2016 - 2025
Projects I've Undertaken
This section offers a brief introduction to 4 of the key projects I've been involved in over the last few years as an early childhood educator and leader. These 4 projects were chosen to be included on this page as they encompass what I would regularly carry out at least once each year. They also showcase my ability to demonstrate effective leadership across different areas - curriculum, community partnership, team management, and centre operations.
Field Trip to the Zoo
During the term where the children's thematic curriculum was centered on the theme "Animals", I organised a field trip to Singapore Zoological Gardens. The objective of this learning journey is for the children to be able to discover and explore what they were learning on through a learning experience. Additionally, through the trip we wanted to build our rapport with the parents and encourage greater involvement from them in their child's learning.
​
The field trip comprised 4 key phases: pre-planning logistical arrangements, communication with parents, implementation, and debrief.
My main roles for the field trip for each phase include: ​
-
Pre-Planning Logistical Arrangements: Liase with Singapore Zoological Gardens and the bus transport operator on the date and time of our field trip + Teacher's roles and responsibilities
-
Communication with Parents: Draft a secular letter informing parents on the details of the field trip
-
Implementation: Ensure the schedule of the field trip is adhered to smoothly + Parents and children are actively and meaningfully engaged
-
Debrief: Lead teachers in a process of reflection on the strengths, areas of improvement, and future modifications we could consider
​
Two key challenges I faced occurred during the pre-planning and implementation phase of this field trip. Firstly, I did not account for how long a runway the various vendors I reached out to would need to respond to me. Secondly, I realised that during the implementation of the field trip itself, things were happening at a very fast-paced and it was difficult for me to stay on top of things and ensure that everything was running smoothly, in the manner I anticipated and desired it to be.
Reflection
Overall, the field trip was still considered a success as I managed the challenges I faced by pushing back the date of the field trip and just trying my best to do all that I could - even if it was overly stressful and taxing on myself. However, from these two challenges, I learnt two key lessons that helped me to be a better leader now. The first lesson I learnt was to not plan for large-scale things on a tight timeline. Such events are already stressful in itself and requires careful planning which takes time. Shortening my own timeline only places greater pressure on myself and limits my effectiveness as a leader as I would have less time to review the planning of my field trip and make the changes that would improve the experience of the various stakeholders I work with. Another important lesson I learnt was to not try to handle everything alone. While I did so as I did not want to place additional stress on my teachers, it was not viable for me to effectively ensure that the various elements of the field trip could be successfully carried out through my own efforts. The stress I felt managing more menial responsibilities led me to have less bandwidth to support the teachers who needed additional assistance. Hence, it is vital that I remember that the successful execution of a field trip requires a team effort and is a shared responsibility we all carry.
Implementation of an Action Research Project
After observing the children's interactions with the materials and amongst themselves during Learning Centre Time, I realised that they struggled to independently and meaningfully engage with the diverse range of learning centre materials in its intended manner. Hence, I embarked on an action research project to help increase their level of meaningful engagement and independence during Learning Centre Time.
Reflection
I first identified three possible modifications I could make to the existing learning centre materials to help increase the children's level of meaningful engagement and independence: use of task cards, varying the difficulty levels of each learning centre activity, and the implementation of a fixed weekly learning centre schedule. I then put them into practice in my own classroom first, letting the children test out the effectiveness of my proposed solutions on their learning, and collected data through observations and interviews over a month. After analysing the collected data, I found out that the proposed solutions were indeed effective in helping the children to spend learning centre time more meaningfully as they were supported in being able to independently construct knowledge through their purposeful interactions with the learning centre materials. While there were definitely further modifications I could make, such as modifying the materials to be more aligned with the children's interest or altering the instructions on the task card to include pictures as well so as to better accommodate to the needs of the diverse learners in my classroom, the action research project I undertook was considered to be a success.
​
​
During the next meeting with the rest of the teachers where we were discussing about the curriculum, I shared with them the entire process of my action research project as well as the positive impact of the modifications made to the learning centre materials on the children's learning and development. This encouraged the rest of my fellow colleagues to also try adopting the proposed solutions I tried out in their own classrooms. In such a way, I brought about change in my centre's curriculum and managed to positively influence my teachers to step out of their comfort zones and not be content with the current centre practices but always keep striving to adapt their teaching practices with the varying needs of their class children in mind.
Year-End Graduation Concert
Every end-of-year, the children would put up a graduation concert. Preparation for this concert begins from June till early December, the day of their concert. The typical process of preparing for the concert consists of three key components: concert theme, physical set-up and decorations, and concert programmes. As both the lead preschool educator and assistant supervisor of the centre, I was heavily involved in the entire process of the year-end graduation concert.
Reflection
For the first component of the concert planning: concert theme, a significant challenge I faced was in deciding what the theme of the concert would be. I adopted a collaborative approach to deciding on the theme for this concert and gave each teacher the platform to chime in on what they felt would be the best theme to embark on. Expectedly, there were a lot of different (and conflicting) ideas thrown out. It was a struggle to decide on one fixed theme as the suggestions given by each member of the team were valid and had its own merits. But, we eventually managed to work through our individual differences and arrive at a common consensus as to what the best theme would be. Something I later realised as I was reflecting on the whole planning process of the concert was how I should have first clarified on what each teacher's perspective on what the criteria for a good concert theme would be. Establishing this first would have sped up the process a lot and reduced the back-and-forth process we had as a team before deciding on the theme of the concert. As a leader, it was under my directive to provide clear guidelines for my team to work with and facilitate a fruitful discussion.
​
Thankfully, the second component of the concert: physical set-up and decorations involved for the concert went by very smoothly. As I accounted for all the preparations we had to make way before the concert and allocated each teacher a manageable amount of workload they were to be responsible of when it came to setting up the physical venue of the concert, the whole process went by without any major hiccups. This was something I was personally very proud of as the work involved in setting up the stage, backdrop, and decorations was a lot but we managed to pull it off through effective communication and teamwork. It was tedious work but my clear direction and specific instructions regarding each aspect enabled the teachers to take charge of their own allocated responsibilities and deliver what was required of them well.
​
Lastly, the third component: concert programmes, did pose a challenge to me as I had to manage my own expectations and not stress my teachers even more than they already were from having to choreograph and train a dance performance. I struggled the most with this component as I had a certain expectation of the quality of dance performances I wanted, but this expectation was conceived based on my own standards. It was hard for me to recognise that every teacher had varying levels of experience in choreographing and training a dance performance and I wasn't very satisfied with the quality of some performances when the teachers showed them to me. At that point in time, I responded by stepping in myself to choreograph and train the children. While this did ensure that a quality performance was put up, it brought me a lot of stress and caused the teacher to feel like her efforts were not enough. This was not something I wanted the teacher to feel and I later regretted how I prioritised my own expectations without considering her feelings. Hence, from this experience, I learnt how to not let my own expectations overshadow other even more important factors for me to consider. In future, I would calm myself down first and carefully consider what is of a greater priority before responding.
Understanding Teacher Leadership In A Preschool Setting
Applying what I learnt from a module I took during my Degree programme in SUSS and the knowledge I acquired from my leadership course in NIEC, I set out to discover how I as a centre leader, could better support my teachers to grow into leaders themselves. I believe that everyone is a leader and would want to adopt a strength-based approach and distributed leadership style when I lead my team.
Reflection
To develop a comprehensive understanding of what teacher leadership looked like in my centre and how it could be successfully incorporated, I first interviewed 2 teachers from my centre and a teacher and leader of other centres. Through their responses and valuable perspectives on the issues, affordances, and challenges of teacher leadership in the early childhood sector as a whole as well as the current centre they are working at, I managed to gain a very robust idea of what teacher leadership is in the early childhood industry. The key challenge I faced in this process was how overwhelming the entire process would be. I only interviewed 4 inidividuals but each interview lasted at least 30 mins and transcribing their responses to identify similarities and differences across all data collected was a very tedious process. I felt like it would have been much more effective for me to use a digital form to collect data instead. As a leader, I wanted the personal aspect and decided to collect data through organic conversations with the different individuals however it was not practical to do so with so many individuals hence I had to compromise on the amount of data I collected instead. It would definitely have been more resourceful of me to have quickly adapt to using a digital form to collect data instead of sticking with this traditional method of interviewing.
Next, using the data collected I used leadership theories and concepts like the York-Barr Model to analyse key learning pointers from their sharings. Through it I found out each individual's perspective on who a teacher leader is to them as well as the main purpose of a teacher leader. Having this information allowed me to better prepare for my meeting with the teachers on what a teacher leader is and how it could look like in my own centre.
During the meeting, I shared with the teachers on what teacher leadership is from a theoretical perspective as well as from an on-the-ground perspective. I felt that being able to properly back my findings with research helped to boost my confidence in the leadership style and direction which I was hoping to lead the team towards but also knew that they would need the practical information and personal experiences of other teachers to feel heard as teachers. Upon reflection, I'm glad that I chose to gather data from the ground - no matter how tedious the entire process was - as I felt that it solidified the strength of my proposal to the teachers and greatly increased its value.
While there is no immediate change to how leadership is exercised in my centre, I know that I led my team a step closer in a direction which I felt convicted in. Slowly but surely, we will continually progress in adopting a strength-based approach to being teacher leaders and practicing distributed leadership in our centre. The presentation was just the first step in introducing this concept of teacher leadership to them. As a leader, I feel that the way I can grow as one is to keep challenging myself with what is seemingly 'impossible to change' culture in my organisation and build a different one. With the data I gathered, I believe it helps set me up to introduce evidence-based, pragmatic strategies that could help support the teachers in my team to become teacher leaders - just like myself.
