Rose Envy
'Teesside University
Rose spent the early part of her career in nursing. Following the birth of her two sons and inspired by their learning and development, she decided to upon a career in early years education. She gained a BSc(Hons) Degree in Psychology from the Open University and an MA in Education Studies from the University of Northumbria, and is currently completing her Education Doctorate with the Open University.In 1999 Rose decided on a change of career direction, focusing on workforce development with in early years. She has worked for local authorities at a strategic level developing the early years workforce. She has also worked in partnership with universities in the region to develop new qualifications for the children’s workforce at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her specialist area is leadership and management. Rose has been involved in lecturing on early years programmes on a part-time basis for several years, however, the increasing demands of her full-time role meant that she had less time available to continue with this. Realising how important this element of her work was to her, she decided to pursue a full time career in higher education.
This research focuses on early years leadership and the influence this has upon improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, situating it within a broader framework of social inequality. The impact that childhood poverty has upon outcomes for disadvantaged children is well documented for example (Pugh 2010, Ridge, 2011, Engle et al. 2011). However research relating specifically to the influence early years leadership has upon improving outcomes for children is scarce. As a comparative study of pre-school settings graded by the English schools inspectorate as either, ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Requires Improvement’, the research comes at a time when school budgets in England are highly constrained and the sustainability of English education hangs in the balance: in this respect it links strongly to the conference theme.
The research is premised upon the known importance of; good quality early years provision as an effective means to ameliorate against the effects of childhood poverty on outcomes for young children, and that, effective leadership of early years settings was a defining factor of good quality provision .
A mixed methods approach was adopted to explore: a) the extent to which pre-school leaders are aware of the outcomes of child poverty in the communities they serve; and b) to identify how early years leaders ensure that the needs of the most disadvantaged children in their setting are met. Qualitative data was collated from four semi-structured interviews was analysed using a process of discourse analysis, in addition, each setting’s Office for Standards in Education and Children’s Services (Ofsted) report was analysed through a process of content analysis. School performance data was analysed to provide the contextual background of the participating settings. Descriptive statistics are used to situate the local authority’s performance in the context of other local authorities regionally and nationally and enable direct comparisons to be made between settings.
Key findings from this study indicate that pre-school leaders in settings deemed by Ofsted to be ‘outstanding’ were aware of issues relating to child poverty in their localities and used this information to plan next steps in children’s learning and development subsequently, disadvantaged children made good progress towards the early learning goals. Where a setting was deemed to ‘ require improvement’ leaders were able to identify issues relating to child poverty in their localities, however they did not use this information to plan next steps in children’s learning as a result children did not make good progress.
