Kicking Off 2026 With a Bang: What Early Childhood Leaders Should Be Thinking About Now

Welcome Leaders😊🖍️

2025 may have been a year of challenges, but it’s also a year full of lessons. Now is the time to pause, reflect, and reset your leadership. By looking honestly at what worked, what didn’t, and what can be improved, you can step into 2026 with clarity, confidence, and a renewed sense of purpose.

To help guide your reflection, I have created a “2025 Year-End Reflection Worksheet.” This tool will guide you through key areas, including your wins, barriers, staff morale, family needs, and the systems that supported or challenged your work, so you can capture insights that will shape strong, intentional goals for the new year.

So, grab a pen🖊️, take a quiet moment🧘🏽, and start the reflection process🪞. Your ability to lead, inspire, and guide your team in 2026 begins here!

💡Leadership Knowledge Tip: Reflection is not about blame; it is about clarity. Clarity is the foundation of effective leadership.

Where to Start with your Reflection of 2025

As a leader of an Early Childhood program, your reflection not only helps you understand what happened in 2025, but it also informs how you guide your staff, communicate with families, and plan for a successful 2026. Here is an enhanced set of reflection areas with added context to help you explore more deeply.

1. Strengths & Weaknesses

• Strengths: Identify the areas where your program consistently excelled. This could include high-quality teaching, strong family engagement, smooth operational systems, or innovative classroom practices. Recognizing strengths allows you to replicate and build on them.

• Weaknesses: Reflect on what consistently felt heavy, chaotic, or disorganized. Weaknesses aren’t failures; they’re opportunities to improve systems, communication, or resources. Consider patterns in staffing, scheduling, or curriculum delivery.

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Tracking patterns in strengths and weaknesses over multiple years can reveal systemic trends that need strategic planning.

2. Your 3 Biggest Wins of 2025

• These wins might include classroom improvements, successful staff development initiatives, family engagement efforts, enrollment achievements, or cultural wins such as team morale or community connections.

• Celebrating wins is critical, reinforcing what is working and boosting your confidence as a leader.

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Frame wins in measurable or observable terms when possible (e.g., “decrease teacher turnover by X% “, Enrollment increased by 10%, “Parent engagement survey improved by 15%”).

3. Your 3 Biggest Barriers

• Identify the challenges that most impacted your program’s success. These may include staffing shortages, enrollment dips, challenging behaviors, team morale struggles, or communication breakdowns.

• Understanding barriers allows you to prioritize which challenges to address first in 2026.

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Distinguish between barriers you can control (staff coaching, onboarding, curriculum planning) and those outside your control (community demographic shifts, broader teacher shortage). Focus your energy on actionable areas.

4. Identify what Systems Broke Down

• Examine your operational systems critically: daily routines, coaching cycles, team communication, family engagement practices, licensing compliance, and enrollment processes.

• Identify opportunities for improvement by examining both minor friction points and major breakdowns in the process. Ask: Where did staff feel unsupported? Where did families experience frustration?

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Use this information to design processes that prevent recurring issues and create consistent practices for 2026.

5. What Surprised You in 2025?

• Surprises can be positive (unexpected team innovation, family engagement success) or challenging (unplanned resignations, budget shortfalls).

• Reflecting on surprises helps you anticipate potential risks and opportunities in the new year.

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Record lessons learned from surprises; they often reveal hidden strengths or vulnerabilities in your program.

6. How Did Staff Morale Shift Across the Year?

• Consider when morale was high and why. Was it linked to recognition, strong leadership, successful team collaboration, or operational stability?

• Identify dips and triggers: staffing shortages, unclear expectations, high stress periods, or communication breakdowns.

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Staff morale data can guide professional development, wellness initiatives, and recognition systems in 2026.

7. What Did Families Need Most—And Did You Meet It?

• Reflect on family priorities: communication, consistency, behavior support, academic guidance, and community-building events.

• Consider feedback from surveys, conversations, or observations. Did families feel heard, supported, and included?

💡Leader Knowledge Tip: Aligning program improvements with family needs increases engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

Reflecting on the past year isn’t something you rush; it requires time, honest thinking, and the willingness to look closely at what truly shaped your program. Gathering input from your teaching staff, reviewing parent feedback, and reflecting alongside your assistant director can offer powerful insight into what your program needs most as you prepare for the new year. These perspectives help you see your program from every angle and ensure that your 2026 planning is grounded, intentional, and aligned with both the families you serve and the team you lead.

As we move into December, we’ll walk together through the essential steps every early childhood leader should take to enter the new year with confidence, clarity, and momentum. Each week will build on the one before it; guiding you from reflection to action, and from big-picture vision to practical, day-to-day planning.

Coming Up This Month: Your December Roadmap to a Strong 2026

Here’s a sneak peek at the topics ahead in our weekly newsletter series:

• Crafting Your 2026 Vision & Goals

• Strengthening Your Team: Staffing, Morale & Professional Growth

• Enrollment, Family Engagement & Community Trust

• Operational Excellence: Systems, Routines & Sustainable Leadership

My goal for this series is simple: to help you end December with a clear, functional, and energizing plan for Day One of 2026.

Till Next Time,
Jen Sprafka📋

P.S. If you’d like your teaching staff to reflect alongside you this month, click here for the Teacher 2025 Year-End Reflection Worksheet.

P.P.S. Want support or guidance each week? Send me an email. I’m here to help you lead with clarity and confidence🧡