Does your leadership team struggle to implement quality improvement in your early childhood setting? Leanne Gibbs and Mandy Cooke are here to help your team balance the ever-changing demands of the EYLF or NQF with the realities of your everyday. Experts in transforming practice architectures – this blog celebrates the release of their latest book, Transforming Early Childhood Practices. Discover the common barriers to improvement in every ECEC and gather practical solutions that every early childhood educator on your team can get behind.
In early childhood education and care settings across Australia, change seems to be a reliable constant. New ideas, expectations and priorities are introduced – often via the EYLF or NQF with the intention that practices will improve as a result. Educators respond with care, professionalism and enthusiasm but everyday practices remain the same. This raises an important question: are we implementing change, or are we transforming practice? This question invites the challenge of how we maintain sustainable practice change in our ECEC.
What does “implementing change” ask of educators?
Implementing change in childcare settings usually involves introducing something new.
This might include:
- a revised learning framework
- new planning or documentation processes
- a regulation or compliance measure
- professional learning on wellbeing and child protection.
The emphasis is commonly on clear information – helping educators understand what needs to be done and how to do it. This approach makes sense in complex early childhood education environments. Clear guidance can feel respectful of educators’ time and help create shared understandings. If everyone understands and adopts the new approach, practices should improve, right?
However, practice is not a list of tasks. It is shaped by what educators say, what they do, and how they relate to others – all as part of the daily work within organisations educating and caring for children. When practice change focuses on implementation, the everyday influences and organisational conditions may remain invisible.
The theory of practice architectures (TPA) offers a way of thinking about change that keeps practice at the centre. It supports educators to notice how sayings, doings and relatings are shaped by organisational cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements in everyday work. In this context, change is more about the conditions that enable, constrain and shape practices rather than implementing new ideas or initiatives
When change is implemented but practice stays the same
Educators may feel that new expectations are met on the surface but practice itself remains unchanged. Change can feel like additional work to everyday practices.
When a change is initiated, educators may feel:
- there is an increased workload without increased clarity
- uncertainty about whether they are doing it right
- pressure to comply rather than having the space to reflect.
Educator responses to a new initiative may be interpreted as resistance or lack of commitment. More often, the response reflects that to transform practices, attention must be given to the organisational arrangements or conditions that deeply shape practice.
The following example aims to bring these notions to life.
A change to the practice of documenting children’s learning
Documentation is a core practice for early childhood educators, underpinned by regulation and learning frameworks. Documentation supports reflection, communicates children’s learning and connects educators, children and families. It is also a frequent focus of change.
At Bottle Brush Children’s Centre* educators were encouraged to strengthen their documentation by making learning stories more analytical and clearly linked to learning outcomes. A new approach in the form of a framework was introduced by early childhood leadership with illustrative examples, staff meetings and professional learning sessions.
Despite genuine effort, change was slow.
Educators:
- were uncertain about the language they were expected to use
- could not find time to write meaningfully during the day
- felt the change was more about compliance than genuine pedagogy.
Initially it looked like the change had not been implemented.
Over time, the focus moved away from the framework and towards organisational change in the ECE / ECEC that supported new documentation practices. Working together, centre leaders and educators discussed new arrangements, such as pedagogical language, planning time and sustained collaboration.
Slowly, practices began to change.
Educators:
- talked more often about children’s learning during the week
- shared common language in their storytelling about children’s learning
- had time for reflective practice as a team before writing and felt confident to explore ideas
- shared their ideas and thinking with centre leaders to create new practices.
Documentation gradually changed. Learning stories became richer and more meaningful. Educators felt more confident in what they noticed about children’s learning and how they described it, and their documentation felt connected to pedagogy.
* Pseudonym used
Implementing change or transforming practices?
This is where the focus becomes clear.
- Implementing change focuses on introducing new expectations, tools or processes.
- Transforming practices depends on organisational arrangements or conditions – not individual performance.
The transformation of practices can therefore happen when educators collectively decide:
- a practice no longer serves their work with children
- their organisational arrangements constrain thoughtful practice
- a practice consumes time without deepening learning or relationships.
The real challenge is not whether educators can implement another change. It is whether we are willing to interrupt the organisational arrangements that no longer sustain our work, and to open space for conditions where practices can be reshaped anew.
Seeing change differently in ECEC
For educators, this way of thinking can be reassuring. A considered approach to transformation recognises that practice is complex and is enabled and constrained by the organisational arrangements that embody culture, language, time, material resources and relationships. This approach also values educators’ professional knowledge and experience and does not place responsibility with the individual, but rather with the collective. Transforming practices and quality improvement in Australia’s early childhood settings does not mean doing more or trying harder. It means paying attention to what shapes everyday work – and creating conditions where new ways of working can grow.
About Leanne Gibbs
Dr Leanne Gibbs is an Associate Professor of early childhood education at Charles Sturt University, researching how practice is shaped through everyday arrangements of language, culture, place and relationships. Her career spans early childhood teaching, centre leadership, senior public policy roles and national sector reform, bringing a strong practice and organisation-focused perspective to educational quality.
About Mandy Cooke
Dr Mandy Cooke is a Senior Lecturer in early childhood education at Deakin University. She has over 20 years’ experience as a practising early childhood and primary teacher. Since moving to academia, Mandy’s teaching and research have been framed around pedagogy, practices, professionalism and workforce sustainability in early childhood education and care. She has a particular focus on pedagogical risk taking and courage as tools for transformation, advocacy and social justice.
