Notes and reflections from Part 5. Collaborating with communities

Why collaborate with the community?

Before we begin, take a moment to think about why early childhood settings should consider collaborating more widely with their community. What might be some of the benefits? Reasons to collaborate:

Develop your leadership

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Ways to connect with the community

Think of a way in which your early childhood setting has been involved in a community initiative. What prompted this initiative?

How would you describe the stimulus for each of the examples?

What kinds of interactions that occur within the early childhood setting have an influence on its development as an organisation? You might like to think about some of the interactions you have had with children and whānau that have had an impact on practice. Then think about some of the interactions that you have or might have with people outside the early childhood setting, in the wider community. In what ways might these encourage the development of your early childhood practices in a particular direction? For example, presumably for Jacqui’s centre, taking on the responsibility of adopting and taking care of a park has led to an increased focus on and time in the park with the centre’s local curriculum.

Networking

What networks are available to the leaders?

What kinds of networks do you belong to? What other networks are you aware of that might be available to you? Are there some opportunities to join networks around you that you have not yet taken up? Can you see any advantages to joining those networks now?

With these three qualities in mind, what kind of leadership is going to be most effective for leading in a network? What kind of qualities, behaviours, and attitudes might be helpful?

Strategies for engaging community

Summary of the key ideas:

Take another look at the mapping you did of potential links and connections with your community, and try to recognise this as a perspective on the community, a set of beliefs rather than a set of truths. See if you can identify any assumptions you are making about people, places, or practices that have influenced your ideas about potential (and desirable, or undesirable) collaborations and collaborators.

Are you making any assumptions about, for example, something being impossible because of constraints, attitudes, or ability?

Why might a growth mindset be important for collaborations with diverse others in your community? Do you think you hold a fixed or growth mindset in relation to community collaborations? Does this vary depending on who in your community you are thinking about (for example, a fixed mindset about the capacity of the local school to collaborate with you, but a growth mindset about a possible collaboration of the local iwi)?

Key skills for community collaborations

What kinds of groups could be defined as a community of practice in your community?

What does the community of practice concept offer leaders of early childhood settings who are interested in greater community collaboration?

Use the principles for community-led development for reflection on your role as a community leader.  

Shared visions: Does your community already have a forum to discuss common issues, or are there some common themes and ideas already in community discussions? If not, how can you find out what is important to local people, and organise some community discussion around it? Or is there an issue for children that might be raised with the wider community? Community diversity: How might you engage a range of different individuals and groups in discussion and collaboration? How can you connect different individuals and groups? What different tools or opportunities can you make use of to reach into your community? Community strengths: What are some of the strengths of your community? How do you identify community strengths and assets? What do you value and want to celebrate? Collaboration: Are there people who help build connections across the community? What activities could be led by different groups working together? If there are already some community initiatives in place, are the same people leading? Are other people able to contribute or take a lead, or are there some barriers to this? How could your community help include and welcome everyone? Monitoring and reflecting: Are your community clear about what they want to achieve? What milestones will support the community to know they are making progress? How do you reflect on progress and celebrate achievements? How does the community learn from their activities, including their mistakes?

What will be your first step to explore a greater role in community leadership for yourself?

You might find it helpful to review your community mapping for ideas. 

Notes and reflections from Part 6. He waka eke noa. Bicultural practice

Being a Tiriti partner

What do you see as your role as a Treaty partner and the implications of this for your role as an early childhood leader, and in your everyday life?

How do you view the Māori children in your early childhood setting and their potential for success? For example, do you truly believe that children are culturally advantaged by being Māori, with a wealth of strengths and resources to bring to their learning, or do you have concerns about barriers to their learning which you attribute to culture, or home and family? Do you make your expectations known, and how?

Develop your leadership

How well aligned are the practices in your early childhood setting with the image of the child described above? What practices and beliefs in your setting demonstrate a belief in the inherent value of the child, and show respect and love? What else could you be doing to strengthen this message in your practice? Are there particular beliefs and practices in your setting that limit opportunities to enact this particular image of the child? (For example, beliefs in the independence of children or practices for independent movement practice or self-soothing). How do the practices in your setting reflect the understanding of the child as embedded in their whānau? How do you recognise children’s inheritance in terms of skills and knowledge from their ancestors? What practices and beliefs in your setting offer children opportunities for tino rangatiratanga? What practices and beliefs limit children’s tino rangatiratanga? For example, you might consider fixed routines, or safety and hygiene practices, or simply traditional Western conceptions of young children as vulnerable and needing protection. Are there ways in which you might increase children’s opportunities for tino rangatiratanga?

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Kaupapa and mātauranga Māori

What do you imagine could be a shared interest for you and the Māori people in your community? What sorts of practices would you be sharing and developing with Māori in your early childhood setting and community?

What is the strength and knowledge of practice that you and your teachers can bring to a community of practice focused on enhancing bicultural practice and supporting children’s bicultural identities in Aotearoa New Zealand? Try to think about this in terms of ensuring the success of Māori as Māori – what skills can you bring to supporting Māori aspirations for children and whānau’s learning?

Leadership for bicultural practice

Notes on leadership for bicultural practice:

How might you go about developing relationships with tangata whenua, or the whānau Māori in your early childhood setting? Who in your community is most qualified to speak for Māori in your area? How might you approach them, if you haven’t already, in a way that is respectful and offers reciprocal benefit (rather than merely capitalising on Māori knowledge)?

Values:

Implementing bicultural values

Values and principles:

Specific strategies:

There are many ways in which leaders and their teams might enact the principle of tūakana-tēina relationships in their settings. What different practices can you imagine that enact this idea? Importantly, remember to start with older children’s leadership and guidance of younger children, which is at the heart of the concept. As we have learned, Māori values and concepts should be used to inform practice, and should not simply be assigned as labels to Western practices.

The adoption of biculturalism

How has Claire integrated Māori values?

How is te reo used in your setting? What comments can you make about the quantity and quality of language used? Is language used within routines given the cultural significance due to it? Is there a variety of language used for diverse purposes (instruction, praise, description, counting, and naming)? How is respect for the language demonstrated?

Notes:

What outcomes would you desire for tamariki, whānau, and your early childhood setting as a whole from an exploration of bicultural content and practice?

Spend some time creating a vision for bicultural practice in your setting and what you would hope for it to achieve. You might like to link this to your Treaty obligations to support Māori aspirations, mātauranga, and kaupapa. 

Notes and reflections from Part 7. Collaborating across sectors

Collaborating across sectors

Who and where are the significant educational institutions in your community?

You might refer back to the community mapping you produced in Part 5 here. 

What are the common interests that you might share with these other institutions?

Develop your leadership

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Your question:

Transition to school

Which of these theoretical perspectives are most aligned with your values and beliefs about young children and their needs? Which can you align with a complexity theory perspective on the educational process as a complex adaptive system?

Who do you and your team collaborate with about transition to school? Which actors are strongest in this collaboration? Are there particular individuals or groups that could be more involved? How strong are relationships between teachers and leaders in both settings, families, and children?

When does the support that you and your team provide for transition to school typically begin? Thinking about Hazel’s theorisation of the process above, is this early enough? Would starting earlier give more time to strengthen the collaborations that you build around transition? When does the support that you and your team provide for transition typically stop? In which phases of transition (preliminal, liminal, and postliminal) are you and your team most active? Do you think you have the balance right here?

Skills for school

What are the aspirations of your families and teams for children’s achievement prior to starting school and how do these relate to the skills, attitudes, and competencies that New Entrant teachers prioritise?

Supporting the transition to school

How do you think the community of practice approach might be useful for collaborating with New Entrant teachers in primary schools specifically?

The practice of digital stories has another application in relation to transition to school.  

Can you think of another audience that would benefit from a digital story that provides information to its viewers about transition to school?

Building connections with schools

What information do you think you as a leader might provide to families and schools which would set a foundation for the discussion and elaboration of transition practices?

Which schools that are most local to you might it be possible to develop a relationship with? What kinds of activities might be a way into relationship with these schools?

What documentation might be created in early childhood settings that would provide information to children about their own transition and those of their peers?

Notes and reflections from Part 8. Working with wider management 

Relationships that surround leaders

Is your early childhood setting part a larger organisation or community group? Are there any top-down relations for you in terms of being accountable to an employer or another organisation? How do you experience these? Are relations hierarchical or more collaborative?

To what extent do you agree with Bridgette?

Would you describe the leadership or management over your own role as governance or management? For example, do people in authority over you set the vision and direction of your service, or are they more concerned with managing your performance and setting goals for the success with which you operate the service? Is your personal leadership role within that about governance or management, or both?

Develop your leadership

Write a bullet list of the key points you would make.

Advocacy

After hearing the ideas of Jeanette, Andy, and Bridgette, consider what you might add to the plan you wrote for the Developing leadership activity. 

First consider whether the issue you are wanting to discuss is reflective of your community. If you are not sure, what could you do to ensure that you are representing the views of your early childhood community? Think about whether you have presented some potential solutions to the issue you identify. Is one solution preferred to you? Is there a way to make this more attractive? (Here it might be important to think about the interests and concerns that drive your organisation’s or governance board’s decision-making.) Assess whether you have you expressed your ideas in a non-emotive, but assertive way. Decide whether it might be helpful to include some appreciation and thankfulness for the support you have received in the past. Think about in what ways can you demonstrate your willingness to be open and listen to different perspectives on the issue.

Mindfulness

How important is it for you to feel effective and competent in your work as a leader? What difference does that make to your wellbeing?

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Now that you have tried a mindfulness exercise and a creative visual reflection activity, how do you think either of these might help support your wellbeing as a leader?