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This principle is all about recognising everyone’s strengths but also being inclusive in your approaches. Here are 5 tips to help with this principle …

1. Everyone is capable of greatness: This can sometimes be something that we forget when our expectations of everyone becomes a uniform approach that expects everyone to have the same strengths and abilities. Everyone has skills and something that they can offer and be amazing at, and it might not be documentation or running a group time. It might be arranging the environment, talking to families or keeping the team moral high. Valuing everyone for what they can bring to the service allows everyone to shine and feel encouraged to work harder as well as building a more equitable approach to what the role of an educator is.
2. Avoid one size fits all approaches: If everyone is expected to do things the same way it restricts some people from being their best selves. It also means that there is a restriction on creativity and different approaches to tasks. Allowing all levels of the service (children, families, educators) to get involved in the curriculum in ways that allow them to feel supported and engaged is likely to lead to a more secure and collaborative environment than one that assumes there is only one way to document, one way to show milestones have been reached, one way to run a routine, one way to celebrate events etc. etc. etc.
3. Never stop challenging the status quo: As soon as mediocrity becomes accepted we stop aiming for high expectations, and these high expectations come from a willingness to challenge and be challenged. A willingness to debate and critically analyse why things are happening in the service. A willingness to have open critically reflective discussions that support different ideas and allow for innovative thought.
4. Have a service vision: Without a vision in place a number of service strive only for compliance and get so caught up in compliance they forget what makes them unique and what their goals are in their own community. Having a vision can align everyone to think greater than compliance and strive for high expectations that make them stand out from other services, not blend into uniformity. If you would like help with creating a vision RARE can offer consultation around this or there is a webinar next year on this topic.
5. Recognise when people stop reaching their potential: If we are all doing the best that we possibly can, and one day someone drops their standards this is a sign of something going wrong. A symptom, if you like. Either the person involved has something going on outside of the service that is pulling their attention and energy, or they no longer feel supported/challenged/accepted, or they may have disengaged with the service because it no longer meets their needs. As soon as someone dips in their potential take time to explore what it going on and reflect on what may need to be put in place to correct this, before others start to go down the same path.

 

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Families play a very important role in our services, without families there would be no children. Here are 5 tips to help with this principle …

1. Develop professional relationships: While we see families sometimes 5 days a week for many years and get quite close to them, it is important to maintain a professional relationship as this can be useful if there are any issues that arise during their engagement with the service. Actions such as becoming facebook friends, socialising outside of work and so forth can lead to preferential treatment, or an abuse of privacy and confidentiality. Some services have clear expectations around this whether verbal or written while others do not so the expectations are unclear.
2. Respect the needs of the families: While running an early childhood service is  business, it is also important that it reflects the context within which it operates. Families are all going to have different needs and expectations and while not all of these will be possible due to a range of reasons, taking the time to understand where the family is coming from can help bridge the gap. It is also important to respect their wishes and try, where possible, to negotiate or compromise instead of simply refusing because it is “not the way we do things here”. You never know when challenging the norm and trying new things can lead to improved practices and collaboration.
3. Provide a variety of ways for families to engage: Not every family is going to be able to engage in the same way. Sometimes this is due to time constraints, financial issues, language barriers, cultural reasons, mental health issues, etc. It is important to offer a range of ways for families to engage from meetings and events to providing feedback and donating resources. This way all families can play an active role in a way that suits their needs, not just the needs of the service.
4. Address issues in a swift and supportive manner: If an issue should arise with a family this should be valued as learning opportunity and responded to quickly. If you do not have all the information at that time then provide a time-frame that the response will be given by. Make sure when working with families you don’t just offer problems but also offer solutions. For more information check out the recorded webinar “difficult conversations with families“
5. Don’t stop offering opportunities: Even though families may not engage with the service as much as you would like it is important to continue to offer opportunities as if you stop offering you will miss opportunities to connect with those families looking for ways to get involved and miss out on the chance to build meaningful partnerships.

 

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Having worked our way through the practices and the role of the educator I will now unpack the principles and how these can be explored and embedded in your organisation. Here are 5 tips to help with this principle …

1. Create a sense of belonging: There are many ways to ensure that all stakeholders have a sense of belonging, including through recognising their culture and identity in the environment. Developing a sense of belonging allows people to feel respected and included in service decisions. The way in which information is communicated and gathered can also be a means of including or excluding different families, educators and children.
2. Develop and build trust: Trust is very important in services as it allows for a safe space for others to share their voice and feel heard. One of the simplest ways to develop trust is through consistency and predictable outcomes. This can allow for children, families and educators to feel secure in the environment as they can predict what will happen when they behave in certain ways.
3. Allow others to use their voice: As I have discussed before on several different occasions it is important to ensure that everyone has a voice in the way that they need, not in the way that you want to offer it. Saying “speak up now or we move on” is confronting to some people who may have insightful suggestions but need time to process or a less intimidating space to raise them in. Consider offering a set time frame for feedback or additions to be raised via writing or verbal communication that allows different personalities to be heard.
4. Allow that voice to be seen in service decisions: When families, children and educators are asked for their opinions and feedback it is good to reflect this in service decisions to show how their input had been used. This can be through policy updates, environment changes, modifications to systems or sharing information through newsletters etc.
5. Practice empathy at all times: A key component of reciprocal relationships is that everyone feels like they have a voice and are heard, and empathy is a great way to achieve this. Considering other people’s opinions and perspectives allows for a deeper level of compassion and understanding than working on your own agenda.

 

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The eighth and final blog post in the Practices series looks at Assessment for learning and transitions. If you missed any, why not go back to the archives and have a look. Next week I will start exploring the Principles. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Build your own professional knowledge: The more confident and skilled you are as an educator the easier it will be to assess children’s learning and identify ways to support this in your curriculum. This knowledge can come through formal study, professional development, research, networking, or mentoring. Without a commitment to continuous improvement of your own knowledge your ideas can become stagnant and there can be issues in seeing how children are demonstrating their learning and how to use this to design the curriculum. Particularly if you studied prior to the NQF coming into affect where there was a much more prescriptive approach to assessment and curriculum decisions.
2. Understand each child as an individual: In order to assess children’s learning it is important to recognise that they will demonstrate this in their own ways and may use resources in very different ways than you had planned. This is a valuable tool to support your assessment for learning as it can allow you to modify and change the curriculum based on how the children engaged, instead of seeing it as a failure because they didn’t engage the way you had planned.
3. Assess children holistically and in a strength based approach: All children have strengths and capabilities they can bring to the curriculum and it is up to us as educators to design a program that supports these. Therefore we need to build relationships and connections with each child to find out how best to support them to connect to learning in ways that are practical and meaningful for the individual child. Sometimes we can design a curriculum that supports the needs of the educators and their strengths, and then expect children to fit within this and wonder why they struggle. Assessing the learning opportunities on offer for children to engage in holistic and inclusive experience will help children to feel valued and build their sense of belonging which in turn will allow for better assessment of their skills and abilities as they engage with the program at a deeper level.
4. Use your assessments to drive curriculum decisions: Your assessments on how children learn, how they engage with the experiences and environment, how the routine works, how your resources allow for holistic learning can all then be used as tools for modifying your curriculum. Some children may prefer or need more structured activities to help them to feel confident and engage. Others may need more open ended and child directed experiences to allow them to develop their creativity, investigation and planning.
5. Reflect on your practices as part of your assessment: It is not only the children that should be assessed to ensure that learning opportunities are maximised, but also the role of the educators. It can be easy to just look at the children and assess them, however for a truly reflective and valuable curriculum the role of the educator and the impact this has on the children’s ability to engage or feel secure and emotionally supported must be assessed. A really easy way to achieve this is to look back at the other practices blog posts and assess how your role supports or inhibits learning, whether there are areas that could be enhanced or modified to create a more meaningful and child directed program and routine based on these assessments.

 

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The seventh blog post in the Practices series looks at Continuity of learning and transitions. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Work in partnership with families: The closer you can work with the families the more of an understanding you can gather on how children learn within the context of the home environment, including any cultural considerations. This can help support the transition of children in to the service with practices they are used to from home which will help children feel a sense of belonging and build secure and trusting attachments. Utilise your enrolment forms and orientation period to get to know valuable information that can be incorporated into the curriculum and routines beyond the child’s favourite toy.
2. Work in partnership with support agencies: Many children access different support agencies for example therapists, medical professionals or cultural support groups. Taking the time to build a professional relationship with these services/agencies can ensure that there is a consistent approach to the child’s learning and development as they transition between the different services. This can allow the child to feel more confident and avoid frustration or confusion, as well as help the families feel like there is a holistic approach to their child’s care and education as the different organisations work together to support the child’s needs.
3. Reflect on how and why children transition between rooms in the service: There are many reasons children move up rooms in a service, sometimes it is because the child is ready and capable to transition, sometimes it is because the parents demand it, sometimes it is because of a child’s age, and sometimes it is because of a business decision to get more spots in rooms that make more income for the service. Reflect on the reasons for moving children up in your service and whether the child’s needs are a key driving factor. Also it is important to consider how children are moved up between rooms. Do they have time to transition slowly over a few weeks? Do the staff in the new room get a discussion about the child and what it is important for them to know? Do families fill in new forms with new updated information to support the home/service continuity that may have changed since enrolment?
4. Utilise learning opportunities that can support transitions: An easy way to support positive transitions and enhance children’s continuity of learning is to consider the types of resources, environments and curriculum decisions in each of the rooms and where there are opportunities for consistency. If the aspects of each room are vastly different then children have to spend time familiarising themselves with new routines, expectations and resources. Resources such as loose parts can be modified to reflect the age while remaining a constant between all rooms. The way in which transitions occur, educators engage with children and children have agency can also be examples of consistency between rooms.
5. Get to know your local schools: One of the biggest transitions in a child’s life is the transition to school. This can be supported by building connections with local schools and finding out –
   a) their expectations around school readiness (as it may be very different to what you are working on);
   b) whether you can share in any aspects of the school (events, fundraisers, band practice etc.);
   c) whether you can access a school’s facilities such as a library to borrow books, the play equipment during the school holidays to help children feel confident and less likely to injure themselves; and
   d) what time recess and lunch occur (as they are often very different to childcare centre times which revolve around kitchen schedules and getting the cook home on time, and this can leave children hungry and struggling to concentrate when they get to school).

 

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The sixth blog post in the Practices series looks at Cultural Competence. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Understand what cultures are in your community: When thinking about culture it is important to not just consider the cultures already in your service but those in the wider community. If you only focus on the cultures you currently have in the service then you may be excluding other community members as they cannot see themselves reflected in your service and the decisions you make. The same can be said for Indigenous Culture, where a lot of services may argue that they do not have any Indigenous people in their community so why bother, but it is about creating an accepting and culturally diverse mindset in the children so no matter who they meet in life they are greeted with respect and a sense of acceptance.
2. Create a culturally safe and respectful environment: Consider the resources you have in your environment, the experiences you engage with and the way in which you embed culture. The more authentic and meaningful the approach the more respectful and safe the environment will feel to others. Are you reflecting contemporary representations of different cultures or just traditional and historical representations? Do you look beyond geography and flags when talking about other countries and develop an understanding of their culture? Can you connect with aspects of different cultures that you feel comfortable with as a starting point e.g. art, cooking, architecture, music, language etc?
3. Consider your celebrations and events: It is important to choose celebrations that support cultural competence and demonstrate both respect and knowledge of the culture they represent. It is also important to allow children to be able to connect to a range of different learning opportunities through events. You do not have to celebrate the same events every year and could discuss with the families and the children at the beginning of each year which events are important to them, instead of just the staff deciding. Also, be careful not to choose tokenistic or inappropriate options just because they look cute or seem fun. Instead reflect on the learning opportunities available and whether the chosen experiences align with your philosophy and pedagogy.
4. Reflect on your own biases and beliefs: Sometimes our own upbringing and circumstances can create barriers when it comes to cultural competence. It is important to recognise these in order to work through them and not have these barriers come through in your interactions with children and their families. It is also important as a team to hold each other accountable and address any barriers that may be observed in others to help reflect on the possible causes and support each other to be more present and intentional in our work.
5. Trust that children are capable and competent: If you believe that children are capable and competent then you can do richer and more meaningful work with them on a range of different topics including culture. Trusting the children to be able to unpack and understand a deeper level of information can see learning opportunities around culture extend beyond craft. Allowing the children to direct and lead the exploration of different cultures can be insightful and support the development of curriculum in ways you may never have considered. You can even do projects around culture and the importance of valuing and respecting diversity as a way to collaboratively build knowledge and challenge each other through children’s voices.

 

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The fifth blog post in the Practices series looks at Learning Environments. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Conduct an audit on your environment: When was the last time you actively assessed your environment? It is important to be connected to your environment and assess how useful it is in engaging children, demonstrating compliance and providing evidence of learning. All of the the points below will highlight some of the ways in which you can audit your learning environment and work out if it is achieving what you hope it will.
2. Value your environment as a member of the teaching team: Your environment plays such a big role in how the children engage with learning and the curriculum that it is like an extra member of the team. Too many resources in the environment can be overstimulating or restrict children’s creativity. Too few resources to share or a lack of variety can cause boredom and acting out. It is important to see how the children engage with the environment, both inside and outside, and see whether it is in a productive and purposeful way. I once didn’t set up outside, no equipment other than the physical areas that were there already (sandpit, bark pit, trees, garden beds, hill, veranda), as a way to reflect on how the children were able to a) use the environment and b) resource their own learning. It was an experiment and through it we learnt that the children were far more engaged (after the first 10 minutes or so) in what they chose to do than they ever were with the equipment and resources we provided them to choose from. This taught us to value and respect children’s abilities to resource their own learning and not to feel like we needed to offer them resources and set tasks to keep them occupied. It also meant we changed the way we set up to keep some areas open and free for real choice and agency, instead of allowing the children to choose only between the activities that we had selected for them.
3. Use critical reflection to connect with the environment: Critically reflecting on any aspect of the service or organisation will allow you to be better connected to it. Here are some areas you may like to use as a basis for reflection:
   • What message does your environment send to children/families/educators?
   • Who gets to make choices in your environment?
   • Does inside or outside get more attention? why?
   • Do you equate a busy environment with busy children or do you provide spaces with minimal resources for children to create their own learning opportunities?
   • How inclusive is your environment? (does it support children with additional needs? sensory issues? physical disabilities/illness that may cause children to be tired? are different cultures reflected in safe and respectful ways?)
   • Are all displays current and able to communicate holistic compliance?
4. Use your environment to reflect your context: Every service is operating within its own context and and as such this should be reflected in the environment. Decisions made in the service should be made based on the needs and values of the local community and area, not feel like the service could be anywhere in the world. A service should feel like money is reinvested into the service in meaningful and valuable ways so there might be an additional educator, more qualified staff, project based work for the children with a regular visitor, excursions to places rich in learning potential, redesigning spaces to support children’s engagement and opportunities, instead of having the newest and best of every resource and piece of technology. A service in the bush should have an outside environment that reflects the space the children will be used to playing in and feel most at home in, such as grass, open spaces, natural resources, creek beds etc. Versus a service in the city where children all live in apartments and may not have access to yards and gross motor challenges that are present in suburban houses and may need more obstacle courses etc to challenge and support children’s development.
5. Avoid a tick box approach to compliance evidence: There are ways to demonstrate compliance that are value laden, holistic, meaningful and child/family focused, that rely on a deep and comprehensive understanding of the compliance requirements as well as best practice and early childhood theory. Then there are ways to demonstrate compliance that are about ticking boxes, a surface level approach to each compliance point where one thing achieve compliance for one thing. I can walk into a service and see/feel whether there has been thought and critical reflection put into place behind the decisions that are being made, or whether ideas have been replicated and ‘pinched’ because they look good or cute or tick an obvious box. A simple example of this is having a downloaded poster off the internet of children washing their hands in the bathroom and explaining how to wash hands, vs discussing with the children about hand washing and having them think of ways that can remind them to wash their hands. Perhaps they want to make their own posters – take photos of each other, print them out, cut them out, write the steps, maybe laminate them. All of which highlights the value of the children’s voice, child directed learning, promoting and valuing learning opportunities (such as problem solving, using technology, working together, developing fine motor skills etc), creating a sense of belonging in the environment because children can see themselves reflected in the displays, as well as promoting hygiene practices.

 

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The fourth blog post in the Practices series looks at Intentional Teaching. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Reconnect with your personal philosophy: For myself, the reason I got into early childhood as a career path was because I have always been passionate about how children explore and communicate in their own ways and I wanted to help support and challenge them, and be challenged by them. Hopefully you also have a personal philosophy and reason to be in early childhood that revolves around supporting and connecting with children. Sometimes we can slip away from this philosophy because of our personal experiences, the culture of our service, or a lack of professional development and mentoring opportunities to help us achieve this. Take some time to reconnect with what it was that started your early childhood journey to begin with and take stock as to whether your actions today reflect this, or whether you need to take steps to reconnect with this philosophy, in turn making you more deliberate in your interactions and programming.
2. Be present: There are a lot of layers to being an educator and sometimes some of them take priority, whether that be doing chores, documentation, chatting with families, making friends with staff members, resetting the environment, and then accidentally children have slipped down the list of priorities. Being present as an Intentional Teacher means that you are always connected to the children as your number one priority. Your decisions allow you to spend more time with the children, not less. You find ways to work with the children and collaborate on the program together instead of telling children to leave you alone because you are busy. You are constantly in tune with what is happening in the environment and use this as an opportunity to adapt, reflect and challenge your ideas, instead of just getting through the day in whatever route seems easiest.
3. Encourage your peers to be intentional: Part of being an Intentional Teacher is that you are aware of your role within your peers and your team. You are constantly striving to be a role model and a mentor to others in the way you are purposeful in your actions and thoughtful in your language. This includes holding other educators accountable in their intentions, and addressing issues in a professional and collaborative manner when shortcuts have been taken, or children have slipped down the priority list. This could be done in spontaneous discussions, through room meetings or staff meetings, reflective questions or professional development opportunities.
4. Consider the messages you send: If you are a ‘deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful‘ educator then you need to consider how this comes across in the way you communicate, both verbally and non-verbally. Having your hands in your pockets while supervising the outside area says ‘don’t talk to me’. Using sarcasm, bribes or threats to manipulate children is not professional behaviour. Removing children from an experience because they are not doing what you want, instead of adapting the experience so they can engage, is not child focused practice. Simple little interactions can communicate volumes of information to a child who is looking for someone to trust and connect with and a place they can feel secure.
5. Reflect on your practices: As with many aspects of the curriculum and our own behaviour it is important to reflect and take stock on how we are really performing, versus what we think is happening. Here are some questions to help with that.
   • How many times a day do you find your attention pulled away from the children?
   • Do you find yourself cutting corners a lot? (e.g. writing observations you didn’t actually observe, rushing through experiences, doing things without the children because it is quicker/neater/easier, avoiding discussions with certain families because you don’t feel like it).
   • How many of the events celebrated in your service are done in a way that is deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful?
   • Do you value the spontaneous learning that children demonstrate on a regular basis or are you more focused on the documentation?
   • When you get out of bed in the morning to go to work are you enthusiastic about what the day may bring? (and if not, when was the last time you were? What changed? How can you get that passion and enthusiasm back?).

 

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The third blog post in the Practices series looks at Learning Through Play. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Provide play based experiences: Play based experiences are engaging, meaningful, child directed, open ended (in regards to outcomes &/or time), and inclusive. All children can engage in play based experiences at their own level and still have the opportunity to learn and develop. It is important to do an audit of your environment and your resources and check how play based learning is supported and whether it meets the criteria mentioned above. If children cannot explore and investigate, resourcing their own learning and challenging their own ideas then it is difficult to provide evidence of play based learning, and also compliance of most of Quality Area 1.
2. Value play based learning: Play is how children learn. There is vast amounts of research on the matter supporting how important it is to provide play based learning opportunities and how to support children through this. The basic premise is that the more children are in control of their own learning the more engaged and connected they are to it, which allows for more information to be retained. However play based learning still requires educator support and that brings us on to the next tip…
3. Be an active participant: The role of the educator in play based learning is to role model, support, resource, challenge, engage and invite children’s development. It is not passive supervision of the children, it is also not directed learning, it is a form of collaboration in the play. Educators need to demonstrate dispositions such as curiosity, resilience, exploration, planning, risk taking, social engagement, perseverance, problem solving, creativity and so on to support children to engage in play at a deeper level too. Through playing alongside children and being flexible in your approaches and engagement you support children to learn these dispositions and build their confidence to engage deeply in play.
4. Advocate for play based learning: One of the points of the ECA Code of Ethics is that “in relation to children, I will […] understand and be able to explain to others how play and leisure enhance children’s learning, development and wellbeing“. This means being able to demonstrate how learning occurs during play, how this is supported by research and theory and how this occurs in your service. This may be in newsletters, through your observations, in discussions with families, through your philosophy and so forth. There is a big misconception among non-early childhood qualified people that play is for leisure, not for learning, and the more you can demonstrate how it achieves both the more you advocate.
5. Use play as a foundation for learning opportunities: Observing how children play can be a great way to assess children’s learning, challenge children’s skills and knowledge, identify interests and more. The way children engage can also drive decisions around the environment, resources purchased, and projects implemented into the program. As such play based learning should be valued as a fantastic opportunity to develop educator’s knowledge and understanding of the needs of their children and the direction of their program, not a time to sit and catch up on documentation or other tasks while the children are off playing.

 

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The second in the Practices series looks at responding to children. Here are 5 tips to help with this practice …

1. Allow the children to take the lead: In order to respond to children they must be allowed the opportunity to lead. Sometimes it can be easy to take over an experience if it isn’t going ‘the way we had planned’, or the finished product doesn’t ‘look like it should’ however both of those examples are evidence of Responsiveness to Children not being utilised. The learning is what is important not the finished outcome, so if children want to take an experience in a different direction ask yourself ‘are they still learning?’ and if the answer is yes, then let them lead.
2. Build relationships with the children: Relationships are key when it comes to this practice because if children do not have secure attachments they are unlikely to take the lead. If educators do not have quality relationships with children they are unlikely to trust children to take the lead because of assumptions that they may ‘do it wrong’, or ‘mess it up’. The more trusting and nurturing the relationships the more likely it is that educators will respond to children’s ideas and value them for what they can bring to the curriculum.
3. Ensure you are giving children equal opportunities: Some children are confident in seeking out an educator’s attention and make it easy for their voice to be heard while other are less obvious and direct in their approaches. Younger children also use more subtle gestures and non-verbal communication to express their wants and needs. It is our job to ensure that all children have a voice and get the same amount of responsiveness. Again, your relationships will help to ensure this by not only valuing every child but also by recognising how each child communicates. An infant who moves a resource in front of them is saying ‘I have not finished with this yet’, and a child who is sitting at the back door quietly, with their hat in their hand, is saying ‘I want to go outside’. Both of these children deserve as much of a response as those who actively seek out an educator or communicate their wants and needs loudly.
4. Reflect on your practices: It is important to use critical reflection to ensure that your practices in your service support responsiveness to children and allow work to be done with children, not to children. What percentage of your program allows children to take the lead? Why? How do you ensure each child is responded to appropriately and positively? Do you actively seek the voice of those children who are less vocal in their communication? Is responsiveness to children role modelled in all aspects of the curriculum?
5. Demonstrate this in your program: By stating how experiences are driven by children’s play/suggestions/ideas/requests in your documentation you can provide evidence of responsiveness to children. Allowing the children choice in setting up the environment and how resources are used provides evidence of a commitment to child directed learning. Documenting in observations how children’s approaches to an experience prompted different levels of response (e.g. role modelling, questioning, getting additional resources etc) shows how this practice is implemented in the service.

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