Smart Work 2026: VakaPedat — Joint Pedagogical Meetings for Early Childhood Education and Care Teachers on Teams

Through Teams, VakaPedat bring together Early Childhood Education and Care Teachers from across the whole city (municipal early childhood education) to focus on important shared pedagogical themes, supporting both their work and the implementation of consistent pedagogy. They have also freed up time for daycare center directors responsible for customer relations and pedagogy to focus on other important pedagogical work, as directors have shared responsibility for holding pedagogical meetings at the city-wide level. This has also increased efficiency, since matters with the same content are no longer dealt with separately in numerous meetings around the city.

Above all, VakaPedat have made it possible to ensure that every Early Childhood Education and Care Teacher receives important information about their work at the same time. This, in turn, promotes consistent quality in early childhood education and improves the flow of information. Early Childhood Education and Care Teachers are responsible for pedagogical leadership at the team level.

The themes of VakaPedat have emerged from the key content areas and development needs of early childhood education, and for this operating period they are:

1. Introduction to the updated team action and development plan (Tiimitoke)
2. The early childhood education curriculum/pre-primary curriculum process and pedagogical documentation, and
3. Prevention of bullying.

The first two of these have already taken place, and the third will take place during February 2025. The change in the early childhood education management structure in autumn 2025 will continue to require a similar sharing of responsibility, and the VakaPedat meetings, held 3–4 times per operating period, will certainly continue.

VakaPedat were launched as soon as the new operating period began in 2024. I have been responsible, together with a colleague, for planning and implementing the VakaPedat sessions concerning the early childhood education curriculum process. Overall, the implementation of VakaPedat has been carried out by the early childhood education planner and the assistant daycare center directors as a working group.

Developer

Maija Heino, Daycare Center Director