Emily Sharrock, MPA
Associate Vice President, Education Center Bank Street College of Education
Expert
Educator Development
Head Start
IL Practice
Movement Building
- Organization
- Bank Street College of Education | Ideal Learning Head Start Network
How can reflective practice influence educational leadership in Head Start?
Head Start is one of the most influential early care and education programs in the country, with over 37 million children and families served since its inception. The Trust for Learning established the Ideal Learning Head Start Network (ILHSN) to facilitate the integration of ideal learning approaches into Head Start, ensuring that children from low-income communities can access innovative, holistic, and high-quality early learning experiences.
In support of that goal, Bank Street led a coaching cycle with 27 Head Start leaders across 10 Head Start programs to help leadership teams introduce and integrate the ideal learning principles (ILP) into their instructional models.
The ideal learning principles served as a foundational anchor for programs to continue to grow and flourish post-pandemic. The principles weave together several essential beliefs for high-quality early childhood programs, including a commitment to play, relationship-based interactions, an ecologically focused, child-centered perspective; equity; and a strength-based and inquiry-based approach with children, adults, and families.
This toolkit provides key lessons learned from that process of using a tool, like the Ideal Learning Principles, to establish, refine, and deepen commitment to a shared instructional vision across a program. An accompanying video is available here.
