Effective and Caring Leadership in the Early Years

Iram Siraj is Professor of Child Development & Education at the University of Oxford. She is Adjunct Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and Visiting Professor at University College London and the University of Wollongong, Australia. Iram's research projects have included leading on the Evaluation of the Foundation Phase across Wales and she is  a principal investigator of the major DfE 17 -year study on Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3-16, 1997-2014) and of the influential Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years project (REPEY). She has led on longitudinal studies/RCTs as a principal investigator in a number of countries including the UK, Australia and Ireland. She is specialist adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on early education and has undertaken reviews of the Foundation Phase for the Welsh Govt. and of the workforce for the Scottish Govt. She has published widely.

Dr Elaine Hallet has been involved in educating children, practitioners, educators, teachers and students over a career of thirty-six years and during this time has developed an understanding of how to nurture, scaffold and support children's and adults' learning and professional practice through meaningful contexts. She has worked as an early years teacher, advisory teacher and leader in a range of schools and nurseries, as a lecturer and leader with students in further and higher education, teaching on a range of early years initial training, post-qualifying, undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral programmes and sector-endorsed professional awards in early years and integrated centre leadership.

Elaine's research includes, foundation degree graduates' continuing professional development through work-based reflective learning, the development of professional identity, the role of graduate early years leaders in the leadership of learning. She is committed to continuing professional learning for development of professional practice and to supporting practitioners, educators and teachers on their reflective learning journeys of knowledge, understanding and discovery.  

 Elaine has recently retired from her role as Lecturer in Early Childhood at the Institute of Education: University College London. With a background in early years education and practice, Elaine is an established author, with a special interest in the education of young children and, practitioners, educators and teachers' reflective continuing professional learning.