Equipment and Resources
Leadership Skills in the Early Years: Making a difference
by June O'Sullivan (Continuum Books, ISBN: 978-1855394704)
Reviewed by Sian Nisbett, director of Dizzy Ducks Day Nursery, which owns three nurseries in Essex.
This book has a good emphasis on self-evaluation, encouraging the reader to constantly question and reflect on the quality of their work. It made me think about what I do well as a manager and what I just think I do well! It made me reflect on such issues as how well I engage with my staff and encouraged me to reflect on how things I do really impact on the running of the nursery. And it made me assess the value of staff meetings, questionnaires and the like: are meetings minuted and followed up? Are staff questionnaires purely a token gesture and not acted upon?
Its quite detailed content makes this more suitable to be used as a reference book, rather than a text to be read in one go.
It would be most useful for those studying the mechanics of management and leadership, but is also a book for managers' shelves, to be referred to from time to time as a reminder of the basics of management and the fundamental aspects of maintaining a good setting. It would also be useful for early years practitioners to see what their managers have to contend with on a daily basis!
