Our final Educational Leader meeting for 2023 welcomed the return of Associate Consultant Amanda Bartram from Lisa Burman Consulting in Pedagogical Growth.
Scaffolding on our research and professional inquiry on the image of the child and open-ended play invitations, Amanda presented a hands-on workshop on play theories and play-based pedagogies. Our Educational Leaders have thoroughly enjoyed working with Amanda, reflectively connecting research to practice and curriculum decision-making, and have returned to their centres feeling inspired, affirmed, and curious.
In response to our reflective consultation process for planning our Educational Leader meetings, our Pedagogical Mentors led a workshop and reflective discussion on the National Quality Frameworks, and the Assessment and Rating process. Our Educational Leaders identified an interest in unpacking the quality areas and exceeding themes as a leadership community, sharing professional experiences and engaging in critical reflection to support continual improvement within their centres.
We had one presenting Educational Leader during this meeting, sharing her remarkable curriculum and practice story to inspire our community:
“The mentoring cycle”, using the auditing process to meaningfully inform quality improvement; Presented by Educational Leader Poonam from Lockleys
As this was our final meeting for the year, our Pedagogical Mentors facilitated opportunities for our Educational Leaders to reflect back on the year in response to their professional growth and work in the role of Educational Leader, including the growth of their centres and curriculums as supported by this role.
These reflections enabled our Educational Leaders to consider mentoring approaches and strategies that have and may be successful for them and their peers, in their planning for continued improvement and growth in 2024. Identified mentoring approaches and areas of continued focus were:
- The Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, National Quality Framework, and Assessment and Rating process
- Educator empowerment, relational and differentiated mentoring support, and delegated leadership
- Collaborative and individual research, consultation and critical reflection informed improvement
- Theory and Pedagogy, emergent curriculums and planning
- Professional resilience, adaptability, and agency.