Purpose

To explore the classroom teachers’ perspectives regarding how COVID-19 has influenced their
pedagogical leadership roles and practices.

Research Questions

How has the covid-19 pandemic changed their pedagogical leadership roles and practices in terms of:

i. Professional development on teacher leadership

ii. Communication with parents
iii. teaching and learning practices
iv. daily schedules, routines, and rituals
v. classroom assessment practice

How has the covid-19 pandemic changed their pedagogical leadership roles and practices in terms of
professional development?

i. How do you see yourself as a leader as a kindergarten teacher?

Well, officially I haven’t been assigned any leadership role in the school. However, as a teacher in the
classroom, I serve as a role model to my children. I also lead the class in all aspects of my teaching role
(Teacher A)

I simply see as myself as a leader in my capacity as a class teacher (Teacher B)

Hmmmmmmmm, the actual leaders are there, but I am a mere teacher. But to some extent, I play a
leadership role by influencing and motivating my children to accomplish a task in the class (Teacher C).

ii. How often were you attending workshop or seminar on leadership training before and
during the covid-19 pandemic?

Officially, we used to have one scheduled professional learning community workshop, every term as
indicated on the school’s academic calendar. However, since onset of the covid-19, leadership training
has intensified. This is often done via zoom and face- to- face too (Teacher D)

Leadership training? Not that readily comes to mind before covid, though we used to have curriculum
leadership workshops. It was rather after the covid-19 restrictions, had been lifted that we have heard
about such training on school and crises leadership (Teacher B)

Training is often done for all teachers at scheduled intervals which cuts across, as school issues including
aspects of school leadership. It has been so before, during and after the covid-19 restrictions were lifted
(Teacher A)

Training is done on the need-be basis and not necessarily because of the covid-19 (Teacher C)

iii. Which aspects of leadership training do you often receive and how the pandemic affected
the school culture relating to distributive leadership?
 Training, often is centered on leadership styles, crises and distributive leadership and effective
communication to parents and other stakeholders (Teacher A)

Workshops on leaders deal topics like delegation, motivation, writing of vision and mission
statements, organizational leadership. The school’s cultural is now a bit relaxed thereby allowing for
new ideas in a bottom-up approach (Teacher B)

Educational leadership and other styles such as curriculum, pedagogical, technology, school, crises
and situational are the areas for such training. The school is now opened up for innovative ideas with
the infusion of technology (Teacher C)

Crisis management and financial issues. But lately, issues about communication with parents and
school policy issues philosophies, vision and mission are discussed during professional learning
community workshops (Teacher D)

If I could remember pretty well, our last workshop was about National Teaching Council’s licensing
examination and renewal of license. Not much was said about leadership per se! (Teacher E)

iv. What are the major negative and positive impact did the teacher leaders experience
during this pandemic?

I have learnt about appropriate communication skills during crises moment. An aspect of all hands-
on-desk leadership in a distributive manner has also been learnt and experienced. However, real and
intense pressure and stress had also been associated with our attempts to offer sound leadership to our
stakeholders. On the whole, I will say staff parent community engagement has improved, thanks to
covid-19 (Teacher A)

One major benefit in this whole covid-19 has been our improved technology leadership skills. We were
providing daily updates to the stakeholders, regarding the covid-19 protocol enforcement, while assuring
the parents about the safety of their kids. Now, I can use zoom to schedule and facilitate meetings,
something that I could not have done prior to the covid-19 pandemic (Teacher B)

Open and candid or frank communication with parents and children had improved. Teacher to teacher
engagement and collaborations have also improved during this period (Teacher C)

v. Will you consider yourself as a competent leader to deal with crises in your school?

Somehow competent to manage some crises situation, but a little more training will be welcome to get
me to the required level of competency (Teacher A)

Well to some extent, I can manage certain situations, by calming down the nerves of parents and other
stakeholders, regarding the safety of their wards. However, with the higher-level cases, I can’t hand will
be referred to the school authorities (Teacher B)

Simply put, I am slightly confident to put it mildly (Teacher D)

How has the covid-19 pandemic changed their pedagogical leadership roles and practices involving
communications with the parents who have their children in the schools?

I. Why do you consider communication with parents as your core mandate being a
classroom teacher?
Parents were a bit alarmed about the safety of their kids. In view of that, teachers are the right sources
to give the parent the needed first-hand-information about the wellbeing of their kids (Teacher A)

We owe it a legal and moral duty to relay information in a timeous manner to the parents, as part of our
obligation, being the class teacher (Teacher B)

Teachers in kindergarten do more than teaching, as we are the liaison officers between the parents,
school head and children. We are, therefore, better positioned to provide all relevant data and
information gathered on the children as part of our anecdotal record keeping (Teacher C)

We simply gather relevant data and information about the children and as such we owe it duty to share
with the relevant stakeholders, by employing better communication skills (Teacher D)

II. How often do the teacher leaders communicate with parents before and during the covid-
19 pandemic?

We were communicating with the parent on regular basis, virtually on daily basis. It, however, became
intensive during the early part of the pandemic, when schools resumed face to face and in person
classes. We needed to put parents’ hearts at rest, by feeding them with accurate and reliable
information to allay their fears and anxiety about the safety of the kids (Teacher A)

Virtually on the daily basis, however, it often depends on the situation at hand (Teacher, D)

I communicate with parent quite often, but usually on the need -be basis (Teacher C)

III. Which medium do you use when communicating with the parents and what issues are
discussed?

WhatsApp, text messages and normal phone calls are basically used to reached out to the parents on
issues relating to the children academic, social-emotion, health and adherence to covid -19 protocols and
even including eating and play behaviour. Before the covid-19, home visits by the teachers and parents’
visitation to the classrooms were equally used to share information with parents. However, with covid-
19, such visits were minimized as a measure to prevent possible spread of the disease (Teacher B)

Social media platforms including normal telephone calls are the main medium of communication with
the parents. Issues usually discussed range from almost everything, which transpired in the school,
including adherence to social distancing and wearing of face masks protocols (Teacher A)

I often talk to parents on phone to discuss issues about health, academic and social distancing practices
of the kids with the relevant stakeholders (Teacher C)

IV. What are the challenges often encountered when communicating with the parents of the
school children during the pandemic?
Often poor internet connection, tight classroom schedules, language barriers, trust and issues of
confidentiality are those that hamper effective communication with the parents (Teacher A)

I am often hard pressed with time and numerous work schedules and so communicating with parents
had been challenging (Teacher B)

Some of the parents are fair weather friends and can’t also be trusted. I am, therefore, often careful
when sharing certain sensitive issues about the happenings in the classroom with them (Teacher C)

V. How will you rate your communication skills with parents during this pandemic?

I trust in my communication skills relating to teacher parents’ partnership (Teacher A)

I still can do better by improving my communication skills (Teacher B)

There is always more room for improvement, even though, I am not doing badly, regarding my
communication skills (Teacher C)

There has a more friendly and enabling environment for all other teachers to share ideas and
information (Teacher D)

How has the covid-19 pandemic changed the teachers’ pedagogical leadership roles and practices
in terms of teaching and learning practices?

i. In which aspect of the teaching and learning processes had been affected negatively or
positively during this pandemic?

Indeed, the pandemic has changed our teaching strategy to the blended mode as we do both face to
face and sometime an online teaching using WhatsApp and other social media platforms. The usual
small class grouping as against the whole class approach, which is developmentally appropriate, is
difficulty to be employed due to the social distancing protocol (Teacher A)

Any method, which involve close human contact, can’t be employed due to the social distancing
protocol. For example, school sports have been banned, since the face-to-face and in person teaching
started in Ghana in January, 2021 till date, after the covid-19 restriction was lifted. This has significantly
impacted the use of outdoor play activities, which is equally important, just as the indoor activities in the
early childhood context (Teacher B)

I often rely on the use of ICT tools to extend the learning of the children, from the school to the home, by
sharing the learning materials with the parents on the social media platforms, to enable them engage
the children meaningfully at home. Our usual morning news time and morning circle time hardly take
place owing to the social distancing protocols (Teacher C)

Proper person to person contact has been reduced, due to the fear of spreading the virus, which affect
the proper method of teaching. Relying solely on the educational technologies hasn’t been all that
effective, since the government basic schools in Ghana haven’t been officially given any Learning
Management System (LMS) to operate with (Teacher D)
 How has the covid-19 pandemic changed the teachers’ pedagogical leadership practices in terms
of the teachers’ schedules, routines and rituals?

The schedule, rituals and routines, in the kindergarten has changed significantly, owing to the reduction
of the normal teaching and learning hours from 2pm to 12noon each day, as a measure to reduce the
spread of the virus. Teachers are therefore unable to complete all the daily task, as we used to do before
covid-19 pandemic (Teacher A)

The reduction of the teaching contact hours meant that, not all the daily routines can’t be fully covered.
In my case, the outdoor routines have suffered significantly as it often takes place twice or thrice a week,
as against the usual daily affairs prior to covid-19 (Teacher B)

In my case, morning community circle and parent meetings hardly take place due to social distancing
and the reduction of the instructional contact hours, after the covid-19 restrictions. Outdoor community
circle also doesn’t take place on regular basis as before (Teacher C)

Indeed, there has been a slight innovation and creativity in our teaching and learning processes (Teacher
D)

How has the covid-19 pandemic changed the teachers’ pedagogical leadership roles regarding
classroom assessment practices?

How has the covid-19 pandemic influenced the classroom assessment practices of yours:

Assessment still go hand in hand with the teaching and learning processes as expected. Assessment is
often done electronically, lately. Portfolios and documentation processes are captured with the use of my
mobile phone’s camera for storage and possible sharing with the parents and relevant stakeholders to
tell a story regarding the children learning outcomes (Teacher A)

Assessment practices have been the usual pencil and paper test with a slight infusion of electronic
documentation and portfolios building with the use of my mobile phone (Teacher B)

I usually interview and observe their children learning outcomes to enable me write anecdotal records to
document their learning outcomes, since the normal school hours had been reduced, asking the children
to write their answers and responses to questions, may take too much time, thereby not aiding me to
complete my daily schedule before midday (Teacher C)

I do both written task and electronic portfolios and documentation to record the children learning
outcomes in form evidence, which can be shared with others, when the need be (D)