Standard 7.2: Leadership

Effective leadership builds and promotes a positive organisational culture and professional learning community.

How Standard 7.2 contributes to quality education and care

Effective leadership builds and maintains a professional workplace in which all staff members can communicate and raise issues openly, participate in respectful debate and contribute to each other’s ongoing professional learning.

A positive work culture that is focused on quality encourages management and staff to continuously improve the service for the benefit of children and their families. Building a positive culture and professional learning community involves:

reflecting on and continuously questioning how to improve teaching methods, educators’ practices, curriculum quality, equity, and the wellbeing and inclusion of each child
building staff members’ professional knowledge
strengthening relationships with children and families
establishing expectations for:
- the quality of education and care provided by nominated supervisors, educational leaders, educators and co-ordinators
- programs and practices that promote children’s wellbeing, learning and development.

To lead effectively, leaders need current, in-depth content knowledge as well as a deep understanding and appreciation of children’s learning and development. Research demonstrates that there is a strong link between leadership and improved outcomes for children. Effective leaders are clear about the purpose of education and care services and have the skills to effectively communicate shared goals and expectations.

To develop and maintain an organisational culture that is inclusive, leaders need to demonstrate ongoing commitment to inclusion and a respect for diversity in all aspects of the service.

Questions to guide reflection on practice for Standard 7.2 (for all services)

How is the leadership in our service contributing to the development of a positive organisational culture?
How can we develop the skills and capacity of team members in a way that leads to improved shared leadership?
How are we creating opportunities for professional conversations?
How do our performance management processes support continuous improvement?
How can we share the collective knowledge of the team?
What do we know about the rate of, and reasons for, turnover of educators, co-ordinators and staff members at this service?
How can we structure our staffing arrangements to improve continuity of care for children?
How does the evidence/data we collect inform our self-assessment and quality improvement processes? Do we need to collect additional or different data?
How are children, families and communities included in evaluating the quality of our service?
In what ways does our service analyse feedback, complaints, serious incidents, injuries and illness to drive continuous improvement?
How are resources allocated and targeted to support our quality improvement plan?
How do we raise awareness of inclusion amongst service staff, and support educators to promote and reduce the barriers to inclusion for all children and families?
What strategies are proving successful in building a professional learning community? How do we know they are successful?
How can we use the Assessment and Rating Instrument in our self-assessment process?
How can the guiding principles of the National Law be considered in our self-assessment process?

See ACECQA Self-assessment tool for information on conducting self-assessment.