Building and Educational Reform in a private Nursery/Day care centre

The imaginary educational organization, on which I will base this assignment, is inspired by a real
one, where I used to work before coming to Finland. The hypothetical change and reform which
will be presented within the framework of the assignment is going to be a critical reflection of my
past experiences working as a nursery nurse in an 18 month period, during which an educational
reform was implemented/tested in the context of this real nursery/day care centre. Therefore my
imaginary organization/change description will be based on real events (and a real setting), it will
be a personalized case study. This idea, its implementation, will be a challenge, since when I was
a factor myself (a contributor to the flow of interactions) in the process of this „real” change, there
were a lot of things I didn’t understand and a lot of things I thought I did, but would have done
differently (if I would have been the leader of the organization). Again, I want to highlight my
goals: critically reflecting, re-building the early childhood educational setting, in which re-
constructing and analysing the change that happened and „re-acting” to this, in my own,
personalised way (as a hypothetical leader, doing my best to coordinate the situated initiatives).

1. The imaginary educational organization: In the United Kingdom early years education
is not for free (the government pays for a certain amount of nursery-hours for children of
age 3 and above) and most of the day care centres, which are called nurseries in Britain,
are private own early years settings. The scenery of early childhood education in the British
context can be described more like a franchise, a good selling business (since day care
centres are offering -social- services in exchange of money). Usually early years education
is available to children between 4 months to 5 years of age. In lines with national
safeguarding policies, EYFS Statutory Framework (Early Years Child Foundation
=curriculum/legislation), and OFSTED monitoring, the private day care centres function
in an autonomous way.
I am the owner of a private nursery chain (altogether 12 nurseries) spread within the
Hampshire County on the southern coast of England. All the nurseries operate with very
well written guidelines and policies using a well-developed key person- key child- buddy
system for creating a personalised learning-path while monitoring/guiding each child’s
personal development. Important structural feature of the nurseries is the children’s
distribution in accordance to their age, in four different Rooms: Baby Room (4 months-
1,5 years age range), Toddler Room (1,5-2,5 age range), Transition Room (2,5-3,5 a. r.),
 Kindergarten Room (3,5-5 a. r.). Each nursery has a manager and a deputy manager
(leading that particular „nursery branch”), each above mentioned room has a
qualified/specialized room manager and a senior nursery nurse (they are the leadership of
the room, but they also operate in the key person- key child- buddy system) and in the
rooms there are qualified nursery nurses and unqualified apprentices and nursery assistants
who work on a daily basis with the children (together with the room-leadership). Each
nursery setting has between 150-170 children and between 20-25 adults (employees). The
nurseries are guided, harmonized by the “group office”.
2. Change: An opportunity raised to work together with a celebrated early years education
professional/ researcher who focuses on the pedagogy of Friedrich Fröbel in the landscape
of early years education studies within British discourses. The co-operation would benefit
both stakeholders: the researcher would have available case studies, “material” for further
research and possible experimentation (venues and subjects) on the topic of Fröbelian
pedagogy and the nursery would benefit of proper and cyclical, professional assessment
and a refreshing, knowledge-based, “professional reboot” (by the process of critically
reflecting on current practices and developing skills and new/additional knowledge, by
developing “within the expertise” in guidance of the Fröbel-researcher/professional). This
opportunity offers a great deal of possible educational development (in relation to Fullan’s
definition) by applying the pedagogy related ideologies of Fröbel’s kindergarten in the
form of a macro-reform (again, relying on Fullan’s definition: reform as changing the
culture of the nursery settings within the nursery chain) implemented in the organization.
Therefore the long-term developmental project of the educational organization is to
Fröbelianize each early years educational setting (each nursery within the nursery chain)
captured in the philosophical concept of (dynamical) organizational becoming (Tsoukas &
Chia, 2002).
Relying on Beabout’s turbulence-perturbance dynamics paradigm, the evoked change
described above, is a strategically triggered turbulence, in lines with the concept of
intentional turbulence, in combination with a controlled type of strategy of change-by-
opportunism. Accordingly, the perturbance in this case will be mostly related to the mixture
of teleological typology, the life cycle typology and the social cognition typology of change,
hence the perturbance will be a responsive (in hope of a well-controlled), well designed,
 educational reform. The change is: linear, very organised, systematic. Adaptive learning
approaches; the importance of the individual in the cycle of learning, adapting, evaluating
(KOLB cycle); the emphasize on the people and their activities; the developmental change
of the organization according to the development, evolution of the people within; the
collective sense making – as core of the organisational change; and the focus on learning
and understanding are the characteristics of the given change.
Summarising the educational change within the early years organisation:
- Why: opportunity for professional/organisational development (adapting Fröbelian
pedagogy).
- How: in the long emerging and dynamic process of changing the culture of the
organisation (shaping practices and mentality in accordance to Fröbelian practices and
idelologies)
- What: focusing on learning and understanding, changing meaning, creating shared
meaning (Fullan)
3. The educational reform is meant to trigger a high order change, namely a paradigm shift
and because of the size of this intended change, non-linearity within the implementation of
the reform is expected. The reform takes in consideration the amount of time needed for
the full-length, in depth adaptation of Fröbel’s doctrines in the practices within the culture
of the nursery settings. The aim of the reform is to change the thinking patterns and models,
attitudes, actions in the discourses of all the nurseries in the organization by creating a new
and collectively shared meaning, with the driver of capacity building. The importance of
everyone’s professional and emotional development (in the larger frame of the personal
and the collective) is highlighted in this reform. Shared meaning will be achieved by
micro-processes within the leadership’s collaborative actions underlining “building blocks
for shared sense-making” (Jäppinen, 2017). The shared meaning is the understanding and
the continuous, fundamental use of Fröbelian pedagogy in truly “meaningful” way (for a
truly meaningful change).
4. The presented reform in the early years organization requires radical, fundamental re-
culturing, implying change within/of all the elements of the day care centre’s-culture:
change of mind-set (alteration of beliefs, implementing Fröbelian ideology), change of
attitudes, change of actions (new, Fröbelian teaching approaches).
5. Tensions in a long-term innovation project: As Jäppinen highlights, tensions in an
organisation created by educational change and reform, can either lead to the project’s
(reforms) failure, or they can create a positive catalyst for success. (Jäppinen, 2017)
Tensions, in our situation, (again I consider the amount of these owing to size of the
reform), appeared almost on all levels, between (mostly) all factors/elements: management
and leadership, leadership and personnel, staff members, the nursery’s new curriculum and
individuals, society and individuals (the teaching religion of some of the personnel),
technology and individuals (suddenly using I-pads for writing children’s developmental
observations), parents and professionals. The “type” of the tensions was mostly cognitive
(not understanding the new Fröbelian ways), which also led to major emotional tensions,
complications (being against these ideologies). I explain this “boom” of tensions with the
leadership’s willing of a relatively quick change (even though the reform itself was
imagined in an unpredictable, un-”see”able time-frame) in regards to the nursery chain’s
profile: from simple day care center to a philosophically justified Fröbelian nursery. This
idea of a “radically changed mindset” (changing the whole profile of the organization),
Fröbel’s idea of a good kindergarten, was too abruptly “showered” upon the management,
personnel and the parents. Fröbel’s “natural, quiet, natural colored resources and toys”
replaced the “plastic, battery-working and colorful toys” in all the settings. Different
teaching methods, practices (creativity, knowledge enhancing activities) and in a way, even
different language had to be used with the children. The radical differences between the
before and after (during) change were very much felt not just in the physical environment,
but also in the new demands of “being a professional nursery nurse” in the context of this
new Fröbelian nursery. First people didn’t know what Fröbel is (cognitive tension),
hence/then they didn’t agree with the Fröbelian ways (emotional tension). I think that this
tension-dynamic is understandable in this situation.
In order to deal and respond to these tensions the “binocular way of looking” at them will
be used:
- initiative: as mentioned before, capacity building by creating a professional learning
community (Newman) for the purpose of sense-making (deep-learning together what is
Fröbel) with the help of micro-procedural leadership (Jäppinen, 2017) + the strong
influence of authority distribution (trusting the staff).
- interpretation: easing the process of understanding, helping by all means the
collective sense-making (organising trainings, development days)
 - culture: understanding (and operating within) the different culture’s (subculture’s) of
each, different nursery’s setting (within the chain) – the change has to be managed
(Fröbel adapted) in accordance to the culture of that specific nursery
- adaptation: shaping the organization’s culture by adapting Fröbel, transforming
tensions into creative tensions where mutual learning can be cultivated
6. Professional Community in Early Years Education: The goal of the educational
organisation with this reform, as well as the the common norms and values in connection
with these goals-within the organization (Kruse at.al.), is to improve the quality of learning
and to improve the stimulating environment for a healthier- and more natural development
of children (under age 5). By adapting Fröbelian ways (resources, practices, ways of seeing
the child) creating this healthier, more natural developmental-, individual learning path for
each child is guaranteed. Educators (nursery nurses) work together with the
expert/researcher, in “strong” cooperation towards this shared purpose and goal of
improved learning (Jäppinen & Ciussi, 2016). For this, a professional learning community
(PLC as a tool and a mediating/mediator platform of/for the educational reform) will be
created, which will collectively focus on the Fröbelian ways (Fröbel as a tool, Fröbelian
philosophy as a mediator) of improving learning and development. The process of the
reform, thus change (through the PLC) is meant to be horizontal, and the reform itself has
to be a team effort. In our case, this educational reform is an complete innovation creation
(developing, improving the organisation and the individuals within).
7. I think that the most suitable change theory to approach, study my Fröbelian PLC-ECEC
(early years childhood education) reform, comes from the “process philosophers”, such
as James and Bergson because they highlight how things are “in the making”(1), they
point out the essence in the concept of organisational becoming. (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002)
As a long-term reform, the examination/assessment of the reform has to be conceptualised
in time as well. Wittgenstein pinpoints the importance of perception within the context of
this, same “process philosophy” (experiencing reality, in our case Fröbel’s kindergarten,
directly). Change is perceived as a difference that happens in the reality of the organization,
within each nursery setting (2). And finally, James talks about how to understand change
and how it is accomplished (the Fröbelian reform “wants change to be accomplished”): to
approach change from within, to look at it as a performance enacted in time, and not as an
abstract concept. (3)