Early learning and childcare quality indicators: Leadership and management of staff and resources
Leadership and management of staff and resources is a Care Inspectorate 'leadership' quality indicator (QI).
There are illustrations of practice and challenge questions below. These can help you to assess your current practice and identify areas for growth. Illustrations of leadership and management of staff and resources are also available for childminding settings and school-aged childcare.
For more information about the principles of this framework and the grading criteria, return to the framework home page.
Themes for leadership and management of staff and resources
The themes for this QI are:
- vision, values and aims
- self-evaluation, quality assurance and implementing change
- staff recruitment and induction
About this quality indicator
This indicator highlights the need for leaders to ensure they have an ambitious, shared vision that focuses on improvements and positive outcomes for all. There should be a strong ethos of continuous improvement which enhances the delivery of high-quality practice. It focuses on accountability, responsibility, and shared values as important features of building and sustaining a highly professional team.
The importance of partnership approaches to self-evaluation and continuous improvement are highlighted. There is an emphasis on the need for strong leadership and a shared understanding of strengths and areas for development. The impact of self-evaluation and quality assurance leads to improved and sustained positive outcomes for children and families.
This indicator focuses on the management of staffing decisions and the importance of this on the quality of children’s overall experiences and outcomes. It supports values-based, safe recruitment procedures that ensure trained, competent and skilled staff are employed to promote positive outcomes for children. This includes a comprehensive induction programme to support and guide staff in their roles and responsibilities.
There is a focus on how policy, guidance, legislation, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the Health and Social Care Standards are used to ensure that each child is protected, safe and receives the right support and care from staff.
'Very good' vision, values and aims
We promote, sustain and are highly committed to a shared vision that reflects the highest possible standards for children, families, partners and the wider community. Children and families are actively included in the design and review of our vision, values and aims. These reflect the high aspirations of our children and families. This ensures that any planned developments or improvements take due account of children’s rights, interests, curiosities, needs and preferences.
Our leaders create conditions where all people feel confident to initiate well-informed change and share responsibility for the process. This helps us know what is important when meeting the needs of children and families. Effective communication ensures a clear view of our vision, values and aims so that the wider staff team, children and families are included in achieving them.
Our values are embedded in the everyday life of the setting and inform our practice. Leadership is clearly founded on principles of high-quality childcare and learning, active engagement with children and their families, and a quality culture.
'Weak' vision, values and aims
Our vision, values and aims are unclear or are not effectively created with or communicated to children, families, partners and the wider community. We have a limited focus on the importance of improvement.
Children and families do not experience a service which reflects their shared aspirations. Not everyone involved in the setting is aware of our vision, values and aims, or their role in promoting these. Our staff are not supported to reflect on the vision, values and aims in a meaningful way, and therefore these are not reflected in their practice.
Changes made to our practice, and the setting, have little impact on children and families. There is a resistance to change which negatively impacts our ability to deliver improved outcomes. Opportunities to reflect and bring about positive change for children, families, and each other are missed.
'Very good' self-evaluation, quality assurance and implementing change
Well considered, purposeful self-evaluation enables us to deliver high-quality care and learning tailored to children’s and families’ needs and choices. We ensure the views of children, families and partners inform improvement and are central to our self-evaluation process. Our leaders evidence where these views inform change, secure improvement and positive outcomes for children and families. We reflect well together and use these reflections to bring about positive change.
Our quality assurance and moderation activities, which include well-timed monitoring and data gathering, have agreed standards and expectations that are understood by all staff. Highly-effective use is made of evidence to draw conclusions about the quality of the provision and identify suitable approaches to improvement.
Sustainable change is achieved because there is an appropriate pace of change. Highly effective practice is identified and shared within and beyond the service to promote improvements which have led to positive outcomes for children.
Our leaders ensure that high-quality learning through play is at the heart of improvement planning. Continuous improvement, success and achievement for all children are central to the planned implementation of strategies for improvement. These are relevant to local, national and international advice, and research is used effectively to support the thoughtful changes.
'Weak' self-evaluation, quality assurance and implementing change
Our self-evaluation for improvement is at an early stage of development, and as a result our improvements or changes to practice are rarely sustained. Children and families are not meaningfully involved in our self-evaluation process. As a result, they do not feel well informed about changes or why they are happening.
Our children and families do not experience safe and quality care due to the inconsistent and ineffective use of our improvement planning. Insufficient skills and capacity within our team hinder our ability to effectively support and drive improvements.
We do not effectively enable staff or families to confidently highlight complaints or suggest improvements. Leaders fail to respond promptly to feedback, and therefore positive change is too slow to make improvements.
Opportunities to engage a range of partners have not been taken or used to inform our improvement planning. Our experience may be isolated and may be out of touch with national perspectives as a result.
There are significant gaps in the areas covered by our quality assurance systems. Children’s experiences and outcomes are poor, as inconsistencies in practice are not fully identified and do not highlight areas for improvement.
'Very good' staff recruitment and induction
The importance of recruiting and retaining a stable and skilled workforce is recognised by our leaders as essential to the wellbeing of children and staff.
Our staff are recruited in a way that has been informed by all aspects of safer recruitment practices. We understand our responsibility to ensure any temporary staff are safely recruited and that they understand their responsibilities within the staff group. There is a strong emphasis on values-based recruitment, ensuring successful candidates’ values reflect those of the setting.
Children and families have opportunities to be involved in the process in a meaningful way. They are kept informed and introduced to any new or temporary staff in the team who may be caring for their children.
We have induction programmes that are thorough and personalised to meet the different roles of staff. They ensure staff are confident in meeting the needs of individual children. We utilise a range of resources, including the 'Early learning and childcare: national induction resource', to equip newly recruited staff and those in new roles with the knowledge and skills necessary for providing high quality care for babies and children.
We have clear processes for mentoring and supporting staff, with time allocated to take this forward. Mentors are clear about their roles and responsibilities and they have written information they can refer to. Together these approaches support high-quality outcomes for all children.
'Weak' staff recruitment and induction
The recruitment procedures may compromise the welfare or safety of children. Important elements of the process may be ignored. For example, exploring gaps in employment history, disciplinary records or staff start working before all the required checks have been undertaken or received.
Our induction process is not planned to take account of staff who are new to their role and their ongoing learning and development. Induction may be limited to a one-off event, focusing on policies and procedures, with little consideration of the care, play and learning needs of children.
Staff are unclear about what is expected of them and may lack knowledge of how the UNCRC and the Health and Social Care Standards underpin the provision.
Mentoring arrangements, where these exist, are not well considered and do not support staff to better understand their role. Staff undertaking mentoring roles have insufficient time allocated to do this well.
The following challenge questions can support your self-evaluation:
- How effectively do we collaborate with children, families and other stakeholders in developing a shared vision and purpose?
- To what extent is our vision aspirational and challenging?
- How well do our vision, values and aims inform our daily practice?
- What impact do our vision, values and aims have on improving the quality of the early learning and childcare we provide?
- How do we know our quality assurance processes improve outcomes for children and families?
- How well do staff understand their responsibility in improvement through self-evaluation?
- To what extent are staff empowered to make changes?
- How has the use of best practice documents and national guidance led to improvement in children’s experiences and outcomes?
- How have we used children’s voices to evaluate and inform our practice and provision?
- How do we engage our families and children to ensure they have a role in our improvement journey?
- How do we ensure staff recruitment processes reflect current best practice and national guidance?
- In what ways do we ensure our recruitment process attracts people with the right values, skills and knowledge for their role?
- How do we ensure that our induction processes are tailored to meet the needs of different staff roles and responsibilities?
