Leadership and Management of Early Years

Question: Identify and critically evaluate two or three key priorities essential to the Leadership and Management of Early Years (3-7 years old children) in practice. Answer: Introduction Leadership and management is the key factor to enforce development in the teen and young children. The effective leadership deals with influencing teens to do the right thing and in positive manner. The leader has the quality of leadership to encourage the people to motivate them and eject better productivity and efficiency from the people. On the other hand, the management of human and their behavior is complex issue which requires an effective leadership skill to control their behavior so that can seek higher benefit from education and learning (Page and Millar, 2009). Therefore, leadership and management if goes together then it can beneficial for the people and for the trainers. Moreover, the staff and parents can be able to achieve their goal by guiding and controlling the act of children through leadership and management. The current study will be focusing on the challenges faced in leadership and management in context to children aging 3-7 years. The leadership and management are important for the children to become a better person in future. Therefore, the study will be dealing with different key challenges that are mostly noticed in leadership and management. Further, conclusion will be proposed to sort out the issues in order to bring effective development in the children. Key Challenges Encouraging and facilitating parent partnership The learning provided by parents last forever among the children and it also helps in their development. On the other hand, Carpenter (2005) mentioned that if the parents fail in providing effective learning and guidance in the initial stage of the children then it can doom their life and the children may ruin their life in future. It is evident that due to low income of the parents they may not be able to provide effective learning to their children. Therefore, parent plays important role for the growth and development of the children by providing initial age learning. Thus, children are not able to receive basic learning and their childhood life can get hampered. On the other hand, Digman and Soan (2008) pointed that a teacher or staffs of school or kindergarten can act as a parent to build strong relationship or bonding with the children. Therefore, it can help the teacher to know the requirements of child and understand their mentality so that better learning can be provided. Apa rt from that, Paige-Smith and Rix (2006) opined that parent and teacher partnership is effective for the child growth but if there is lack of bonding then it can directly affect the child mentality or their future growth. Therefore, it can leave a child into depression due to collision and conflict between his parent and teacher. Hence, it can be understood that if there is a conflict then it will hamper child learning and health (Wheeler et al. 2009). Therefore, in my opinion the teachers and parents should try to make a cordial relationship so that a better future can be planned for the children. On the contrary, Ward et al. (2009) discussed that if teacher do not have quality of acting as a parent then they might not be successful in providing as effective as other. Therefore, according to me, the teachers should treat the children as parent, which helps the children to be active and give complete involvement in different activities of the school and develop their skill and knowledge. For example, if teacher act as parent then a child can be more open to them and they can share their thoughts and ideas and better environment can be build for children (Page and Millar, 2009). Moreover, Keynes (1991) stated that the parents are the most important part of the childs life and they can help the children to follow ethical norms of life. Therefore, the parents should develop their teaching and parental skills and learning to guide the children for better future career. For instance, the Pen Green Centre helps the families and their children by providing learning environment such as classes to parent for taking care of the child and understanding the needs of child. Further, it also provide wide array of service such as care and education to the families so that they can take care of their child in more better and effective way (Browne 2004). On the other hand, Holiday Play Scheme and After School Club is valuable for the children above 4 years to have better quality and learning time while playing or doing any other activities (Brooker, 2008). On the other hand, Theory of Wahanau assists in promoting families as a total unit rather than focusing on the individual family member. Therefore, it is effective in proposing a solution that is faced by the families regarding the health and wellbeing of the children (Howes et al. 2008). Thus, it can be concluded that parents and teachers can have great influence on the growth and development of the child. Distributed Leadership between staff Bush et al. (2013) opined that leadership is effective for the children growth and their future prospect. The staff of the school or other learning centre has to integrate their knowledge so that best knowledge and reading can be provided to children. Leadership is important to develop the learning and knowledge of the people that helps them to carry their work in productive way and build friendly environment. However, it has been found that in the recent study that staffs of the educational institution are not taking up their job seriously and their major focus is on earning high salary (Davies and Brent, 2009). Therefore, due to such act child has to suffer and they are not able to gain proper learning and education. The lack of interaction between the staff can affect the leadership practice and child may not be provided better learning environment (Robins and Callan, 2009). For instance, if the staffs of the school had fight for getting the morning shift to teach the children and due to that the negativity, environment of school can be hampered and it can show wrong image about school outside (Caroline and Linda, 2008). Therefore, it can be understood that if there is no interaction and communication between teacher and staff then they may not develop leadership skill to guide and direct the children (JanetMoyles, 2006). Thus, the distributed leadership can be effective for the staff to undertake work collaboratively and provide required learning and support to the children. Within primary school, teachers have to follow the guideline of distributed leadership style. Chapman (2013) acknowledged that it is the first and foremost in leadership practice instead of role, routines, structure and functions of leaders. Interaction with each other between the staffs is an immediate and most defined leadership practice in primary education. Regular interaction between the staffs helps in increasing teaching and learning method (Mullick et al. 2013). In primary schools, literacy co-ordination makes the teacher in providing higher level of learning to learners (Spillane, 2005). Interaction between the staffs helps in generating more functions. However, distributed leadership make the teachers interdependency in primary school environment according to their characteristic. If the staff interdependent with each other, they can delivers learning and teaching easily. Encouraging Reflection in Professional Practice (Staff) Majority of teacher in their profession faced common issues such as understanding of feelings and honesty. According to Kelly and Saunders (2010), entering into teaching professional especially in the 2 to 3 years childrens primary school is very much complex. However, in this framework, taxing is also a big issue in professional development. Nabhani et al. (2012) argued that reflection on the practice is supportive, challenging and structural. As asserted by Flessa (2012), these are the essential part of professional development process in teaching at primary school. Majority of teacher in their profession faced common issues such as understanding of feelings and honesty. These critical approaches identified in teaching and learning. Professional practice in primary school are the thinking and acting over stimulus reaction. From the point of view of social constructive practice, teaching and learning are the interrelated and required to change regarding primary school environment in UK. Southworth (2008) opined that experimental learning plays the major role in transformation the experience into knowledge. Core of learning process is the fundamental of scholar reflection in relation to professional development in learning institute especially n primary school at UK. Tay and Lim (2013) acknowledged that reflection is the way that helps in better understanding about the practitioners. Moreover, it helps in developing knowledge to the teacher in primary school via reconsidering the practice of learning. In the primary school environment in UK it has been often identified that concept of critical reflection regarding management education is now become the core as well as integral part of qualification of trainee teachers. Reflection in the action of primary teachers can be described as interaction which is the main problem that faced by the teacher in their professional practice in 2 to 3 years children primary school. Majority of professional in their teaching and learning in primary school faced challenges in using hidden or tactic knowledge. They are unable to provide safe learning environment to the learners via putting the rule based knowledge into action. Apart from that, development and judgment becomes negative for the teachers in the early aged primary school in UK. From my experience, teachers face complexity in covering the issues of learner due to lack of experience. Wood et al. (2012) argued that making sense is a problem for the teachers of primary school in UK. They are unable to involve their experience and professional knowledge in their profession. In teaching and learning education in primary school in UK, it has been identified that majority of teachers demoralized psychologically and unsound pedagogically (Thro, 2012). Apart from that, it is also found out teachers in primary school unable to meet everyone requirement due to varying degree of needs of the learners. Moreover, in the initial stage of teaching at primary school, some of the teachers missing to interact lot of important things such as primary learning, differentiation of various learning tools, etc. Different approaches sometime demotivate students and teachers were unable to instructions accordingly (Walker, 2010). Moreover, variability among the group of learners is also a key challenge for new teachers in primary school. Most of the teachers are unable to make proper planning for learning to their respected students in UK primary school. Woods et al. (2012) cited that differentiation in lesson is also a potential challenges in teaching and learning at primary school in UK. Lack of experience of teaching and learning in primary school is then major problems for teacher within the primary school environment in UK. In order to standardized teaching and learning, teachers have to develop flexible structure and provide innovative learning experience to the learners in both individual as well as group. Apart from that, constructive intellectuality will be the best technique in challenging learning in primary school. Development of numeracy, literacy and language will be the best methodology in primary school regarding teaching and learning to the children. Conclusion This study is mainly consists the three key priorities that essential in leadership and management of early years in a primary school. Early years learner has fresh mind. Therefore, teachers have to take care with more precious. From the above discussion it has been found out that teacher has great impact on effectiveness of early years in primary school. The dimension of this study identified that teachers has to pay more attention in their learning method and creating positive environment along with open communication. These are observed according to the three critical factors for challenges in primary school in UK. These findings help in emphasizing more to the teacher in their teaching and learning procedure. Thus, with this contribution, teachers in primary school in UK are able to develop higher level of school effectiveness. According to the result, it has been said that teachers training will be the best strategy for providing better teaching to early years learners in primary school in UK. In order to provide teaching and learning in better way, government has to provide training in building attitudes, practices, habits to something professional. It helps in achieving higher-level improvement in terms of teaching and learning to early years in primary school. Reference Browne, A., 2004. Parents and Teachers Working Together. In: Browne, A., and Haylock, D., eds. Professional Issues for Primary Teachers. London: Paul Chapman, pp 85-101. Carpenter, B. 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