1. No category

VOLUME 15
ISSUE 6
JULY 2011
BRIEFINGS
Independent Schools Queensland
Top Leadership Teams And How To Build Them
If you could get all the people in the organisation rowing in the same
direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any
competition, at any time
(Patrick Lencioni, 2002).
Few leaders would disagree that effective teamwork is essential to the good health
of an organisation, but many would admit that the teams they lead do not function
as effectively or efficiently as they would like. Why is this? Why is it that sincere,
hardworking people who care about the places in which they work, cannot achieve
the results that might be expected of them?
A study by Ruth Wageman and Richard Hackman (2009) has some of the answers to
these questions. Wageman and Hackman began by defining a leadership team as
‘a group of individuals, each of whom has personal responsibility for leading some
part of an organisation but who also are interdependent for the purpose of providing
overall leadership to a large enterprise’. They collected data on the performance of
such teams from two sources:
1. 120 top management/leadership teams of businesses around the world, all of
which headed entire organisations or major business units; and
2. A longitudinal study of leadership teams in a US civic association whose
purpose was to mobilise volunteers to protect the natural environment.
In relation to the first group the researchers analysed the finding of a team of 16
expert observers who used an array of archival, survey and observational data to rate
each of the 120 teams on three criteria of effectiveness:
(1) how well the team serves its main constituencies;
(2) the degree to which the team shows signs of becoming more capable over
time; and
(3) the degree to which the net impact of the team is more positive than negative
on the well-being and development of individual members.
They also used a Team Diagnostic Survey (Wageman, Hackman & Lehman, 2005) to
identify those features that most powerfully differentiated superb from struggling
leadership teams.
For the second set of teams, the findings were obtained from a longitudinal action
research project on leadership development that included survey assessments, selfevaluation, assessment of the leadership skills of peers in the team and analysis of
goals set and accomplished. Participants also
completed the Team Diagnostic Survey mentioned
above.
As a result of the analysis of the data from each
of the two studies, the researchers identified four,
‘ironic features’ about teams.
Firstly, they found that, although leadership teams
are composed of powerful people, they tend to be
‘under-designed, under-led and under-resourced’
compared with other kinds of task-performing
teams (Wageman & Hackman, 2009). They are
especially likely to have ‘unclear purposes, to work
on poorly designed tasks, to suffer from a lack of
information and material resources, and to receive
insufficient hands-on coaching that could help
with their work processes’ (ibid). And this is despite
the fact they have much more influence than other
groups in terms of setting their own agendas and
accessing space, time and information.
For both groups of teams studied there was clear
evidence of problems with managing performance
processes. Individuals in the team worked hard
and completed their individual work well but
performed with much less effectiveness within
the team. For example, they were often detached,
distracted or not in attendance at team meetings;
they were plagued with mindless routines; they
typically relied on individuals providing expertise in
one arena only; and they placed heavy emphasis on
their status in the team.
Overall, however, the major problem seems to
have been that the leadership teams found it an
extraordinarily difficult conceptual challenge to
define a compelling team purpose, although they
were clear about their individual responsibilities.
Rather than articulating the leadership functions
Independent Schools Queensland
BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
JULY 2011
Top Leadership Teams And How To Build Them
the team fulfils collaboratively, they defined unspecified and
loose purposes such as, ‘providing the leadership to accomplish
our strategy’ (Wageman et al, 2008).
The second irony uncovered by the researchers was that
although membership of the leadership team is important and
coveted, members often don’t know who is on the team, and
they do not really want to come to team meetings. Individuals
participating in the studies clearly wanted to be on the
leadership team for the power and status that membership
afforded and because it gave them greater access to the
leadership team’s leader and to resources (Finkelstine, 1992;
Ocasio, 1994), but in the study only 11% of member could even
identify how many people were in the team.
What the researchers found, in fact, was that leadership teams
were often porous and blurred in relation to their members
and often overlarge for the task that needed to be undertaken.
It seems that many people are included on leadership teams
because they hold particular leadership roles in the organisation
and not because of their capacity to contribute to a team
task. Furthermore, not only did team leaders seem unable to
clarify who was actually on the team, when they did they erred
on the side of inclusiveness rather than on who could best
contribute. This resulted in some teams becoming so large they
were dysfunctional and the senior executive then used more
informal groups for consultation about critical decisions, thus
bypassing the team altogether.
The consequences of porous, blurred and overlarge teams
are powerfully negative (Alderfer, 1980; Mortensen, 2008).
The major negative is that it is almost impossible to define a
shared purpose for a large team. Leaders of such teams struggle
to find a meaningful function for each member and for the
organisation and to define team and individual accountability.
Instead, these large teams become information-sharing bodies
and little is debated or decided as a whole group.
The third ironic feature of leadership teams is that although
members of such teams are usually overloaded they tend to
waste enormous amounts of time in team meetings. Wageman
and Hackman (2009) point out that while the one of the major
advantages of teams should be to share leadership functions
in an organisation, the reality is that teams waste so much time
in information sharing meetings and on trivial matters that can
increase the load rather than reduce it. They identify three ways
in which teams waste time:
•
•
•
2
they spend inordinate amounts of time on trivial matters,
such as where to have the staff Christmas party or what
kind of food to serve;
they become caught up in irresolvable conflicts; and
individuals in the team spend time competing with each
other to get the best for their individual team rather than
making the best collective decisions for the organisation
as a whole.
The final ironic feature identified by Wageman and Hackman
in their study of team functions was that although authority
dynamics pervade and complicate team processes, members
won’t talk about them. Senior leadership teams have all the
authority they need to make decisions and chart their own
course but they not only under-use the authority, they suffice
with sub-optimal arrangements because of authority dynamics
that involve the relationship between the team leader, usually
the principal or CEO, and team members. What this means in
practice is that team members defer to the authority of the
team leader. While the team leader quite legitimately sets the
team’s main purposes and guides the members in working
together to achieve them, quite often he or she finds it difficult
to give the team the latitude to determine how the purposes
might be achieved. The result of this is individual members,
rightly or wrongly, reach the view that their responsibility is to
do what they are told and, hence, they abrogate their personal
and collective responsibility to the team leader.
The problem can be further exacerbated if the team leader
believes that by setting the purposes and signalling the
collective responsibility of the team, the work is done and
the leader can now step back and let the team ‘get on with
it’. If then the team doesn’t move forward competently and
energetically, the temptation is for the team leader to take back
control, thus reinforcing the view of members that they need
not feel personally or collectively responsible for the outcomes
of their work.
Patrick Lencioni (2002) sheds further light on why teams, with
all the goodwill in the world, are often dysfunctional. He says
teams fail for five reasons:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Absence of Trust
Fear of Conflict
Lack of Commitment
Avoidance of Accountability
Inattention to Results.
In the context of building a team Lencioni defines trust as, ‘the
confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions
are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or
careful around the group’. Members of trusting teams admit
weaknesses and mistakes, ask for help, accept questions and
input about their areas of responsibility, give one another the
benefit of the doubt before arriving at negative conclusions,
take risks in offering feedback and assistance, appreciate and
tap into one another’s skills and experiences, focus time and
energy on important issues, not politics, offer and accept
apologies without hesitation and look forward to meetings and
other opportunities to work as a group (ibid).
Without trust, teams fear conflict even though conflict, provided
it is not destructive fighting predicated on interpersonal politics,
is essential for effective decision making and problem solving.
When team members do not engage in open debate and do
Independent Schools Queensland
BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
JULY 2011
not disagree on important matters, they often turn to harmful and
destructive back-channel personal attacks or they spend so much
time avoiding conflict that they ‘doom themselves to revisiting
issues again and again without resolution’ (Lencioni 2002).
On the other hand, when teams engage in conflict they have
interesting meetings, extract and exploit the ideas of all team
members, solve real problems quickly, minimise politics and put
critical topics on the table for discussion (ibid).
Effective teams make clear and timely decisions and obtain
commitment from all executive team members, even those
who vote against a decision. Without buy in from all members
the potential to harm the organisation and affect organisational
efficiency is high because workers have ambiguity about
direction and priorities. Even the slightest disparity between
executive team members can result in one department receiving
orders that are not clearly aligned with colleagues in another
department and small gaps then create a ripple effect. What may
begin as a small gap can lead to lack of confidence, fear of failure,
constantly revisiting and discussing the decision and secondguessing among team members. The two greatest causes of
lack of commitment are the desire for consensus and the need
for certainty. Great teams make sure that the views of all team
members are heard and genuinely considered but they are not so
unrealistic as to believe that members will agree on everything.
In the end, a decision has to be made and all team members must
commit to the decision. Effective teams find ways to get ‘buy in’
so even those once harbouring doubts are able to commit to the
team decision.
Functional teams are able to manage lack of complete certainty.
They are able to commit to clear courses of action, even when
there is no surety that the decision is correct, on the understanding
that delaying important decisions until there is complete clarity
leads to paralysis and lack of confidence.
Lack of commitment can lead to another team dysfunction - the
avoidance of accountability. When team members are unwilling
to commit and when they will not ‘call’ a person on their lack
of commitment because they fear interpersonal discomfort
and difficult conversations, it is almost impossible to hold
members accountable. Lencioni contends, ‘there is nothing like
the fear of letting down respected teammates that motivates
people to improve their performance’ and ‘one of the benefits
is the reduction of the need for excessive bureaucracy around
performance management and corrective action’. Teams that
hold each member accountable, ensure poor performers feel
pressure to improve, identify potential problems quickly by
questioning each other’s approaches, establish respect amongst
members who are held to the same high standard and avoid
excessive bureaucracy in relation to performance management.
Finally, Lencioni argues that teams are dysfunctional when they
are inattentive to results. That is, they care about something
other than the team’s goals, instead of maintaining a relentless
focus on specific objectives and defined outcomes. In
dysfunctional teams members focus on team and individual
status instead of the outcomes of the team’s activities. For
such team members, merely being on the school board or in
the leadership team, for example, satisfies them and they are
not driven to strive for improvement. Similarly, individuals on
a team often have a tendency to focus on enhancing their
own position or career prospects even if this is at the expense
of their team. Such teams fail to grow, their companies lose
achievement-oriented employees, they are easily distracted
and members are encouraged to focus on their own careers
and individual goals.
So… with all the research available to explain why leadership
teams don’t work is there any hope that organisations will
ever develop functional teams, given that all teams are made
up of imperfect human beings?
Patrick Lencioni suggests a number of actions leadership
teams might take in order to overcome the five dysfunctions
he identifies as contributing to the lack of effectiveness of
many teams. In making these suggestions he says team
building is difficult, takes time and there is no ‘quick fix’
formula to develop an effective team. However, when teams
are aware of those things which contribute to ineffectiveness
they can begin to address them.
Building trust, for example, is not going to happen overnight.
Teams must share experiences, must observe multiple
instances of follow-through and credibility and must build
in-depth understanding of the attributes and skills of each
individual member before they begin to develop trust.
Beginning this journey might be as simple as going around
the table at the first team meeting and asking members to
share a little personal history with each other. Slightly riskier
strategies include asking team members to nominate the
single most important thing their peers can contribute to the
team; using a personal and behavioural preference profile
tool to identify team members characteristics and sharing
them with the team as a whole; and undertaking experiential
team exercises that build trust.
Fear of conflict, the second of the identified dysfunctions,
may be addressed simply by allowing constructive conflict
as a normal part of team functioning. For example, Lencioni
suggests teams should occasionally appoint a ‘miner of
conflict’ whose role is to extract buried disagreements within
the team, call out sensitive issues and force team members
to work through them. In the process team members need
to coach each other not to retreat from healthy debate by
recognising when the debate is becoming uncomfortable
and drawing attention to the fact that respectful conflict is
important to effective teams. Leaders need also to recognise
the importance of allowing such conflict to occur and not
prematurely putting a stop to disagreements for the sake of
their own comfort. Participants in a team should be given
3
Independent Schools Queensland
BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
JULY 2011
Top Leadership Teams And How To Build Them
the opportunity to develop conflict management skills and it
is an important role of leadership to both model appropriate
conflict behaviour and to facilitate the development of others
in this skill.
When healthy conflict results in all team members feeling
their opinions have been heard and respected it is likely that
commitment to a decision will be higher. Other ways to ensure
commitment are to:
•
•
•
•
end each team meeting with an explicit review of the
key decisions made at the meeting so it is clear that
all members have a shared understanding about what
decisions have been made and what needs to be
communicated to other employees or stakeholders in
regard to the decisions;
setting clear deadlines for when decisions will be made
and keeping to those dates with discipline and rigidity;
analysing worse case scenarios and developing
contingency plans before implementing a decision
which is paralysing the team. Once the team realises the
cost of an incorrect decision is survivable it is more likely
to act; and
in the case of a commitment-phobic team, Lencioni
suggests ‘low risk exposure therapy’; that is, taking a
decision in a relatively low-risk situation and analysing
the outcome. Lencioni argues that for most decisions
teams will discover they would not have acted much
differently even if the team had engaged in lengthy,
time-consuming study.
After a decision had been made, and the team is committed,
the next step for functional teams is to ensure accountability.
Simple ways to hold a team accountable are to:
•
•
•
clarify publicly what the team seeks to achieve and who
is responsible for the delivery of each outcome;
regularly review progress towards the goal, communicate
and give honest feedback; and
provide team rewards rather than rewarding individual
performance. If a reward is only available if the team is
accountable as a whole, team members are likely to hold
all other team members to account.
The final team dysfunction – inattention to results – can be
overcome by following similar strategies to those used to hold
the team accountable. For example, publicly committing to
achieve specific results is a strong way to ensure the team is
focused on achieving what it broadcasts it will do, whereas
committing to something like ‘we’ll do our best’, unconsciously
prepares people for not achieving the stated goal. In addition,
providing rewards tied to results is a powerful, but not the only,
incentive to focus on results.
4
In the end, building functional leadership teams comes down
to ‘practicing a small set of principles over a long period of
time…(by) embracing common sense with uncommon levels
of discipline and persistence’ (Lencioni, 2002).
In a further look at what might assist in the development
and functioning of effective leadership teams, Wageman and
Hackman (2009) address a series of key functions that must be
fulfilled. They argue that in order for teams to work organisations
must:
1. Create a bounded entity that is defined by clear, shared
purpose
2. Craft an agenda so that the work of the team is always
focused on meaningful, interdependent activities
3. Shape members construal of their roles
4. Articulate explicit norms that promote attention to team
strategies, and that minimise political dynamics
5. Coach the team.
A real leadership team with a defined purpose works best when
team leaders make thoughtful choices about who is on the team
and define membership boundaries clearly. Every member of
the team should be there because they have capabilities that
will contribute to the team purpose, not because they hold a
particular position in the organisation; however team leaders
often allow teams to become large and unfocused simply
because they are unwilling to upset egos by leaving anyone off
the team. The first key function of the team leader is, therefore,
to clearly define team membership.
The second key function is to pay careful attention to the
tasks team members will do to achieve their shared purpose.
The danger for all teams is that without this attention they
will become information sharing groups or that their energies
will be diverted into long discussions about trivial matters. In
their research into the 120 top leadership teams and the teams
in a US civic association mentioned earlier, Wageman and
Hackman found that functional team leaders created a short list
of key decisions or activities to address every time their teams
convened. In contrast, in teams where explicit attention was not
paid to task demands the team typically generated a long list
of small items, each of which was relevant mainly for only one
or two team members. In the latter case, there were negative
consequences with regard to attention and effort for those
members who could not see the work as meaningful to them.
Shaping team members’ construal of their roles is the third
key function that must be fulfilled to build effective leadership
teams. Berg (2005) notes that an important role of the CEO
is to keep senior leaders focused on both their team role as
well as their individual roles in an organisation. He refers
to top leadership teams where the CEO describes the role
of a new senior manager in terms of expectations as a team
member before discussing the person’s individual role with
the company as one way of ensuring employees are focused
on organisational effectiveness as well as their own role. When
members of an organisation perceive their role as contributing
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BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
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to organisational effectiveness the evidence is they are more likely to develop shared criteria for
decision making that maximise collective outcomes and are more willing to trade-off individual
and local team benefits for organisation-wide benefits (Ganz & Wageman, 2008).
Effective team leaders fulfil a further key function in that they articulate explicit norms appropriate
to the task and situation about team behaviour. Paradoxically they also pay attention to the
concerns of individuals about their own groups. In the research on both top leadership teams
and civic teams outstanding teams were found to be more likely to place individual concerns on
the table and to have members display high levels of empathy for each others’ concerns (ibid).
Importantly, however, the norms were articulated and reinforced by leaders and acceptance of
those norms negotiated in all of the most effective teams.
Finally, the research identifies a key function of team leaders is to coach their teams. Hands-on
coaching accounts for significant variance in the effectiveness of top leadership teams, and is
especially important to help leadership teams develop shared definitions of the very facts they
rely on in their discussions; to help the team members deal constructively with differences in
their individual interests; and to help face the inherent challenges posed by teams where the
structure involves high level, powerful individuals (Wageman & Hackman, 2009).
Hackman (2004) argues that, overall, the function of the team leader is ‘to help team members
take the greatest possible advantage of their favourable circumstances’. Leaders who do this
seem to have four personal qualities that Hackman describes thus:
...effective leaders know some things – they are aware of the conditions that most
powerfully shape team effectiveness. Second, effective leaders know how to do some
things – they have skill in extracting from performance situations those themes that are
most consequential for performance and in acting to narrow the gap between a team’s
present reality and what could and should be. Third, effective leaders have emotional
maturity sufficient for the demands of their role…finally, team leaders need a measure
of personal courage.
The challenge for leaders in our schools, and especially for the person who leads the leadership
team, is to move the school from where it is now to some other, better place and to take the
team, and the school, with him or her. This vital task cannot be achieved by one person without
collaborating with a functional, effective leadership team.
Recommended Reading
Lencioni, P. (2002), The Five Dysfunctions of a
Team, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
In this immensely readable book, Patrick
Lencioni traces the journey undertaken by
a new CEO who arrives at her company
to find her leadership team is completely
dysfunctional. Lencioni draws on the CEO’s
experience to develop his view about what
makes teams work well together and the
jeopardy to the company or organisation if
management is dysfunctional.
Interesting sites
Patrick Lencioni on the Importance of Trust
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=gwj9bMLiV4E
We all know trust in teams is a fundamental for
their success. But what does trust really imply?
Here Patrick Lencioni, best-selling author,
consultant and expert on building winning
teams, discusses the importance of trust and
the difference between predictive trust and
vulnerability based trust within a company.
2.30 minutes
Stephen Covey- Leading at the Speed of Trust
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=igyxxYShXYo&NR=1
Stephen M. R. Covey is the son of Stephen
Covey, famous for his book The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People. In this presentation he
challenges the assumption that trust is merely
a soft, social virtue and instead demonstrates
that trust is a hard-edged, economic driver—a
learnable and measurable skill that makes
organisations more profitable, people
more promotable, and relationships more
energising.
6.12 minutes
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alderfer, C. (1980), Consulting to
Unbounded Systems, in C. Alderfer & C.
Cooper (Eds.) Advances in Experiential
Social Processes, Vol 2, New York: Wiley
Berg, D. (2005), Senior Executive Teams:
Not What You Think, Consulting
Psychology Journal: Practice and
Research, Vol 57(2)
Finkelstine, S. (1992), Power in Top
Management Teams: Dimensions,
Measurement and Validation, Academy of
Management Journal, 35
Ganz, M. & Wageman, R. (2008),
Leadership Development in a Civic
Organisation: Multi-level Influences
on Effective, Working Paper, Harvard
Kennedy School of Government
Hackman, R. (2004), What Makes a
Great Team? American Psychological
Association, http://www.apa.org/
science/about/psa/2004/06/hackman.
aspx
Lencioni, P. (2002), The Five Dysfunctions
of a Team, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Mortensen, M. (2008), Fuzzy Teams: Why
do Teams Disagree on their Membership,
and what does it Mean? Cambridge, MA:
MIT – Sloane School of Management,
Ocasio, W. (1994), Political Dynamics and
the Circulation of Power: CEO Succession
in US Industrial Corporations, 1960-1990,
Administrative Science Quarterly, 39
Wageman, R. & Hackman, R. (2009), What
Makes Teams of Leaders Leadable? In N.
Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), Advancing
Leadership, Boston: Harvard Business
School Press
Wageman, R., Hackman, J. & Lehman,
E. (2005), The Team Diagnostic Survey:
Development of Instrument, Journal of
Applied Behavioral Science, 41
Wageman, R., Nunes, D., Burruss J. &
Hackman (2008), Senior Leadership
Teams: What it Takes to Make them Great,
Boston: Harvard Business School Press
Independent Schools Queensland
BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
JULY 2011
FROM THE DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
and others, begin to understand other people’s points of view, experience emotions
that are important to the development of conscience (e.g., shame and guilt), have
learned the rudiments of how to negotiate with others to achieve common goals,
and can sit quietly with a group of children and pay attention for at least brief periods
of time (Harvard University Centre for the Developing Child, 2007)1.
The
Queensland
Government’s
Education White Paper – A Flying Start
for Queensland Children, provides a
framework for three main educational
objectives, these are:
1. Getting ready for school
2. Getting ready for secondary school
3. Boosting performance for all schools
David Robertson, in the June edition
of Briefings, considered two of these
significant education reforms, the
movement of Year 7 to secondary school
and the establishment of an education
standards authority. The other major
educational objective affecting all
education sectors is the Queensland
Government’s commitment to the
provision of universal access to
kindergarten for all Queensland children.
This initiative has arisen from
considerable research about the
importance of early childhood education
with a national early childhood reform
agenda progressed through COAG (the
Council of Australian Governments)
that aims to provide all children with
access to high quality early childhood
education and care services with an
emphasis on a smooth transition from
early childhood education and care to
formal schooling.
The research shows that between
three and five years of age children are
involved in increasingly complex social
behaviour, develop their emotional
capacities and problem-solving abilities,
and are developing the pre-literacy
skills that are essential building blocks
for a successful life. Most children
have learned, or are well on the way to
learning, the basics of the grammatical
system in their language, can detect and
identify simple emotions in themselves
At the same time, disparities in skill development, language acquisition and socialemotional health are already beginning to emerge. As early as 18 months, children in
low income family where parents have less education are beginning to score lower
on standardised tests and the differences typically increase into the school-age
years. For example, formal assessments of language development show that young
children in high income homes, where parents have a high level of education have
more than twice the expressive vocabulary at age three than children raised in low
socio-economic status homes (Hart & Risley, 1995)2.
Given the clear evidence of the importance of the early years in positive child
development and the need for quality early education and care programs, both state
and federal governments in Australia are committed to lifting the outcomes for all
children in the early years. To meet the standards set under the National Partnership
for Early Childhood Education, the Queensland Government is delivering on this
commitment in a variety of ways.
A national early childhood reform agenda has been progressed through COAG (the
Council of Australian Governments) that aims to provide all children with access
to high quality early childhood education and care services with an emphasis on a
smooth transition from early childhood education and care to formal schooling. To
meet the standards set under the National Partnership for Early Childhood Education,
the Queensland Government is delivering on this commitment in a variety of ways.
Firstly, in partnership with the Commonwealth Government, the Queensland
Government has committed to the establishment of up to 240 new kindergarten
services by 2014. This will assist in the delivery of access to a quality kindergarten
program for all Queensland children in the year before Prep. The State is contributing
funding to the construction of these new services, which are to be co-located on
school sites. Since 2010, 22 kindergarten services have been established, two of
which are on independent school sites. Another 85 services are due to open next
year, with nine co-located on independent school sites.
Capital funding for the building of a kindergarten is not an application process
but rather a State government decision process. In determining locations for
kindergarten services to open by 2012, areas of need were identified using data
based on Statistical Local Areas (SLAs). These areas were prioritised based on the gap
between the number of kindy-age children and the number of kindergarten places
available in both kindergartens and long day care services. Within each prioritised
SLA, available schools were assessed for suitability to host a kindergarten. The
assessment of available schools took account of the enrolment profile, availability
of land or facilities for refurbishment, and local knowledge of the community. The
planning process for sites to open in 2013 and 2014 will also assess the natural
transport habits of local families.
Capital funding for kindergartens to be built on independent school sites will be
facilitated by Independent Schools Queensland.
Secondly, through the Office for Early Childhood Education and Care, the Department
of Education and Training has introduced a new funding scheme to support the
provision of kindergarten programs in different service settings. The purpose of
Independent Schools Queensland
BRIEFINGS VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6
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the Queensland Kindergarten Funding Scheme (QKFS) is to
assist with the costs of operating an approved kindergarten
program and to ensure that cost is not a barrier to access.
It has replaced the Department of Education Community
Kindergarten Funding Assistance Scheme (DECKAS) and
in doing so has opened funding support to a wider set of
service providers. For the first time, long day care services are
able to offer an approved kindergarten program and receive
financial assistance to do so.
For the independent sector, it means services on member
school sites, both long day care and traditional style
kindergartens, can now apply to receive program funding
support for which they were previously ineligible. This will
give parents and families’ choices with regard to their child’s
participation in an education program in the year prior
to Prep and at the same time continue to support those
services that have received funding in the past.
To be eligible for funding, kindergarten service providers must
be approved by the Office for Early Childhood Education and
Care as Kindergarten Program Providers (KPP) and they must
also become a member of a Central Governing Body (CGB).
In order to support our members, Independent Schools
Queensland made an application to become a CGB and this
application was approved in December 2010. To date four
other organisations have been approved as CGBs. These are
Queensland Lutheran Early Childhood Services (QLECS), The
Gowrie, Queensland Catholic Education Commission, and
Creche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland (C&K).
Independent Schools Queensland CGB will be responsible
for administering the QKFS funds to approved kindergarten
program providers and providing advice and support to
its members. Currently, we have 15 approved kindergarten
program providers as members of our CGB. Indicators show
that this number will expand significantly in 2012.
A key feature of the funding scheme is the receipt of a
standard subsidy per eligible child enrolled. That is, for
children who are 4 years old by 30 June in the year they
participate in an approved kindergarten program. Additional
per child subsidies are available for services in areas of high
educational need and disadvantage. There are two standard
subsidy rates; one applies to long day care services and one
to kindergarten services. The definition of a long day care
service for the purposes of this funding is a service that is in
receipt of Child Care Benefit (CCB) on behalf of its families.
The subsidy is a lower rate for these services taking into
account the CCB already reducing out-of-pocket fees for
eligible parents.
To be approved as a Kindergarten Program Provider, services
need to make an application to the Office for Early Childhood
Education and Care. Kindergarten services can apply at
any time and long day care services can apply as funding
rounds open. Apart from joining a CGB, there are certain
requirements that services need to meet for approval. The
most significant of these being that the education program
must be delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher to
children who are at least 4 years old by 30 June in the year
they start kindergarten.
The learning program must be aligned with the newly
developed Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guideline and
the program must be offered for at least 15 hours per week
for 40 weeks per year. Independent Schools Queensland
expressed great concern over this last requirement, as
independent schools generally operate for less than 40
weeks per year. As a concession to this, the Department has
made an allowance for kindergarten services on non-state
schools sites only, to offer a program for 600 hours over a
school year.
Any services approved as a Kindergarten Program Provider
from January 2011, will be funded under this new scheme.
For existing services that have been in receipt of DECKAS
funding until December 2010, transition arrangements
have been put in place to provide support and guidance in
moving towards the new requirements.
Some of the other initiatives assisting in the provision of
universal access to a kindergarten program include the
development of a Queensland Kindergarten Learning
Guideline by the Queensland Studies Authority; the offering
of early childhood teaching scholarships to support early
childhood educators to upgrade their skills; and the
implementation of strategies to increase participation by
additional needs and those in rural and remote areas.
In addition to the above reforms, Queensland early childhood
services have also had to absorb the significance of the new
National Quality Framework, which will put in place the new
National Quality Standard and National Regulations from 1
January 2012. This integrated approach to the regulation of
services will include a quality rating and assessment system
of services.
Whilst many independent schools have been offering a
quality kindergarten program for some time, the many
changes instigated at both a state and federal level have
meant much confusion for all concerned. As the creases are
slowly ironed out, Independent Schools Queensland will
continue to provide advice to support our members through
this developing educational reform and the independent
sector will continue to play a key role in the provision of early
childhood education to Queensland children.
Helen Coyer
Deputy Executive Director & Director (Operations)
1 Harvard University Centre for the Developing Child (2007), In Brief:
The Science of Early Childhood Development, Harvard University:
National Scientific Council on the Developing Child
2 Hart, B. & Risley, T. (1995), Meaningful Differences in the Everyday
Experiences of Young American Children, Baltimore, MD: Brookes
7
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Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is to the best of our knowledge and belief correct at the date of
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