The Role of Professional Development in Improving Quality and Supporting Child Outcomes in Early Education and Care

A skilled workforce that understands the needs of children and can deliver high quality curricula to with diverse needs, is required in order to realise the wide-ranging benefits that could follow public investment in ECEC provision (such as in-service Professional Development (PD)). It is established in the literature that high quality ECEC is important for children’s outcomes, and that in quality can be explained, to a large extent, by variations in educator pedagogy and practice. argue for a better understanding of how ECEC educators and services can achieve (and be supported optimise) children’s development and learning outcomes. This paper argues for more rigorous PD , considered evidence-based content and delivery that are embedded within a rich evidence-base practice, and that focus on educator effectiveness, practice change, and also on the benefits to ’s learning and development. The paper draws upon effective PD literature and describes learnt, focussing on the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of evaluation of effective in-service PD design delivery.