COI Massey Childcare Centre: Ako Ngatahi - Teaching and Learning Together as One: From Leadership to Enquiry Teachers’ work in an Infants’ and Toddlers’ Centre

This report describes the Centre of Innovation action research project carried out in the Hoiho Section at Massey Child Care Centre Inc Palmerston North, between February 2005 and August 2007. The Hoiho Section of this centre was selected as one of the four centres in the second round of Centres of Innovation. Its defining characteristic was an innovative Attachment Based Learning programme for infants and toddlers (ABL), centred on relationships between teachers, children and families, within a community of practice framework. At the heart of this programme was the way in which leadership systems, including distributed leadership, supported the teachers’ work with children. Children’s enquiry was chosen as a focus for studying the children’s learning and the ways in which the teachers supported this learning. The principal research question was: “In what ways does educational leadership, within a community of practice, impact on infants’ and toddlers’ disposition to enquire?”