From Reflection to Action: Turning Insights into Your 2026 Vision

Welcome😊🖍️

Congratulations! By completing last week’s reflection on 2025, you’ve already taken a critical step as a leader in your early childhood program. Taking the time to pause, analyze, and learn from the past year is not easy, and doing so shows your commitment to growth, clarity, and intentional leadership.

Now, it’s time to take the next step: translating those lessons into a bold, clear vision for 2026. A vision is more than just words; it’s the guide for your decisions, the anchor for your team, and the blueprint for success in your classrooms and your early childhood program as a whole. When paired with actionable goals, your vision becomes the engine that drives your program forward, turning insight into tangible results.

💡Leadership Knowledge Tip: This is more than planning; it’s a real leadership growth opportunity. By defining your vision and goals, you strengthen your ability to inspire your team, influence your classroom culture, and create a program that consistently delivers high-quality experiences for children and families. The skills you practice in this process, strategic thinking, clarity, and goal alignment, are skills that will continue to grow your leadership well beyond 2026.

Why Vision and Goals Matter

• 👀Vision: Your vision describes the future you want for your program. It sets a tone, unites your team, and communicates purpose to families and staff.

• 🥅Goals: Goals break your vision into measurable, actionable steps. They give you checkpoints, allow you to track progress, and help you pivot when challenges arise.

Without both, programs often drift, reacting to crises rather than intentionally shaping the year ahead. To lead effectively, we need to be proactive instead of reactive, anticipating challenges, setting clear priorities, and guiding our teams with purpose.

4 Steps to Turn Reflection into an Intentional 2026 Plan

➡️Use this 2026 Vision and Goals Worksheet to guide you through this process.

Step 1️⃣: Define Your 2026 Vision

💭Ask yourself:

• What do I want our Early Childhood program to feel like for teachers, children, and families by the end of 2026?

• What is the culture we want to build?

• What outcomes matter most for students, staff, and families?

Who else can help you define your Early Childhood Programs vision:

• 👩🏽‍💼Assistant Director or Leadership Team: Collaborate to ensure the vision reflects shared priorities and leverages team strengths.

• 🧑🏼‍🏫Teachers: Gather insights from those who know the classrooms best, teachers can highlight what matters most for students and day-to-day learning.

• 👨🏾‍👩🏼‍👧🏽‍👦🏼Families: Feedback from parent surveys or family conversations can provide perspective on what families value most in your program.

💡Leadership Knowledge Tip: Keep your vision concise, aspirational, and grounded in what is realistic.

Step 2️⃣: Set Key Goals to Achieve Your Vision

Using your reflection of 2025 that you did last week, identify 3–5 key focus areas for 2026. Here are a few examples you may include:

1. Staffing & Team Development💪🏽

   • Hire and retain quality teachers

   • Increase professional development and coaching

   • Improve staff morale and recognition

2. Enrollment & Family Engagement🎯

   • Strengthen communication with families

   • Increase enrollment and retention

   • Build community partnerships

3. Curriculum & Classroom Excellence🎖️

   • Implement new instructional strategies

   • Align classrooms with developmental milestones

   • Track student outcomes and engagement

4. Operational Systems & Leadership Growth🪴

   • Streamline routines, documentation, and compliance

   • Strengthen communication across the team

   • Grow assistant directors or emerging leaders

💡Leadership Knowledge Tip: Use your 2025 reflection data to prioritize goals that address real gaps, opportunities, or staff/family feedback.

Step 3️⃣: Make Goals SMART

(Click here for a SMART Goal Guidance Worksheet)

• Specific: Clear and focused

• Measurable: Trackable progress

• Achievable: Realistic but challenging

• Relevant: Tied to your vision and program needs

• Time-Bound: Completed within 2026 or specific months

Here is an example to give you some guidance:

🥅Goal: Improve staff retention.

💡SMART Version: Retain 90% of current teaching staff through June 2026 by implementing monthly coaching sessions, quarterly recognition, and professional development opportunities.

Step 4️⃣: Align Your Team

Once your vision and goals are defined, communicate them clearly with staff and your assistant director:

• Share the vision in a team meeting and explain why it matters

• Encourage staff input and ownership of goals

• Align classroom and team goals to the overall program vision

💡Leadership Knowledge Tip: When the team understands and contributes to the vision, accountability, morale, and buy-in increase dramatically.

Vision without action is just a dream, and action without reflection can be scattered. Use your reflections from last week to ground your 2026 vision in reality while aiming high. By defining a clear program vision and creating actionable goals, you set yourself, your staff, and your families up for a strong, focused, and successful year.

📆Coming Up Next Week:

We’ll dive into one of the most critical areas of leadership: Strengthening Your Team: Staffing, Morale & Professional Growth. You’ll learn strategies to retain and inspire your teachers, boost team morale, and build a strong foundation for an engaged, high-performing staff in 2026.

Till next time,

Jen Sprafka📋

P.S. Not sure what questions to ask on a family survey? Click here for some sample quaestions!

P.P.S. I’m always here to guide you through each step. Send me an email📧 if you want personalized support for this process!