Championing a not knowing Transformative Pedagogy and Practice: re-envisioning the role of the ECEC Practitioner

This chapter is a case study of one education and day care nursery in an English town. It focuses on conversational, online interviews with a range of nursery practitioners and their leaders who are committed to transformational change of processes and practices. This undertaking engaged with what it means to be an ECP within the setting, regardless of qualification, status and hierarchy, as part of a democratic community providing integrated ECEC. The ambition is to foreground ‘everyday thriving’ for practitioners and children in a context of environmental sustainability. The authors, one a practitioner within the setting, reflect on how the interviews embody a ‘not knowing’ approach (Webb and Foster, 2020). ‘Not knowing’ captures a pedagogy and practice where thriving involves ongoing commitment to ethical and inclusive ways of knowing, doing and being for children and practitioners alike. As such it valorises the subjectivity of practitioner and child as critical, creative, complex and capable.