Identifying leadership roles for quality in early childhood education programmes

Abstract

This article aims to identify leadership roles for quality in early childhood programmes in the local settings of a sample of Hong Kong preschools. Two schools were selected for the study, both of which were rated as excellent in the quality assurance inspections of a local education authority. Effective leadership was explored from the multiple perspectives of various school stakeholders, including school governors, principals, teachers, members of support staff and parents. The qualitative interviews were used for data collection. The interview data indicated that the teachers, members of support staff and parents quite often viewed themselves as followers and were dependent on a single leader, the head. As perceived by the school stakeholders, the principals tended to take up three major roles: role model, school manager and mentor for curriculum and pedagogy. Characteristics of the associated patterns of the three leadership roles were similar to those of moral, managerial and instructional leadership documented in the Western literature. The implications of the study for promoting moral leadership and developing teacher leadership are discussed.

Reflections on the Revised National Curriculum for Preschool in Sweden – interviews with the heads

“…A qualified leadership is of great importance for development of the preschool (Harthley & Lee, 2003;Ho, 2011) and Ho highlights the importance of structure and good leadership in order to raise the quality in preschool and the heads in our study were very much aware of this issue. The heads statef that they had the power to influence the quality in preschool by employing mainly preschool teachers for the pedagogical work.…”

“…In order to improve early childhood education we need to put light on the leadership, i.e., the heads of the preschools and the structure of the activities and environments (Ho, 2011;Williams & Charles, 2008). Management is a vital concept in leadership research and can be compared with how we today define a head.…”

Preschool teachers' understanding of quality in preschool: a comparative study in three European countries

“…Although all countries are working with these topics the goals are still not attained and in some cases this is a result of the socio-and economic situation in the country but it may also be a prioritisation. As appears from various preschool studies the leadership role is often undervalued, despite that many researchers have pointed out the leadership as decisive for development and quality improvements in preschool (e.g., Ho, 2011;Leeson, Campbell-Barr & Ho, 2012). The same situation concerns common values (UN, 1989).…”

“…The main question was to study how the quality in preschool could be raised. Ho (2011) states that quality assurance inspection is a critical factor that may positively influence the practice. The Hong Kong model is a centralised 'top-down' model with many regulations and rules, while for instance Sweden has a 'bottom-up model'.…”

“…Documentation, follow-up and evaluation are aspects indicated in the Swedish curriculum in order to raise the quality and these aspects are used instead of the top-down criterion on quality in preschool as stated e.g. by Ho (2011) or the minimum standards as mentioned by Campbell-Barr (2009). The importance of the curriculum as a factor for high quality were ranked to the 11 th position (ibid.)…”