Strengthening Early Years to Kindergarten Transitions
SEY2KT 2022-2023
Welcome
It is such a pleasure to be working together this year. On this page, we will provide updates month by month, and all of our slides will be available for you to download and use. We also encourage you to go to the Resources & Tools page so you can dig deeper into the practices and tools as they fit for you.
Just below are two buttons where you can access the introductory slide deck that Maureen and Sharon presented on Thursday 29th September. You can also find the slide deck that Joanne and Pippa used to present Compassionate Systems Leadership.
Session 1: October 2022
On Going Learning and Doing
Focus for this month: how do we want to lead together?
Take time to prepare your personal journey
Connect with team members to share your personal journey
As a Team, continue to work on your group culture
Links to relevant resources & tools
Settling & Intention Setting - This is a settling and intention setting (3 - 5 minute) guided meditation. There are many ways to undertake this exercise. The key is to provide a mechanism for all to arrive into the session with awareness and intention.
The Check in - Besides giving everyone a chance to enter fully into each meeting with others, this practice can help your team members to tap into their aspirations and creative orientation. This is the foundation for a shared vision, collective energy and understanding.
Setting the Stage - Creating a culture for your SEY2K work together that is safe and where participants feel trust and confidence allows the group to negotiate some difficult and potentially conflictual dialogues, and to focus on generative conversations that lead to impact.
Personal Journey - We all bring our experiences, our passions, our dreams, our values and our assumptions. Bringing these into awareness provides a deeper understanding to our roles and influence as actors in the broader system.
Session 2: November 2022
Links to relevant resources & tools
Systems Mapping - An essential component of systemic change is a shared understanding of what the system is – its components, its relationships and interconnectedness, its boundaries and its intended outcomes.
Creating Generative Social Space - Generative space allows for conversations that generate shared meaning and lead to action. They involve an authentic exchange of sharing and inquiry, leading to the emergence of new knowledge or understanding that could not have been created individually. They are built on a culture of respect, reciprocity and trust.
Compassionate Leadership - As we build our self and relational leadership, we need to pay attention to some of the tools and practices that can help us: Self compassion and Broad compassion. We will be deepening and growing our awareness and practice of these throughout the next sessions.
On Going Learning and Doing
Focus for this month: Opening to the complexity of the system?
Bring your team together to discuss and work on a systems map
Consider together the boundaries of your system and the people and organizations you want to bring close
Session 3: January 2023
Links to relevant resources & tools
Perspective Taking - This is a simple tool that serves as a reminder of the importance of acknowledging the limitation of our own perspective and of integrating a diversity of perspectives before taking any action. We used the metaphor of the elephant.
Icebergs - The iceberg provides a framework for understanding an entire system and reminding us to not focus solely on a particular problem or event, but to dig deeper. We introduced both problem and aspirational icebergs.
Ladder of Inference - The Ladder of Inference is a model for understanding how we can often jump to conclusions based not on the facts or what we have observed, but rather based on our own values and assumptions through which we filter the reality.
Self Compassion is a practice that can ground educators and early years professionals in doing SEY2KT systems work and addressing the current overwhelm in classrooms and communities. You can find resources on this CSL webpage self compassion. You can also connect directly to Lisa Baylis who led our session on her website https://lisabaylis.com/
Ongoing Learning and Doing
Focus for this month: Opening to the complexity of the system
Expanding your perception of your project (your system) - Take time to arrange and host 2 or 3 Generative Conversations with people not currently deeply connected to your work.
Meet with your site team to start the work of developing a project-based and/or aspirational iceberg
Session 4: February 2023
Links to relevant resources & tools
Tools for building relational capacity and generative space: perspective taking, ladder of inference, Creating Generative Social Space
Going more deeply into the potential created by intentional listening that reflects the levels of listening described in Theory U.
Using the concept of Creative Tension to build a concrete understanding of where you are starting from and your vision
Guiding your collective process through personal visioning and collective visioning
On Going Learning and Doing
Focus for this month: Opening to working more effectively together toward a collective vision?
Deepen your personal vision through reflection
Bring your team together to discuss and work on a your collective vision, inspired by your personal vision
Create a creative tension chart
Session 5: April 2023
Links to relevant resources & tools
Tools for building personal leadership, relational capacity and generative space, and systems thinking approaches can be found on our resource pages:
Introducing an integrated framework for comprehensive action that brings together all of the CSL components and encourages a balanced attention to each of them.
On Going Learning and Doing
Focus for this month: Integrating personal, relational and systems tools into strategy?
A debrief on your experience with personal vision
A review of systems thinking tools
An Integrated Framework for comprehensive action
Wrap Up Session: May 2023
What are your reflections on the positive differences your SEY2KT project has made?
Scroll through the responses!
Celebration & Debrief!
In May, we spent a wonderful 3 hours hearing from each other. We spent time together and also in smaller groups sharing about:
A reflection on the positive differences that SEY2KT sites have made for children and families in their communities
How Compassionate Systems Leadership has contributed to the work of SEY2KT.
Below you will find a record of the observations made in the smaller group work. Kudos to everyone for an amazing year of supporting Early Years to Kindergarten Transition!!!
How has Compassionate Systems Leadership contributed?
Scroll through the responses!
