Pedagogical leadership in a preschool is the work of guiding what happens between adults and children: keeping the curriculum clear, supporting teachers to plan and reflect, watching the quality of interactions, and making sure that decisions about time, space, staffing and families serve children's learning. It is different from administrative management, which keeps the school running, and in many preschools it is the part of leadership most often squeezed out by everything else.
This article explains the role for owners, principals and those who hold or are about to hold titles such as curriculum coordinator, head of learning or pedagogical lead. It draws on research into early-years leadership, describes the main responsibilities, looks at how the role can be shared across a team, and suggests ways to protect the time the role needs.
Management and pedagogical leadership are not the same job
A preschool principal's day is full of necessary tasks that have little to do with pedagogy: enrolment questions, staff rosters, building repairs, regulatory paperwork, catering, fees, complaints and meetings with authorities. All of it matters, and a school that neglects it will not survive. But a school in which leadership consists only of these things will drift, because no one is looking closely at whether children are having the experiences the curriculum promises.
Pedagogical leadership is the part of leadership concerned with learning. It asks questions such as: Are teachers planning from observations or from habit? Are children spending long enough in absorbing play, or is the day chopped into small pieces? Is English being used in meaningful ways, or has it shrunk into a fixed slot? Are records describing children's thinking, or are they lists of activities completed?
In small schools one person often holds both roles. In larger schools and networks the roles are usually separated, with a principal who manages and a coordinator or pedagogical lead who leads learning. Either arrangement can work, provided someone is explicitly responsible for pedagogy and has the time and authority to act on it.
What research on early-years leadership found
One of the most frequently cited studies in this area is the Effective Leadership in the Early Years Sector study, known as ELEYS, published in 2007 by Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Laura Manni at the Institute of Education in London. It drew on settings that had already been identified as effective in earlier English research and looked at what their leaders did. The study described a set of leadership practices associated with effective settings, including identifying and articulating a collective vision, ensuring shared understandings, effective communication, encouraging reflection, monitoring and assessing practice, commitment to ongoing professional development, distributed leadership, building a learning community and team culture, and encouraging partnership with parents.
Two features of that list stand out. First, most of the practices are about learning rather than administration. Second, several of them are about sharing leadership rather than concentrating it. Effective leaders in the study did not do everything themselves; they built teams in which pedagogical responsibility was spread.
Research on distributed leadership, associated in school settings with writers such as James Spillane, makes a similar point: leadership is better understood as something that happens through interactions among several people than as the property of one person at the top. For preschools, which often have flat structures and small teams, this is a practical idea rather than an abstract one.
The main responsibilities of a pedagogical leader
Holding the curriculum clear. Explaining the principles in plain language, answering teachers' questions about how they apply in particular situations, and keeping written guidance up to date when practice evolves.
Supporting planning. Joining planning meetings, helping teachers move from observations to next steps, checking that plans make room for children's ideas and that the national programme's goals are visibly covered.
Watching interactions. Spending regular time in classrooms, not to inspect but to see how adults and children are working together, and using what is seen to shape coaching and professional development.
Leading reflection. Running documentation reviews, case discussions about individual children and team conversations that ask why, not only what.
Protecting conditions for learning. Raising the alarm when timetables, staffing, room changes or administrative demands start to undermine the curriculum, and negotiating with management to fix them.
Connecting with families. Helping teachers explain the approach to parents and leading the school's communication about how children learn.
Sharing leadership across the team
In a preschool of any size, a single pedagogical leader cannot be in every room often enough. Sharing the role is both necessary and healthy. Experienced teachers can lead learning groups, mentor new colleagues, coordinate a particular age group or take responsibility for an area of the curriculum such as outdoor learning or language. In a bilingual school, it is useful to have leadership roles held by both Vietnamese and international staff so that neither group experiences the curriculum as something imposed by the other.
Sharing leadership works best when roles are clear. A teacher who is asked to "help with the curriculum" without a defined scope, time or authority will either do too little or step on colleagues' toes. Short written descriptions of each leadership role, agreed with the person who holds it, avoid most of these problems.
Distributed leadership is not a way of getting extra work for free. Teachers who take on leadership responsibilities need time to do them, recognition, and a route to discuss difficulties with someone more senior. Without these, the best teachers burn out and the arrangement collapses.
Typical pedagogical leadership roles in a bilingual preschool
Titles vary between schools. What matters is that each role has a clear scope. The table shows a common pattern for a school or network of moderate size.
| Role | Main focus | Typical activities |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum lead for the school or network | Owning the curriculum as a whole | Writing guidance, deciding on changes, planning professional development, linking with management |
| Campus or age-group coordinator | Quality of practice in one campus or age group | Joining planning, observing classrooms, coaching, reviewing documentation |
| Language lead | How Vietnamese and English are used across the day | Supporting teachers with language planning, recasting and bilingual story time |
| Mentor teacher | Induction and support of new colleagues | Co-teaching, weekly mentor meetings, modelling practice |
| Area specialist | One area such as outdoor learning, documentation or inclusion | Developing resources, leading learning groups, advising colleagues |
A small school may combine several of these roles in one or two people. A network may need each of them in every campus. The structure matters less than the clarity.
Protecting the time pedagogical leadership needs
The most common reason pedagogical leadership fails is that it is crowded out. Coordinators are pulled into covering absent teachers, showing prospective families around, dealing with complaints and filling in forms, and by the end of the week they have spent no time at all on learning. This happens gradually and is rarely anyone's decision, which is why it needs a deliberate defence.
Practical measures help. Fixed weekly blocks for classroom visits and planning support that are treated as seriously as a meeting with authorities; a cover arrangement for absent staff that does not default to the coordinator; a clear division of administrative tasks between the principal, office staff and pedagogical leaders; and a regular check, perhaps monthly, on how the coordinator's time was actually spent.
Owners and principals set the tone. When they ask coordinators about children and teachers rather than only about paperwork and numbers, and when they defend coordinators' time from other demands, pedagogical leadership becomes part of the school's identity rather than an optional extra.
Pedagogical leadership and quality review in Vietnam
Preschools in Vietnam operate within a national framework for quality assessment and accreditation set by the Ministry of Education and Training. The Ministry's circular on quality accreditation and national standard recognition for preschools, issued in 2018, sets out standards covering areas such as organisation and management, staff, facilities, relations between school, family and society, and the care and education of children, together with a process of self-assessment followed by external evaluation. Leaders should check the current version of the regulations, which are revised from time to time.
For a pedagogical leader, the self-assessment process is an opportunity rather than a burden. Done honestly, it asks many of the same questions a good coordinator asks every week: how the programme is planned, how children's development is monitored, how families are involved, how staff are supported. A coordinator who keeps good records of planning, observation and professional development as part of normal practice will find self-assessment far easier than one who tries to assemble evidence in the weeks before a review.
In a bilingual school, the pedagogical leader also plays a translating role in the broader sense. External reviewers may be less familiar with project work, documentation or bilingual practice, and international staff may be unfamiliar with how national standards are applied. The coordinator who can explain each to the other, clearly and without defensiveness, protects both the curriculum and the school's standing.
What a week of pedagogical leadership can look like
Because the role is easily crowded out, it helps to picture what a well-protected week might contain. The following is an illustration, not a prescription, for a coordinator responsible for one campus of moderate size.
Several mornings in the week are spent in classrooms: an hour in one room watching small-group time, half an hour outdoors with another class, a visit to the toddler room during lunch to see how routines are going. Notes are brief and focused on what to talk about with each teacher. One or two afternoons include short coaching conversations with teachers, each linked to something observed that week, and the weekly mentor meeting with any new staff.
Midweek there is a planning meeting with each age group, at which the coordinator helps teachers connect last week's observations to next week's plans and checks that the national programme's goals are visible. Towards the end of the week comes a documentation review with the team, a short meeting with the principal about any conditions that are getting in the way of learning, and time to prepare for the next professional development session.
What is missing from this picture is as important as what is in it. The coordinator is not covering absent staff as a matter of routine, not handling fee questions and not running every campus tour. When those tasks land on the coordinator's desk, the classroom visits are the first thing to disappear, and with them the school's ability to see its own practice clearly.
Developing pedagogical leaders
Pedagogical leaders are rarely trained for the role. Most are excellent teachers who were promoted, and they discover that leading adults is a different craft from teaching children. They need support to learn how to observe colleagues without making them defensive, how to give feedback that changes practice, how to run a reflective meeting and how to manage the tension between supporting teachers and holding them to standards.
Schools can help by pairing new coordinators with experienced ones, including those from other schools; by arranging their own coaching; by giving them access to reading and courses on early-years leadership; and by making time for coordinators across a network to meet and discuss their work. In Vietnam, where the preschool sector is growing and leadership development is uneven, building this capacity internally is often the only realistic option.
Schools working with the Global Nexus curriculum can use the training programme for kindergarten owners and leadership teams that sits alongside the curriculum as one part of this development.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
What is pedagogical leadership in a preschool?
It is the part of leadership focused on children's learning: keeping the curriculum clear, supporting teachers' planning and reflection, watching the quality of interactions and making sure decisions about time, space, staffing and families serve learning rather than undermine it.
How is a pedagogical leader different from a preschool principal?
A principal is usually responsible for running the school, including administration, staffing, regulation and finances. A pedagogical leader focuses on learning and teaching. In small schools one person may hold both roles; in larger ones they are often separated.
What did the ELEYS study find about early-years leadership?
Published in 2007 by Siraj-Blatchford and Manni, it described leadership practices in effective settings, including a shared vision, shared understandings, communication, reflection, monitoring practice, professional development, distributed leadership, team culture and partnership with parents.
Can teachers take on pedagogical leadership roles?
Yes. Experienced teachers often lead learning groups, mentor colleagues or coordinate an age group or curriculum area. Such roles work best with a clear scope, protected time, recognition and access to more senior support.
Why does pedagogical leadership often fail in practice?
Mostly because it is crowded out by urgent administrative tasks, covering absent staff and dealing with families. Without fixed time for classroom visits and planning support, coordinators drift into management work.
How can a new curriculum coordinator develop the skills the role needs?
Through pairing with experienced coordinators, coaching, reading and courses on early-years leadership, and regular meetings with peers. Learning to observe colleagues and give useful feedback without creating defensiveness is usually the first priority.