Category: NQF

Digital documentation for families – quality or quantity?

Digital devices are of great use when documenting a child’s learning. They are particularly useful for capturing photos and videos of children to include in daily or weekly communications with families.

Documenting the program and the child’s progress within the program can make a child’s learning visible to their family. It creates valuable opportunities for starting meaningful discussions with families about their child’s progress and involvement in the program and routine.

National Regulation 76 and Element 1.3.3 of the National Quality Standard outline the requirement to provide families information about their child’s participation in the educational program. In addition, Quality Area 6 of the National Quality Standard focuses on building supportive and respectful relationships with families. These relationships are based on active communication, consultation and collaboration, which in turn contribute to children’s inclusion, learning and wellbeing.

With all aspects of documenting children’s learning there are opportunities and challenges. We often hear that educators feel overwhelmed by the amount of documentation and are not sure about the best ways to document meaningful learning experiences, rather than just capturing what has happened during the day. It may be timely to review practices at your service to mitigate the challenges and maximise the opportunities.

The challenges

A digital portal, emails, social media and online newsletters are commonly used to share children’s photos or videos with families. Some services will often set a target for the number of digital items to be sent to families each day and educators will be expected to meet this.

Is this reflective of the digital age in which we live, where we have come to expect a constant stream of information? On the one hand, sharing each day with families what you capture provides them with the reassurance that their child is settled and happily engaged at the service. On the other hand, the images or videos that are shared may not be a true reflection about the child’s learning, play and time at the service.

To meet the challenge of providing a large number photos or videos – and particularly ones that are ‘picture perfect’ – an educator may end up choosing ‘clickable’ moments showing what has transpired, rather than the child in the context of their learning and development. As a consequence, other aspects of quality may also fall by the wayside, such as ensuring the images or videos serve as a springboard for meaningful conversations with families about their child’s learning and progress, and planning to extend children’s thinking and learning.

Another possible effect is that the dignity and rights of children may be impacted (Element 5.1.2) when numerous photos or videos are taken. The children’s voice may also be absent if they do not have the opportunity to consent to having their photo or video taken.

For families, multiple content each day can result in saturation. Consider at what point will the child’s family stop paying attention to what the child is learning and doing, and the images or video simply become a passing distraction.

For educators, there is a possibility that churning out photos and videos of each child may become a drain on their time, detracting from quality educator-child interactions which support children’s learning and development.

An educator’s role is also to model the respectful and moderate use of digital devices within a child’s routine, and their over-use to capture images and videos may send mixed messages to children.

The opportunity

A reset of the expectations around digital documentation for families is recommended. Involve all stakeholders – the service team, children, families and the community – in a reflection on what is needed, what is wanted and what is realistic for your service community and context.

Questions to explore

You can use the following questions as conversation starters at your next team or family meeting:

  • What parts of the program can be documented with a photo or video?
  • How does what we document contribute to the program and practice and the outcomes of the approved learning frameworks?
  • How can we ensure that we are respecting the rights of children and involve them in decision-making on documentation? For example, can we invite them to take the photos and videos of their play and experiences, or can we invite them to choose which ones we take?
  • How often should we document the children’s program and progress? Are photos and videos needed every day or is there an opportunity for ‘camera-free’ days?
  • What are the ways in which our families want to receive photos and videos of their child’s involvement in the program?
  • How do we ensure that we are meeting children’s individual needs while capturing their play and learning in the program?
  • How can we provide children with an opportunity to view and revisit their photos and videos?
  • How does our digital documentation of the program link to any paper-based documentation?

Continuous improvement

Quality, not quantity, is the old adage, and it rings true when it comes to documenting a child’s program and progress for families. Meaningful photos and videos that make learning visible are of far greater value than an overabundance of daily content.

As long as expectations are established at the outset, families will appreciate the quality and meaning of your rich documentation and the story that it tells about their child.

Resources to support your ongoing learning

  • The National Quality Framework: Documentation and linking with communities

For every child, every right

In this month’s blog, we look at the role of the National Children’s Commissioner and explore some of the projects and resources developed by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that are relevant to approved providers, coordinators, educators, teachers and staff members working in the children’s education and care sector. 

The Australian Human Rights Commission has welcomed the appointment of Ms Anne Hollonds as the new National Children’s Commissioner.

Ms Hollonds, who will commence her five-year appointment in November 2020, replaces inaugural National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell, who has served in the role for the past seven years.

The National Children’s Commissioner 

The Commonwealth Government established the National Children’s Commissioner position in 2012 to help promote the rights, wellbeing and development of children and young people in Australia, and ensure their voices, including those of the most vulnerable, are heard at the national level.

The Commissioner promotes public discussion and awareness of issues affecting children, conducts research and education programs, and consults directly with children and representative organisations. The role also examines relevant existing and proposed Commonwealth legislation to determine if it recognises and protects children’s human rights in Australia.

The work of the Commissioner complements the work conducted by state and territory children’s commissioners and guardians. The position sits within the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Australia’s national independent statutory body dealing with human rights.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was ratified in Australia in December 1990. The UNCRC is the main international human rights treaty on children’s rights, and as a party Australia has a duty to ensure that all children in Australia enjoy the rights set out in the treaty.

The UNCRC outlines the rights of children in international law. It contains 54 articles that cover all aspects of a child’s life and set out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that all children everywhere are entitled to.

The articles within the UNCRC are embedded within the objectives and guiding principles of the National Quality Framework (NQF). The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and the Framework for School Age Care (FSAC) also explicitly incorporate the UNCRC and children’s rights. Likewise, the Early Childhood Australia (ECA) Code of Ethics is based on the principles of the UNCRC.

Projects and resources for education and care services

The AHRC and the Commissioner have undertaken a number of major projects to draw attention to the human rights challenges facing children. Two projects, of particular relevance to the children’s education and care sector, are the:

  •  Child Safe Organisations project
  • Building Belonging toolkit of resources
Child Safe Organisations

As part of the Child Safe Organisations project, the Australian Government asked the Commissioner to lead the development of National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (the National Principles), released in February 2019.

Endorsed at the time by members of the Council of Australian Governments, the National Principles are based on the ten Child Safe Standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) that all organisations that engage in child-related work are required to implement. They are however broader in scope, going beyond sexual abuse to cover other forms of potential harm. The Principles aim to provide a nationally consistent approach to creating organisational cultures that foster child safety and wellbeing across all sectors in Australia.

The National Office for Child Safety, established in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, works with the Commissioner, states and territories and the non-government sector to coordinate national adoption of the National Principles.

All organisations that work, or come into contact, with children are encouraged to implement the National Principles to become a child safe organisation. This includes, but is not limited to, sport and recreation clubs, education and care services, schools, child and youth support services, and out-of-home care services.

Practical tools and training resources are available to help organisations implement the National Principles.

At present, compliance with the National Principles is not mandatory. However, organisations – including education and care services, are encouraged to adopt them to demonstrate leadership and commitment to child safety and wellbeing.

Food for thought…

Ensuring the safety, health and wellbeing of children is an objective of the NQF, and always a priority. Children’s education and care services play an important role in creating and maintaining safe and nurturing spaces that reinforce each child’s right to experience quality education and care in an environment that provides for their ongoing health and safety.

How might you adopt the National Principles to support best practice and advocate for children’s fundamental right to be protected and kept safe?

*Note: While the National Principles are broadly aligned with existing child safe approaches reflected in the NQF, education and care services must continue to comply with the NQF and meet existing legislative requirements in their state or territory in addition to their choice to comply with the National Principles. Links to state and territory child safe requirements and resources are available on the ACECQA website.

Building Belonging

Recognising that children’s education and care environments provide the ideal setting for children to begin learning about their rights and responsibilities, and to develop respect for those around them, the AHRC worked closely with the sector to develop ‘Building Belonging’.

Building Belonging is a toolkit of resources which includes an eBook, song with actions, educator guide, posters and lesson plans. The resources aim to provide educators with simple and practical ideas on how to handle challenging or confronting questions about racial differences, while also offering children stimulating activities and games to engage them with ideas around cultural diversity.

The toolkit has been designed to cater to both education and care and early primary school settings, developed to support the achievement of learning outcomes under the EYLF and the Australian Curriculum. The resources closely align with the National Quality Standard (NQS) and are linked to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Additionally, these resources support the fulfilment of children’s rights principles set out in the UNCRC.

The toolkit is a valuable resource that can be used to support Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) development and review. It can also assist educators in identifying current strengths and priorities for improvement when tackling the issues of cultural diversity and prejudice.

Food for thought…

Take a moment to consider if, or how, your service has accessed and used this resource in practice. Are there opportunities to incorporate, or extend on the use of this resource to support the development of cultural competence in your service?

Additional resources

The AHRC website promotes and provides a range of educational resources and materials aimed at building a universal culture and understanding of human rights. A recent news article, which may be of particular interest to education and care services, explores the potential effect the disruptions caused by COVID-19 may have on children and the important role educators, teachers, parents and carers play in supporting children’s mental and emotional wellbeing.

Throughout these unprecedented and uncertain times educators and service leaders have shown dedication, resilience and a commitment to continuing to deliver quality education and care to support children and their families. Every children’s education and care service makes ethical choices reflective of their values, and throughout the COVID-19 crisis it has been heartening to see the continued emphasis on the safety, health and wellbeing of children and their rights and best interests remaining paramount.

Thank you for your valued work for Australian children, families and communities during this challenging period.

Further resources

ACECQA – We Hear You – Building Belonging: A toolkit for early childhood educators on cultural diversity and responding to racial prejudice

ACECQA – Reporting requirements about children

Australian Government – The National Office for Child Safety

Australian Human Rights Commission – Child Safe Organisations

UNICEF – The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The child-friendly version

Exceeding the National Quality Standard with Be You: Part 2

In our last blog, Be You spoke to We Hear You about their national initiative for educators and how engagement with their program can help education and care services demonstrate the Exceeding National Quality Standard (NQS) themes. In this follow-up blog, Be You chats with ACECQA’s National Education Leader, Rhonda Livingstone, and shares some case studies from services that use their implementation of the Be You initiative as evidence towards the Exceeding NQS themes.

‘Wellbeing incorporates both physical and psychological aspects and is central to belonging, being and becoming. Without a strong sense of wellbeing, it is difficult to have a sense of belonging, to trust others and feel confident in being, and to optimistically engage in experiences that contribute to becoming’. (EYLF. Pg.33 & MTOP pg. 30)

Be You promotes mental health and wellbeing of children aged from the early years to 18. Led by Beyond Blue with delivery partners Early Childhood Australia and headspace, it offers educators evidence-based online professional learning and an effective whole-learning community approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Case study

Exceeding NQS Theme 1: Practice is embedded in service operations

Carey Bay Preschool in NSW has carried over some practices from previous KidsMatter engagement into their Be You Action Plan.

  • Educational Leader Melinda Lynch and educator Taylah Sullivan have included mental health actions in the service’s Quality Improvement Plan (QIP).
  • Nominated Supervisor Wendy March explains one practice captured in the service’s QIP in relation to Quality Area 4 element 4.2.2: Professional standards guide practice, interactions and relationships: “In our staff meetings, we continually reflect to ensure educators feel supported in their roles and discuss ways we can support one another.”

This is an example of one way that Carey Bay Preschool has embedded a commitment to the mental health and wellbeing of educators into service operations.

Case study

Exceeding NQS Theme 2: Practice is informed by critical reflection

Ruth Simpkins, Director of Griffith University Tallowood and Boronia Child Care Centres in QLD, regularly checks in with her Be You Consultant, Kathryn.

  • During their online check-in, they use the Be You Reflection Tool to engage in professional conversations and document current practices, policies and procedures that promote wellbeing at the two services. 
  • Opportunities for continuous improvement are also identified and Ruth engages her staff in weekly discussions about creating a mentally healthy learning community. 
  • The documentation in the Reflection Tool, the commitment of regular check-ins with a Be You Consultant, and weekly discussions with staff all demonstrate that practice at Tallowwood and Boronia is informed by critical reflection.

Case study

Exceeding NQS Theme 3: Practice is shaped by meaningful engagement with families and/or the community

The team at Hawthorn Early Learning in Victoria have reflected on the ‘Connect’ and ‘Include’ learning modules in the Mentally Healthy Communities domain of Be You.

They have acknowledged and celebrated their existing practice of having an annual event at a local park to welcome new families. Educators have also reflected upon the diversity of family structures and how this impacts on their daily communication practices.

Through Be You, the service has committed to action to ensure that their communication is inclusive. For example, the service is making a commitment to communication practices which include both parents in separated families.

Engaging with Be You Professional Learning modules can promote learning and critical reflection on practices which engage families effectively, sensitively and confidentially. This fosters the mental health of children and young people.

In conversations about module content, actions to promote meaningful engagement with families can be documented in a Be You Action Plan: practices already in place, as well as planned future actions.

Through Be You, the service has committed to action to ensure that their communication is inclusive.

Educators have also committed to actioning some new practices to help families connect to the early learning service and the wider community. For example – they have committed to learning the names of family members to more meaningfully greet and interact with them; regularly inviting families to attend music sessions and excursions, and linking families with child and mental health services.

Case study

Bringing it all together

Hillsong Child Care Centres in NSW and QLD are using Be You to embed, inform and shape practice across all seven quality areas of the NQS.

  • Debra Williams, National Compliance and Development Manager, is using the Be You Reflection tool as a source of reflective prompts for educators in their weekly self-assessment process, which focuses on individual elements of the NQS.
  • In this way, the Be You Reflection Tool is assisting staff and management to gather ‘theme indicators’- evidence about how the services feel they currently demonstrate the Exceeding NQS themes – and generate ideas for ways to continuously grow and improve.

Each service is unique, and these case studies provide examples of the ways services can demonstrate the Exceeding NSW themes in ways which are relevant to their specific service, context and community.

Smiling children with smiling staff member

Register to learn more

Registering your learning community for Be You is FREE and will provide access to Be You implementation tools and resources and the support of Be You Consultants. To learn more about how to connect Be You and the Exceeding NQS themes, book for one of the Essentials or National Check-In events.

Exceeding the National Quality Standard with Be You: Part 1

Children and educator playing indoors with fabric

This month Be You talks to We Hear You about their national initiative for educators and how engagement with their program can help education and care services to demonstrate the Exceeding National Quality Standard (NQS) themes.

Be You promotes mental health and wellbeing of children aged from the early years to 18. Led by Beyond Blue, with delivery partners Early Childhood Australia and headspace, it offers educators evidence-based online professional learning and an effective whole-learning community approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Exceeding National Quality Standard themes and Be You

Be You can support education and care services to reflect and demonstrate the three NQS Exceeding themes.

What are the Exceeding NQS themes?

A rating of Exceeding NQS means that the service is performing above and beyond the requirements of the NQS.  

The three Exceeding NQS themes are used to determine if approved education and care services exceed each of the fifteen NQS quality standards. Services must demonstrate these themes in practice for a standard to be rated as Exceeding NQS. The themes are:

1: Practice is embedded in service operations

2: Practice is informed by critical reflection

3: Practice is shaped by meaningful engagement with families and/or the community

This determination occurs during the assessment and rating process undertaken by state and territory regulatory authorities. Authorised officers use ‘observe’, ‘discuss’ and ‘sight’ techniques to gather evidence that is used to assess if the Exceeding NQS themes are evident in practice. All three themes must be demonstrated for a standard to be rated Exceeding NQS.

How can Be You support services with the demonstration of the Exceeding NQS themes?

Be You has shared some examples of ways it can help services to reflect and demonstrate the three Exceeding NQS themes.

  • Participation in Be You involves positive professional learning actions to support the mental health and wellbeing of children (NQS Standard 2.1) and staff (NQS Standards 4.1 and 4.2).

Participation also involves embedding these actions within service policies, procedures and practices. Through Be You, high quality practices can be established, sustained and consistently implemented, and this can support the demonstration of Exceeding NQS Theme 1 – Practice is embedded in service operations.

  • Critical reflection is a very important part of the Be You implementation process.

Be You has a variety of implementation tools which serve as triggers for, and ways of documenting, critical reflection. For example, when promoting children’s mental health and wellbeing, the Be You Reflection Tool, Action Plan or Always Be You Learning Map could provide supporting evidence to demonstrate Exceeding Theme 2 – Practice is informed by critical reflection for Standard 2.1. These tools will also support educators and teams in their ongoing reflective practice for all standards.  Critical reflection is also central to Standard 1.3 and a key pedagogical principle of the approved learning frameworks.

The three learning modules within the family partnerships domain can help services identify meaningful ways to engage with families. Be You surveys can also assist in canvassing families’ voices as to how well the service supports them to feel welcome and have a sense of belonging and connection.  Reflection on the modules and survey results can be used together to identify areas for growth in communication and relationships with families.

This could then be used to demonstrate Exceeding Theme 3 – Practice is shaped by meaningful engagement with families and/or the community for particular standards.

Register to learn more

It’s FREE to register your learning community with Be You and gain access to the program’s implementation tools and resources and the support of Be You Consultants. To learn more about how to connect to Be You and the Exceeding NQS themes, book for one of the Essentials or National Check-In events.

In our follow-up NEL blog, we’ll share some case studies from education and care services that could help in your understanding of the connection between engagement with Be You and the demonstration of the Exceeding NQS themes.

What does it mean to be ‘Working Towards’ the National Quality Standard?

This content was originally published in Belonging Early Years Journal, please click here for more information and to access the original.

In November, ACECQA released its 27th NQF Snapshot, analysing the performance of services against the National Quality Standard (NQS). Gabrielle Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer at ACECQA discusses what it means to be rated Working Towards NQS.

Of all the quality ratings, it is the ‘Working Towards’ rating that generates most media attention and discussion. Put simply, is the rating a failure or not?

The Education and Care Services National Law and National Regulations govern the minimum standards and requirements that all providers of regulated services must meet in order to operate. The National Quality Standard is then used by all state and territory regulatory authorities to assess and rate services.

To be rated Meeting NQS, all elements across each of the seven quality areas must be met. This means that a service may be rated Working Towards NQS based on not meeting a single element or not meeting all elements.

Looking beyond the overall rating provides a much better idea of a service’s performance. The figure below provides the breakdown of the number of elements not met for the approximately 3100 services rated Working Towards NQS.

Approaching 1000 services (31%) are rated Working Towards NQS based on not meeting three or fewer elements of quality, with almost 300 of these services not meeting just a single element.

At the other end of the spectrum, more than 300 services (11%) are rated Working Towards NQS having not met 20 or more elements of quality.

By examining the element level performance of services rated Working Towards NQS, we get a much better idea of what, and how much, work needs to be done, and how close services are to meeting the high standard set by the NQS.

Returning to my original question, a rating of Working Towards NQS is not a failure, not least of all because the quality assessment and rating process is not designed as a pass-fail system. It is not a test that governments adjudicate and provide a pass or fail mark.

Rather, it is a process that examines a broad range of quality measures and encourages reflection and continuous improvement. It also recognises high performance, as evidenced by the fact that almost 300 services rated Working Towards NQS overall receive a rating of Exceeding NQS for one or more of the seven quality areas.

An objective of the NQF is to promote continuous quality improvement. With more than 8000 reassessments undertaken, there is increasingly strong evidence that the sector has embraced and embodied this objective. This is typified by the fact that around two-thirds of services rated Working Towards NQS improve their quality rating following a reassessment.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day

ACECQA’s National Education Leader, Rhonda Livingstone shares her insight into National Quality Framework topics of interest. 

August 4 is National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day. This is an important chance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to celebrate their children, and for non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to reflect on how they acknowledge, celebrate and learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and cultures.

This year’s Children’s Day recognises the important role that family, community, country and culture play in the lives and development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

The theme this year is “We play. We learn. We belong.”

We play on our land.

We learn from our ancestors.

We belong with our communities.

About National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day has been held on 4 August every year since bicentennial protests were held in 1988 and was established to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their unique and ongoing connection to their culture and country.

Thirty years on, the 2018 Australian Early Childhood Development Census shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are significantly more likely than the broader population to start school developmentally vulnerable in one or more areas. We know that starting school developmentally vulnerable is linked to poorer economic, education and health outcomes later in life. We also know that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, being able to participate in culturally safe education and care environments matters.

Children’s Day and the National Quality Framework

At ACECQA, we acknowledge that Australia is an ancient land that has been cared for by Traditional Custodians for many tens of thousands of years and includes educating and caring for children.

A guiding principle of the National Quality Framework (NQF) is that Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are valued. High quality children’s education and care has an important role to play in ‘Closing the Gap’ on the ongoing disadvantage experienced in many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

In thinking about Children’s Day and what it represents, we encourage you to go further in your reflections than just this one day. Use this opportunity to reflect on how your service embeds and integrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into these five P’s: philosophy, practice, program, procedures and policy. Think about how your service connects with local communities in a reciprocal relationship, and supports all children to develop positive attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, languages, history and connection to country.

How can we celebrate Children’s Day?

There are a range of ways you could acknowledge and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day either on 4 August or the surrounding days. You could consider holding an event at your service, programming special Children’s Day acknowledgements/activities or attending a local community event.

When thinking about how you might celebrate Children’s Day, you might want to think about:

  • How Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives might be incorporated into your educational program and practice, and how children might be given opportunities to experience and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures?
  • How you support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children attending your service to be proud of and involved in their culture? How you support non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to develop cultural competence and respect for Australia’s first peoples and cultures?
  • How does your service connect with your local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community?
  • Does your service have a Reconciliation Action Plan in place? For more information about Reconciliation Plans, visit Reconciliation Australia’s website.

For more information, resources and ideas about how you might celebrate National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day, visit the Children’s Day website.

Further reading and resources to support your learning journey

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s day – Resources

ACECQA We Hear You Blog Posts

SNAICC – National Voice for our Children – Resources

Narragunnawali – Professional learning resources to share and build your understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.

Reconciliation Australia – Share our Pride – an online glimpse into the lives and cultures of Australia’s First People.

Each child, every child – building positive relationships and supportive environments

ACECQA’s National Education Leader, Rhonda Livingstone shares her insight into National Quality Framework topics of interest. 

As a new year starts, children, educators and staff are returning from breaks, new families are joining education and care services, and children are transitioning between groups, rooms or service types. It’s often a busy period of adjustment and organisation – and a significant time for building relationships, and creating learning environments where each child can feel included and supported.

Why do educator-child relationships matter?

Research shows that high quality educator to child relationships and interactions are key elements to create a quality education and care environment. These are significant influences on children’s social and emotional development – actively contributing to positive learning, development, wellbeing and future life outcomes.

Developing relationships with children is an important component of the National Quality Standard (NQS). Quality Area 5 focuses on educators developing responsive, warm, trusting and respectful relationships with children that promote their wellbeing, self-esteem, sense of security and belonging.

Respectful relationships with children and families help educators find out more about each child’s strengths, ideas, culture, capabilities and interests. This knowledge supports provision of responsive learning environments and quality child-centred educational programs and practices. This maximises opportunities to enhance each child’s learning and development.

When children experience nurturing and respectful relationships with educators they develop an understanding of themselves as competent, capable and respected, and feel a sense of belonging. This helps children feel safe, secure, and included, and helps them grow confidence to play, explore and learn. Gaining each child’s trust and making an effort to get to know them well is an ongoing process of relationship building, and extends far beyond simply being friendly.

Building respectful, trusting educator-child relationships

A new year brings the opportunity to critically reflect on how respectful, trusting educator-child relationships are developed and maintained within your education and care service. Evaluating the success of your existing policies, procedures and practices can help identify and affirm strengths and highlight possible improvements to better support each child to feel secure, confident and included.

Regularly revisiting requirements and key guidance documents helps ensure these strengths of your service remain a priority and grow stronger over time.

Where to start?   

These key guidance documents provide valuable suggestions for educators as they develop responsive, warm, trusting and respectful relationships with children.

The Education and Care Services National Regulations require education and care services to have policies and procedures about interactions with children (reg. 155, 156 and 168). The start of a new year is a good time to review and evaluate how your policies are reflected in service practices, and how they actively promote relationships with children that are responsive, respectful and support children’s sense of security and belonging. For example, how your service’s policies are informed by your service’s philosophy, and guide its enrolment and orientation procedures.

The Guide to the National Quality Framework (NQF) is designed to help education and care providers, service leaders, educators and authorised officers understand and apply NQF. The guidance for the Standards and Elements within Quality Area 5 provide valuable suggestions for the way that educators can work with children to support their current wellbeing and their future development. The ‘questions to guide reflection’ are a useful tool for reviewing and evaluating your current practice.

National approved learning frameworks support education and care services’ reflections on how the elements, principles, practice and learning outcomes guide knowledge and practice.

Early Childhood Australia’s (ECA’s) Code of Ethics provides a framework for reflection on ethical responsibilities of education and care professionals, and a collection of statements offering guidance about educators’ practice and relationships with children.

Reflective questions to inspire conversations with your team

  • What are all the ways that you get to know each child well?
  • How do children demonstrate a sense of belonging, security and comfort?
  • How does your service help children form secure attachments with educators? (e.g. primary caregiving groups/key educator system, orientation, settling in procedures)
  • Does your service philosophy support a commitment to building relationships with children? How does this inform your service policies, procedures and everyday practice?

Further reading and resources

ACECQA – Information Sheet – Relationships with children

We Hear You – Responsive, respectful relationships

Playing your part in child protection

ChildProtection_wehearyou

ACECQA’s National Education Leader, Rhonda Livingstone provides insight into National Quality Framework topics of interest.

Child abuse and neglect is preventable. If we all work together as a community we can create an Australia where all children can grow up safe and well. What role can you play in supporting children and their families? ~ Richard Cooke, CEO, NAPCAN

According to the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Child Protection Australia 2016– 17 report, the number of children receiving child protection services continues to rise. Around 168,000 children received child protection services in 2016-2017 which equates to one in every 32 children. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were seven times more likely to receive child protection services than non-Indigenous children. The report also highlights that the majority of children in the child protection system are repeat clients.

The National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) invites us all to get involved with National Child Protection Week this week and play a part in creating safe and nurturing environments for all Australian children. Held annually, and commencing on Father’s Day each September, National Child Protection Week (Sunday 2 – Saturday 8 September this year) reminds us that we all have a role in protecting children from harm. By building stronger communities, we can create safer environments for our children.

The National Quality Framework (NQF) recognises the importance of creating safe environments for every child. From the National Law and Regulations to the National Quality Standard (NQS), creating and maintaining safe and nurturing environments for all children is recognised as quality practice, guiding us as we play our part in protecting children from harm.

Creating safe and nurturing environments

Creating safe environments within education and care settings is sometimes complex and challenging. Many of us are confident in our ability to create and design learning spaces with children that nurture the development of the individual child and fulfil their curiosity. We strive to ensure children are supervised as they play and relax in a variety of settings, from our homes to school settings. However, it is sometimes harder to build our capacity to respond confidently and to challenge our thinking about how we support the ongoing health, safety and wellbeing of every child.

Quality Area 2 – Children’s health and safety, reinforces each child’s right to experience quality education and care in an environment that provides for their ongoing health and safety.  Element 2.2.3 requires that management, educators and staff be aware of their roles and responsibilities to identify and respond to every child at risk of abuse or neglect.

Under Section 162A of the Education and Care National Law, the approved provider has the responsibility of ensuring that each nominated supervisor and each person in day-to-day charge of the service has successfully completed child protection training, if required in their state or territory.

The approved provider also has the responsibility of ensuring that the nominated supervisors and staff members at the service are advised of the existence and application of the current child protection law and that they understand any obligations they may have under that law (Education and Care Services National Regulations, r 84).

Are you a mandatory reporter?

Across Australia, state and territory legislation prescribes occupations that are mandated to report a child at risk of abuse or neglect. Those who frequently deal with children in the course of their work, such as education and care professionals, are usually mandatory reporters.

For more information on the legal provisions and your role as a mandatory reporter, head to: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect.

What does mandatory reporting mean?

Mandatory reporting is a strategy that acknowledges the prevalence, seriousness and often hidden nature of child abuse and neglect. It enables the detection of cases that otherwise may not come to the attention of agencies. The laws help to create a culture that is more child-centred and build a community that will not tolerate serious abuse and neglect of children.

Research has shown that mandated reporters make a substantial contribution to child protection and family welfare.

Child Safe Organisations Project

As part of the Child Safe Organisations Project and commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services, Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell, is leading the development of National Principles for Child Safe Organisations. The National Principles are intended to apply to all organisations, including education and care services across Australia. They are due to be endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments in mid-to late 2018.

The National Principles reflect ten Child Safe Standards recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, with a broader scope that goes beyond sexual abuse to cover other forms of potential harm. The National Principles aim to drive the implementation of a child safe culture across all sectors, providing services to children and young people to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children and young people across Australia.

Organisations should be safe and welcoming for all children and young people. The National Principles highlight ways in which organisations should consider the needs of children from diverse backgrounds and circumstances. The principles emphasise the importance of culturally safe environments and practices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.

The National Principles collectively show that a child safe organisation is one that creates a culture, adopts strategies and takes action to promote child wellbeing and prevent harm to children and young people. This may begin with the development of your service philosophy and policies and procedures, which underpin and lead to, the creation of ongoing quality practices. These practices, informed by critical reflection and meaningful engagement with families and community members, allow educators and staff to proactively identify and respond confidently to issues related to the safety and protection of children attending the service.

A child safe organisation consciously and systematically:

  • creates an environment where children’s safety and wellbeing is the centre of thought, values and actions
  • emphasises genuine engagement with, and valuing of, children
  • creates conditions that reduce the likelihood of harm to children and young people
  • creates conditions that increase the likelihood of identifying any harm
  • responds to any concerns, disclosures, allegations or suspicions of harm.

Let’s all be a part of National Child Protection Week

NCPW_2018To get involved with National Child Protection Week, you can:

  • Check out the NAPCAN website for events in your area or plan an event at your service. Some examples of events you could consider for your service include:
    – a display made collaboratively by children and educators
    – a shared meal at your service
    – attending a local forum supporting child safety, or
    – joining in with a local family to support services fundraiser.
  • Encourage your families and staff to attend an event being held in your local community.
  • Make your influence positive; start a conversation today with your colleagues and families about listening to and valuing the voice of children and young people. What might this look like within your service?

Reflective questions

  • How do you inform families and community members about the service’s role and responsibility in protecting children?
  • How do new employees become informed about child protective measures that your service has in place?
  • How are the Exceeding NQS themes reflected in your practices for Quality Area 2?
  • Does your philosophy reflect your service’s child safe practices?
  • Is your service a child safe organisation?

Further reading and resources

ACECQA – Reporting requirements about children. Guidance on the different reporting requirements under the National Law and Regulations.

NAPCAN – free downloadable resources to share with families, staff and children.

Australian Institute of Family Studies website – provides information on Children’s Commissioners and Guardians in each state and territory.

Australian Human Rights Commission – Building Belonging is a comprehensive toolkit of resources for promoting child safety and inclusion.

Australian Human Rights Commission – Child Safe Organisations: Tools and resources.

Australian Institute of Family Studies – Child Protection Legislation Resource Sheet 2018

Developing Narragunnawali Reconciliation Action Plans and Exceeding the National Quality Standard

Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs) are formal statements of commitment to reconciliation that provide a framework for actively valuing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contributions. But how can your service’s RAP also allow you to effectively engage with the National Quality Standard (NQS) and the three Exceeding NQS themes? Reconciliation Australia talks to We Hear You about a number of approaches and strategies.

One of the six guiding principles of the National Quality Framework (NQF) is that Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are valued within and across children’s education and care environments. New guidance on determining the Exceeding National Quality Standard (NQS) rating provides scope for this principle to be holistically embedded and meaningfully informed by critical reflection and family and/or community engagement.

Reconciliation Australia’s Narragunnawali: Reconciliation in Schools and Early Learning program was developed precisely to support educational environments to foster a higher level of knowledge and pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contributions. The Narragunnawali online platform is free to access and has a range of features – including an extensive suite of professional learning and curriculum resources – to support the development, implementation and management of Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs).

Narragunnawali RAPs provide early learning and outside school hours care services, as well as primary and secondary school communities, with a practical framework for action and for driving positive, whole-scale change. There are 39 RAP Actions that you can choose to commit to, each with accompanying information and resources to guide learning, planning and implementation processes. How your service engages with each of the RAP Actions may also be a way to demonstrate Exceeding NQS practice and the Exceeding NQS themes.

Theme 1: Practice is embedded in service operations

Institutional integrity represents one of the five integral and interrelated dimensions of reconciliation in Australia. As such, the Narragunnawali RAP framework provides a holistic and whole-scale framework for fostering relationships, respect and opportunities not only in the school classroom but also education and care services and with the community.

Enacting institutional integrity by committing to reconciliation initiatives within teaching, learning and curricula, as part of the wider ethos within the service gates as well as across community links beyond the service gates helps ensure reconciliation is everyone’s business and for everyone’s benefit. In so doing, it provides a practical platform for demonstrating everyday, embedded practice.

Exploring and engaging with the range of Narragunnawali RAP Actions can support your whole-of-service approach to reconciliation, with each Action contributing to the development of strong relationships, respect and opportunities in and around education and care services, schools and with the community.

Reconciliation Australia’s Narragunnawali: Reconciliation in Schools and Early Learning

Theme 2: Practice is informed by critical reflection

Critical reflection is a core and consistent component of developing and implementing a Narragunnawali RAP.

One of the first steps in commencing or refreshing a Narragunnawali RAP involves responding to an internal Reflection Survey. The Reflection Survey is designed to provide a snapshot of the current state of reconciliation within your individual service and, in turn, guide careful and critical thinking around the next most meaningful steps in your service’s reconciliation journey.

Beyond the Reflection Survey, educators can continue to engage in ongoing critical reflection through accessing the suite of Action-aligned professional learning resources available on the Narragunnawali platform. A couple of examples include:

Critical learning and reflection at the professional level are important steps toward informing and inspiring good practice with children. For example, developing an awareness of the importance of critical evaluation among educators and staff can ultimately effect curriculum planning, resourcing and practice in non-tokenistic, culturally safe and contextually responsive ways.

You can browse the full suite of professional learning and curriculum resources on the Narragunnawali platform to stimulate critical reflection and complement your RAP development/implementation process:

Theme 3: Practice is shaped by meaningful engagement with families and/or the community

‘Relationships’ represent one of the three fundamental pillars of the RAP framework and building relationships with community is one of the 14 minimally required RAP Actions necessary for driving change in a whole-scale sense.

Working relationships between children’s education and care services and local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and community members should be built on trust, mutual respect and inclusiveness. Communication, collaboration and consultation are also key to establishing and extending successful transformational relationships rather than short-term ‘transactional’ relationships. For guidance on demonstrating meaningful engagement with families and/or the community, see:

As well as meaningfully engaging with your local community, educators can meaningfully engage with a national community of practice, dedicated to driving reconciliation action, by signing up to Narragunnawali, sharing news stories, and exchanging learnings and inspiration through actively exploring features such as the Narragunnawali Awards page, Webinar program and interactive Who has a RAP? map.

Are you committed to advancing reconciliation in education, all the while Exceeding the National Quality Standard? Head to the Narragunnawali platform to learn more!

~o~

Narragunnawali (pronounced narra-gunna-wally) is a word from the language of the Ngunnawal people, Traditional Owners of the land on which Reconciliation Australia’s Canberra office is located, meaning alive, wellbeing, coming together and peace. We are very grateful to the United Ngunnawal Elders Council for giving us permission to use the word Narragunnawali.

The hardest question in early childhood: Raising the profile

ACECQA’s General Manager, Strategy, Communications and Consistency, Michael Petrie, explores the importance of early childhood education and care and reflects on the communication challenges impacting the public value of the sector and its educators.

Educators always ask a lot of questions.

At a recent workforce conference on the importance of quality vocational training in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector I was asked a number of questions about changes to the National Quality Framework (NQF) and National Quality Standard (NQS), the rate of assessment and rating of services across the country, plus the ongoing training provided to the jurisdiction-based authorised officers who make those assessments.

All good questions.

However, there was one question which I found the most difficult to provide a clear answer to: “Why aren’t early childhood educators valued in Australia given the importance of the early years in the development of children?”. This issue has come up in multiple forums where my colleagues and I have spoken on the subject of the ECEC workforce.

Now, everyone reading this article will probably have an opinion on the above question. And I think there are multiple factors at play here. However, I want to focus on a high-level factor which I believe significantly influences how the public perceives and values ECEC. And it relates to the communication ‘messages’ the Australian community receives, or doesn’t receive, about ECEC.

In this regard, I want to focus on three key communication challenges I see impacting on the profile of the ECEC sector in Australia and, by association, the public value of early childhood educators.

The challenges

The first challenge is that the overarching narrative in the media and community tends to reinforce the concept of ECEC predominantly being about workforce participation and the high-level language used about the system infers it is about having your child ‘cared for’ or ‘looked after’.

For the benefit of national productivity, there is absolutely no doubt getting parents back into the workplace is a critically important outcome and the provision of subsidies, whatever the quantum, greatly assists in achieving this.

However, this is a short-term economic argument and neglects that the billions of dollars in investment being made in ECEC also has a medium to long-term economic benefit for the country – it develops children’s social and communication skills, helps them learn about and interact with the world around them, assists in the early identification and intervention options for children who are experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage, and ultimately, it provides a critical transition step for entry into primary school.

Unfortunately, there is no agreed or consistent message for the Australian public which reinforces these benefits of ECEC. Nor is there any national message for new parents regarding the importance of brain development in the first five years and the role that they as first teachers, or ECEC, can play in this phase of a child’s life. And for the economically minded within our society, who often question the level of taxpayer investment in ECEC, there is no reference or targeted messaging about the medium to long-term return on this investment for the nation. Perhaps we can do more in this area and highlight the arguments of scholars like American economist and Nobel Laureate Professor James Heckman who has argued that a dollar invested in an ECEC program can return itself more than six times.

Secondly, if it is not a workforce participation matter, the narrative tends to focus on the perceived problems associated with the regulatory system and the NQF rather than any positive contribution the ECEC sector makes to our children and society.

As we all know, bad news sells and as a sector we can be our own worst enemy in highlighting issues which are great material for news outlets. This in turn leads to the Australian community only reading or hearing about problems and issues with ECEC and the NQF, instead of the progress being made and the positives being achieved by the national quality system.

For example, ACECQA’s four regulatory burden surveys have consistently highlighted over 95% of the sector supports the NQF. So why is it then we tend to turn small administrative matters into some form of crisis that leads to a nationally syndicated news article or segment on the nightly television news? All this does is perpetuate negative connotations in the public mind about the NQF and the ECEC sector.

Finally, research that ACECQA and governments have done over the past few years has highlighted there is a language challenge between what parents think and want from early childhood, versus how we communicate with them as a sector.

Since the introduction of the NQF in 2012, a great deal of work has been undertaken with the sector and governments to communicate and educate on the national regulatory system. This has been critically important given we replaced nine different jurisdictional systems and evolved to one national law and set of regulations for ECEC.

However, ACECQA’s inaugural Annual Performance Report to the COAG Education Council highlights the challenge we all continue to have in communicating with parents.  As a sector we have tended to use professional terms like programming and practice, scaffolding, pedagogy, quality and, dare I say it, ‘education’, when communicating with parents. Many parents don’t readily relate to this terminology and, in some cases, they actually find the terms incompatible with what they expect to occur in the birth to five age group. They prefer happy, safe, playing, growing and learning. The research would suggest it is as children move into the year before formal schooling starts that most parents start to really engage and think about ‘education’ and ‘school readiness’.

We know how important language is in reaching and engaging with new parents. On ACECQA’s Starting Blocks website, we took the decision a few years ago to use the term ‘child care’ on our home page. We did this because we knew from research that this was the term parents and the community readily associated with and would therefore engage with. It is not ideal and we would like to be in a position to only use terms like ‘early learning’ or ECEC. However, our view is that at this point in time, it is more important to have new parents interact with the site and receive information about ECEC and the NQF, rather than not engage simply because they don’t initially understand what we are talking about.

Once parents move within the site, Starting Blocks deliberately introduces terms to educate the reader and reinforce alternative terms such as ‘early learning’ and ‘early childhood education and care’. However, while parents continue to hear the term ‘child care’ being used via our media and in the community, changing the terminology in Australia will be a gradual process – but it is important to work towards this outcome.

The impact

At this point, I am sure you are wondering how these communication challenges impact on the original question about the lack of public recognition and value of early childhood educators.

Well, they have a direct impact.

If the messages being delivered and received by the broader community about ECEC are negative in tone, this in turn means there is no additional public value being created. Therefore, the community will not fully engage and educate itself to understand the importance of early learning for their children, nor the role that ECEC plays in development and supporting families and communities. This means we will not get to a point where the public values the system enough to demand continued improvement and investment in all aspects of the system, including the workforce and its educators.

Moving forward

So, how can we create a ‘step change’ in thinking regarding the broader public value in ECEC?

There is no doubt it will continue to take time. However, with the national system now embedded across the country there is an opportunity for us all to re-frame the high-level messages we want the Australian public to hear and, ultimately, understand about ECEC. Collectively we can start by:

  • focusing on positive messages, whether social or economic, to the appropriate audience that promote the benefits of ECEC for children and our society
  • partnering with each other, to stretch our limited resources, in commissioning research and developing campaigns to raise the profile of ECEC
  • re-framing our language when communicating with the community about the NQF and the NQS so they can start to appreciate how it will help parents and children
  • acknowledging where we have issues and concerns but pausing and thinking about the impact to the broader agenda of creating public recognition and value in ECEC before choosing to make public comments on secondary issues.

For our part, ACECQA will continue broadening our communication activities beyond the sector and continue to explore new channels where we can provide more information directly to parents. We already do this in a number of ways:

  • via a dedicated family website (Starting Blocks), posting on social media, engaging bloggers, attending and speaking at conferences and exhibitions
  • partnering with non-sector related groups, like Maternal and Child Health Nurses Associations and Playgroups, to provide information to families not yet in the ECEC sector and inform them of the benefits and choices available to them
  • introducing NQS rating logos so services can promote their rating to the community (to date, over 3000 services across the country have signed up to this scheme)
  • actively promoting the information of other relevant organisations, so we can help get information about early childhood into families and the community
  • undertaking and releasing more and more analysis and research reports on the NQF and the sector.

In 2018, we will continue to focus on parents and look to new initiatives for communicating the benefits of early learning plus the key aspects of the NQS in everyday language they will connect with.

There is a lot more that can be done by all of us to raise the profile and value of early childhood educators in this country. Getting the high level communication and messaging focused on the benefits of quality ECEC might just be the first step in raising public value.