The Pyramid Model for Educators
The Early Childhood Development Association (ECDA) is a non-profit organization that works with Early Childhood Educators, providing a voice representing healthy child development for PEI children, their families and those educating them. The ECDA has been instrumental in bringing the Pyramid Model to PEI with their new and exciting project– A Pyramid to Retention: A Mentoring Culture for PEI.
The ECDA is a strong organization with a great deal of experience in managing and facilitating successful projects and programs. The ECDA supports more than 90% of the island’s early childhood educators and strives to provide the most recent research, and highlight best practice, supporting ECEs to make the early years count. The pyramid model is a framework that comes with a lot of training and data collection, so it needs the experience of a well-established organization who has experience providing professional development and support to its members. For this reason, the ECDA will be spearheading this project!
The Pyramid Model is unique in its approach to establish strong partnerships between Mentors/Coaches and the Early Childhood Educators they support and walk alongside. Though the Pyramid Model is not new, having been established for more than 2 decades, and existing in more than 50 countries, this is a new journey for PEI’s Early Learning and Childcare Sector, and we are so excited to embark on this journey together!
About the Project:
- A Pyramid to Retention, will be running from March 2023 to March 2025.
- Participating centres will partner a classroom and educator with our Pyramid Model Mentors to identify goals and strengthen intentional teaching practices through data collection, self-reflection and implementation.
- Participating centres will obtain training and resources associated with the Pyramid Model, create an internal leadership team, and support knowledge sharing.
- It is our goal that the data collected through A Pyramid to Retention will continue to demonstrate and support the success of the Pyramid Model to move to a program exists throughout all Island centres
- A Pyramid to Retention nurtures strong relationships with children and families while applying intentional teaching strategies. Children will develop the tools to self-regulate, problem solve and build relationships with their peers.
As the Organization running this project,it is our priority to ensure all children across PEI have positive, high quality early years experiences, and the Pyramid to Retention project will further strengthen these elements through ongoing support to educators.
We know that when educators “get the support they need, they are able to adopt and adapt Pyramid Model practices and see improvement in their classrooms and in children’s social-emotional competence and behaviour.” (Hemmer, Ostrosky & Fox, 2021)
