Educational Leaders, this blog is for you
If you are an Educational Leader and feel like caffeine and post-it notes are the only things getting you through your crazy busy days, then read on!
It’s not hard to see why Educational Leaders might be feeling under the pump. Educational Leaders play a crucial role in early education and care settings. Educational Leaders are particularly important in supporting and mentoring staff. According to ACECQA “Effective educational leadership builds the capacity of educators by inspiring, motivating, affirming, challenging and extending their practice and pedagogy.” Educational Leaders are also responsible for leading the development and implementation of the educational program and assessment and planning cycle (Element 7.2.2). On top of all of this, Educational Leaders often spend much of their time working with children as Educators. So, no pressure!
Because EarlyWorks has been developed in close consultation with Educators and Early Childhood Teachers, it has functions that are specifically designed to support quality Educational Leadership. We know how busy Educational Leaders are, and we also know how crucial they are to the smooth running of a service. So EarlyWorks includes functions that save time while also producing quality documentation.
- Program Comments: join in discussion with educators in each room about how their programs are going. Provide suggestions to assist educators develop documentation that is meaningful and promotes learning through play and leisure.
- Reflections of Pedagogy: provide feedback on educators’ reflections, building a culture of professional inquiry and encouraging new ideas. A safe space for mentoring and building the knowledge, confidence and enthusiasm of Educators.
- Diagnostics: see at a glance the extent to which educators are engaging with EarlyWorks’ programming tools.
- Staff Alerts: easily keep track of each staff members’ contribution to documentation
- Child Alerts: see on one screen how many observations, planned experiences and journals each child in each room has been included in and when the last entry was made.
- Planning Cycles: generate planning cycle reports for each child and/or room, and from the child list screen see at a glance which children have evident planning cycles. Easy way to ensure the assessment and planning cycle is applied to each child and the program as a whole.
- Staff Room: create a staff room in EarlyWorks for Educators to share ideas, programs, professional reading, meeting agendas, and resources.
Using EarlyWorks, Educational Leaders can easily keep track of documentation, communicate with Educators individually and as teams, ensure every child and every room has evident cycles of planning, and build a culture of trust and professionalism.
