopt an approach. Today is day 1 of my new planning approach and I have been on the floor with the team modelling, reassuring and mentoring and it seems to have been received with great enthusiasm and positivity. Having the whole leadership team on board has made this section of my leadership relatively easy