Leadership

Want to make quality improvement meaningful, documentation purposeful, and leadership genuinely collaborative?

Leadership Floorbooks® give early years leaders a framework that makes all three possible without adding to your team's workload.

Start with the book

Developed by Dr Claire Warden over 35 years of practitioner research, Leadership Floorbooks® transform the way educational teams document, reflect, and improve — turning compliance from a burden into a collective achievement.

Leadership Floorbooks® help your team:

    • Turn quality improvement into a living, visible process instead of a static report
    • Create documentation that satisfies inspectors and means something to your staff
    • Build a culture where every team member's voice is heard and valued
    • Make professional development visible, evidenced, and ongoing
    • Move from top-down directives to genuinely shared leadership
    • Capture the real story of your setting's growth for inspectors, families, and your team

What if your next inspection felt less like a scramble — and more like an opportunity to show what your team has genuinely built together?

Learn how Leadership Floorbooks® make that possible

What is a Leadership Floorbook®?

Most leaders in early years care deeply about their teams and the children they serve.

But the systems designed to evidence that care often feels disconnected from the work itself. Something to be done around the real job, rather than part of it.

A Leadership Floorbook® changes that relationship.

At it's heart, it's a collaborative, shared visual record where leaders and teams document their decisions, reflections, and progress, and make their thinking visible.

Unlike traditional documentation, a Leadership Floorbook® isn't filed away between inspections. It lives in the staffroom to be used in all your team meetings. When an inspector arrives, it tells a compelling, evidenced story of growth.

Take the next step

  • Leadership

    Leadership Floorbooks® — Collaborative Strategies for Educational Excellence

    The definitive guide to implementing Leadership Floorbooks® in your setting. 17 chapters covering the theory, the practice, and everything in between — from building a culture of collaboration to engaging reluctant team members. Includes case studies from settings across the UK and Australia, Looks Like / Sounds Like strategy guides, and reflective prompts throughout.

    Buy the book 

  • Achieve Excellence with Leadership Floorbooks® — Online Programme

    A four-session online programme led by Dr Claire Warden. Built around the book, the programme takes you from understanding the concept to embedding it in your setting — with live guidance, peer discussion, and practical application at every stage.

    Join the programme 

Meet Dr Claire Warden

The Creator of The Floorbook Approach and Leadership Floorbooks

Dr Claire Warden has spent 35 years working alongside leaders in early years settings developing genuinely effective leadership documentation looks like in practice.

Leadership Floorbooks grew from real settings, teams, and the real world observation of leaders. Claire noticed that the settings that thrived weren't the ones most diligent with their paperwork, but the ones whose teams felt heard, valued, and invested in the work.

That's the core principle at the heart of Leadership Floorbooks.

Work With Claire

Ready to lead differently?

Choose the path that's right for you and start building something your whole team can be proud of.

Order the bookJoin the Programme