Rattler magazine issue 116, 2015

ABORIGINAL CHILDREN MISS OUT RETHINKING EDUCATION EMBRACING RISKY PROGRAMS DEMYSTIFYING MATHS + MORE

COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE QUARTERLY JOURNAL 116 SUMMER 2015

Rattler is published quarterly by Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW) and funded by subscriptions and sponsorship revenue.

CEO, Community Child Care Co-operative Leanne Gibbs Editorial Committee Lisa Bryant, Marie Deverill, Leanne Gibbs, Camille Howard, Eddy Jokovich, Gerard Moon, Wendy Shepherd.

Managing Editor Eddy Jokovich (02) 9310 4955 Journalist/Assistant Editor Camille Howard Art Director Deborah Kelly Production ARMEDIA Printing Pegasus Print Group Contributors Kerry Bradley, Lisa Bryant, Neville Dwyer, Julie Green, Camille Howard, Tony Kee. Contributions: By publishing a range of opinions, Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW) hopes to stimulate professional development and discussion. You can contact the CEO or Managing Editor to discuss your ideas or send in an outline of your article.

Copyright is normally held jointly by the publisher and the author. We reserve the right to edit submitted material.

Copying: Please email for permission to copy or reproduce any article or part thereof.

Subscriptions (02) 8922 6444 Annual subscription to Rattler $80.00 (4 issues).

THANKS Community Child Care Co-operative gratefully acknowledges the support of Microsoft Corporation in providing Community Child Care with free software under their Community Assistance Initiative.

Registered by Australia Post Print Post Publication No 255003/04732 ISSN 0819-9132 ©2015 Community Child Care Co-operative.

Disclaimer The opinions expressed in Rattler are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW).

Office and Postal Address Addison Road Community Centre, Building 21, 142 Addison Road, Marrickville NSW 2204 Phone (02) 8922 6444 Fax (02) 8922 6445 Email info@ccccnsw.org.au Web www.ccccnsw.org.au Facebook www.facebook.com/

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editorial H

ere is your final Rattler for 2015, and once again we’re left asking where the year has gone and what has really happened.

It’s been a year packed with activity for early childhood education and care. The stepping-off point for the sector was when Scott Morrison was named as our new Minister, and early childhood education was corralled into the federal Social Services portfolio. There were new government logos, new proposed programs following the Productivity Commission report, and announcements of program closures.

Now, here we are at the conclusion of the year; we’re back in the federal education portfolio with another new Minister (Senator Simon Birmingham), with new hope and optimism to boot!

It’s been a year full of change for our policy and decision makers, yet Community Child Care Co-operative’s mission to uphold every child’s right to a high quality early childhood education has not wavered. This mission is carried by a dedicated and committed sector, people who use their innovation and creativity every day to inspire their teams and to deliver great programs. Once again, this issue of Rattler highlights this amazing work that educators, managers and leaders undertake every day.

As is customary at this time of year, the Rattler and Community Child Care teams wish you an exciting end of the year and a wonderful start to 2016. We applaud you and your teams, as you watch the children you work with move rooms, go off to school and continue learning on your watch. And we wish you much happiness for the end of the year, as you observe your religious and cultural celebrations, spend time with family and, hopefully, take a break. We’ll be back next year taking more steps on the early childhood education and care journey with you, and shining a light on the work and dedication of the sector.

Best wishes, Leanne Gibbs CEO, Community Child Care Co-operative

COVER: artwork by Alima H Nufus 2 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

in this issue THE LOWDOWN

Your guide to what’s up, who’s where, and how you can get involved.

REIMAGINING EDUCATION

4

VOX POPS

22

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

28

6

DON’T BE TOO CAREFUL!

24

BOOKWORM

30

A new approach to education has helped children (and families) re-engage with learning in a disadvantaged South Australian school.

KIMBERLEY DIARY

16

FAMILY DYNASTY

19

One educator’s story of the challenges and rewards of managing a service in remote Western Australia.

PHOTOGRAPHY: BRONWYN MCNALLY / AMANDA JAMES

Growing up in and around the sector has fostered a passion for the early years that spans three generations.

SPECIAL FEATURE 10

Rattler 115 Summer 2015

Our current systems of funding for Aboriginal children are unsustainable and just don’t work. So how do we get it right?

Teachers and stakeholders discuss the upcoming teacher accreditation system.

A philosophy of embracing risk is setting children up for life at Dorothy Waide Centre for Early Learning.

FACE2FACE

27

Dr Marina Papic shares her passion for mathematics and improving numeracy in the early years.

Raising Children Network offers valuable tools for services to help build relationships with families.

A preview of what’s new on the shelves.

THE

Lowdown who

what

why

CHILDHOOD STRESS IMPACTS ADULT HEALTH

A 45-year study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology has found that psychological trauma in childhood increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.

The new study found that of the 7,000 participants born in a single week in the UK in 1958, those who suffered persistent distress throughout their lives had the highest risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

Additionally, the research revealed that even when conditions improved in adulthood, participants were still at risk of heart disease or diabetes later in life.

“This highlights the potentially lasting impact of childhood distress on adult physical health,” says lead author Ashley Winning, from the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health.

Early prevention and intervention strategies, Ms Winnings suggests, should be focused not only on the child but also on his or her social circumstances to possibly reduce the long-lasting harmful effects of stress.

what’s on

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS NATIONAL PLAY & PLAYWORK CONFERENCE

4–5 March 2016 Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre www.malarkeyon.com.au/ conference ILLUSTRATION: DEBORAH KELLY

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL EARLY LITERACY SUMMIT 7–8 March 2016 Hotel Realm, Canberra, ACT www.alia.org.au/events

SETTLING REFUGEE CHILDREN & FAMILIES INTO OUR CHILDREN’S SERVICES

24 June 2016 Hosted by Ethnic Community Services Co-operative and Children’s Services Central—stay tuned for more details

ECA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

5–8 October 2016 Darwin Convention Centre Northern Territory www.ecaconference.com.au 4 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

Kinderling radio, Australia’s first digital radio station for children (and grown-ups), is a 24-hour digital radio channel reflecting Australian culture, society and natural habitat.

Kinderling broadcasts music and stories that are designed to fit your child and their routine. And for adults, catch up on current news and events, share stories and hear advice from expert presenters.

Stream it live, and free, from www.kinderling.com.au or tune in through your digital radio. The website also features additional information and links to catch up on missed episodes.

Delegates from South Korea on their visit to Amarina Early Learning Centre, Airds.

ONE STEP AHEAD

Magic Yellow Bus turns 40!

In 1975, an old, green doubledecker bus made its first appearance in local parks, providing preschool and after school and vacation activities, such as arts, crafts, cooking, games and a toy library.

One night, tractor manufacturer Waugh & Josephson painted the bus bright yellow, prompting the local children to proclaim it’s magical powers, and thus beginning a 40-year legacy of entertaining thousands of children in Sydney’s inner west.

Launched by community based organisation Kids Activities Newtown, through funding from the Department of Family and Community Services, the much-loved icon is the oldest known mobile children’s service in NSW. Marrickville Council has been managing the service since 1993.

It has survived fire and vandalism, funding cuts and a few transformations over the years, as well as winning awards for promoting the importance of play and children’s right to access play opportunities within the local community.

Happy birthday!

At Rattler, we like to think we’re ahead of the curve when it comes to presenting our news and feature articles each issue.

For example, we’ve featured many amazing early education and care services in our coalface section, some of which have gone on to achieve an Excellent rating, including Amarina Early Learning Centre, Airds, and Globe Wilkins Preschool, Marrickville.

For Amarina, run by Campbelltown City Council in Sydney’s south west, being recognised as a centre of excellence has also garnered international attention. Earlier this year, the service played host to a delegation of 32 officials from the South Korean Central Support Center for Child Care, pictured above.

The delegates visited Amarina to gain an understanding of its quality education and care delivery, and to consider strategies for their childcare provision in Korea The centre was the first service in NSW to be awarded the Excellent rating, as well as the first council-operated service in Australia to receive the rating.

Congratulations, also, to other Community Child Care Co-operative members that have received an Excellent rating: Albury Preschool, Jumbunna Community Preschool (Casino), Albury OOSH, St Luke’s Preschool (Dapto) and Clarendon Children’s Centre (Melbourne).

SURVEY SAYS

Facing recruitment or retention challenges?

Want to know what your staff might be thinking?

Randstad Education surveyed 600 employers and professionals in the early childhood education sector for its early childhood World of Work report. Here are some key findings: ◆ J ust 22% of employees plan to leave their job in the next 12 months (compared to 36% across all Australian industries). ◆F or educators intending to leave their job in the coming months, the main reasons are lack of opportunity for growth and advancement (40%) and poor

work/life balance (26%). and development rank ahead of remuneration to ensure employees will stay with their employer in the year ahead. ◆4 0% of employees look for flexible work arrangements, though 37% of employers rate their performance in offering flexibility as average or poor. ◆F lexibility, training

Order a full copy of the report at www.randstadeducation.com.au

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 5

educat REIMAGINING

Five years ago, two schools and a preschool amalgamated in one of South Australia’s most disadvantaged areas.

To make it work, the school’s innovation team leaders have changed the face of learning. By Camille Howard.

W

hen the South Australian Government created a ‘super school’ (one of six in the state) that combined two primary schools and a kindergarten, community reaction was less than enthusiastic.

The resulting new school, Blair Athol North Birth to Year 7 (BANB-7), north of Adelaide, sits within an area of extreme disadvantage. The children, and indeed families, were disengaged from their school community. Attendance was poor, community sentiment was low, and future outcomes weren’t promising.

An innovation team employed by the Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) were tasked with a seemingly impossible task: to re-engage children and their families and create a culture where children are connected to their learning.

Even before moving into the new school building, the innovation team leaders realised they couldn’t put a school on top of these children; families didn’t love school, no one related to school and everyone hated being there. They had to rethink education.

“The leadership [team] came into the school determined to do things differently, because the traditional way of doing school wasn’t engaging kids,” says Penny Cook, BANB-7’s Head of School, Early Years.

“Especially for our cohort of children,” adds Kay Clifford, Senior Leader (Director of Innovation, Teaching and Learning).

Embracing the Reggio Emilia concept of the environment as the third teacher, they looked at how they could re-engage the children through the environment.

“When we’re thinking about our cohort of children, some of them come from traumatic lives, for various reasons, so we knew about the importance of wellbeing and that transition to school,” Ms Cook explains. “So feeling comfortable and being in a place where you feel like you’ve got some agency over your learning and your day—the environment is a big part of that. It’s that first physical, visible thing that kids connect with.”

Built as part of a Public Private Partnership, the brand new building still had an old-school institutional feel about it, so the leadership team reimagined how they use the space best, and even what to call the spaces.

“From the start, we thought if we were going to be reimagining or making changes, we need to interrupt that traditional concept, picture or experience of school, which is fairly embedded,” Ms Cook says.

They took out the traditional school furniture and created spaces across the school, from preschool to year seven, that were more like homes.

6 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

ation “At first that quite disrupted older kids—they didn’t know how to handle it because they were so institutionalised,” Ms Cook says.

Five years down the track, children now expect that home-like environment to learn in. “There’s a lot more independence and collaborative learning,” Ms Cook says. “Children aren’t stuck at desks all day; they are active learners and that goes across the school.”

They also saw the importance of language in this reimagining, so they changed it. “Teachers are called learning advisors, classrooms are called studios, the buildings are called neighbourhoods,” Ms Cook explains.

“Then we have outdoor areas that might be the ‘forest’, which is undeveloped tree area; ‘the loop’, which is the central area where all the neighbourhoods circle around it; the ‘backyard’ is the play area; the ‘green’ is the ovals,” Ms Clifford adds. “We’re

interrupting traditional images and expectations of spaces, for a start, and people within those spaces.”

Which is why most learning advisors are called by their first names. “That’s up to them and the kids; it’s not about respect,” Ms Cook says. “That’s one of those embedded beliefs: if you don’t call the teacher Mr or Mrs then it’s not respectful. But respect is much more than what you call someone.”

Challenging traditions The innovation at BANB-7 starts in preschool. Part of the onsite Children’s Centre (which also includes occasional care, a playgroup and family and community services), the preschool has a strong connection to reception, the first year of school.

“We got a grant from the de Lissa Action Research Scholarship [Committee for the Lillian de Lissa and Jean Denton Memorial Trusts] where we did some research in the early

SNAPSHOT: BLAIR ATHOL NORTH, BIRTH TO YEAR 7

Number of children: approximately 500 children (approximately 450 children and 45 before school age) Number of staff: approximately 50

Demographics (2014): 67.4% of students speak English as a second language (they have 42 first languages between them), 12.8% are Aboriginal.

years about continuity of learning and transition,” Ms Cook explains. “And we have changed our environment quite considerably, so preschool and reception, that first year of school, are really connected.”

This was at a time when South Australia was introducing ‘Same First Day’, bringing it in line with other states to have a one day, single intake to school and preschool at the start of the year (previously, the school and preschool enrolled up to 20 children at the start of each term).

Based on their research, the school changed what reception looks like.

Now that first year looks more like preschool, and learning continues via a play-based approach. “Just because kids start school, why shouldn’t they have access to what they have as learners in preschool? We’ve interrupted some of those ‘sacred cows’ in school,” Ms Cook says. “There’s a lot of play, and we have staff that really understand the intellectual quality and importance of learning through play.”

“And personalising that for each child,” Ms Clifford adds, “bringing out the learning for every child in that setting.”

To ensure personalised learning is possible, they changed the funding arrangements for teachers in reception, to ensure higher ratios. “So we’ve got the equivalent of five-pointsomething staff for 60 kids,” Ms Cook

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 7

says. “Which means a greater ability to develop relationships with families and children, and continue that way of learning where their play wasn’t interrupted and they were able to be supported.”

The change in the children transitioning to school has been significant.

“Before we did this, even when we started the school, we noticed that kids could play at kindy, then when they started junior primary, they didn’t know how to. And that’s because the environment was taken away from them. It’s a bit like, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it; that ability to learn through play is exactly the same.”

“The construct of school got in the way,” Ms Clifford adds.

Instead, they both urge, if you want to see how competent children are, you need to put the appropriate environment around them so they can show you, and continue to nurture that. “Some of the learning advisors talk about how they don’t launch into the so-called formal literacy stuff, they start them when the children are ready for it. And they’re seeing much more progress and engagement than what they did before,” Ms Cook says.

Ms Clifford agrees. “In the primary 8 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

years, children’s engagement with learning was something that had to be addressed. They had been turned off, pretty much. So we’re working on personalising the learning for them, finding a way for them connect with their learning and then move through—in a different way, but still growing and developing their skills and abilities.”

Team effort Both Ms Cook and Ms Clifford acknowledge change wouldn’t have been possible without the effort of the leadership team within the school, which has been instrumental in getting key messages across to all staff.

For example, when they got their grant to research learning environments, they worked with a small group of teachers within the school, who volunteered to be involved. “We worked with them and they worked with the whole school.

That’s why there has been some sustainability, because of that collective ownership,” Ms Cook says.

They also made clear they wanted a collaborative approach, Ms Cook adds. “We used a couple of frameworks as starting points, and we said to staff that they weren’t ‘truths’,

rather a starting point to have the conversations.”

It is then up to each learning advisor how they construct their learning environment to suit their children.

“Different people are embracing what we’re doing and doing things in a similar way,” Ms Clifford explains.

One of those frameworks included the design principles in Inspiring Spaces For Young Children, by Jessica Deviney (et al).

Another was Jessica Deviney’s (et al) Ratings, Observation Scale for Inspiring Environments (ROSIE). “That became the tool so we could collectively review our spaces,” Ms Clifford says.

Not that it’s been smooth sailing in getting all staff on board. “You’re never going to get 100 per cent strike rate because we’re in a public education system,” Ms Cook says.

So there are many professional development opportunities for all staff, including attending events interstate.

“That tends to build that collective team spirit and all coming together on a similar page, to be able to construct their own understanding and meaning of what we’re doing,” Ms Clifford says.

And in a school whose pupils are deemed by AEDI data (now AEDC) to be vulnerable in several areas, it’s perhaps unsurprising to discover staff retention is problematic. “We have had a turnover of staff; that is the public education system,” Ms Cook says.

She also says it can be challenging to get new hires up to speed with what they are doing within the school. “When we do have a choice of employing someone for a permanent position, on a merit-based selection process, we do look for particular things where it’s a fit in philosophy with that of the school.”

Building community As well as re-engaging children in learning, parents and families needed to re-engage with the BANB-7 community.

“It took a while for families to understand, and [they were] wondering if this was going to work, or why we were doing it,” Ms Clifford says. “But now there is an acceptance in the community for how things look here and how we go about learning here, and it’s becoming wider known about our processes.”

To ensure this engagement with the

school community, the school runs ‘family connections’ twice a year, for families to have dialogue with their child’s learning advisor. “It’s just about sharing the qualities and the strengths of their children. So it’s a two-way relationship; we’re trying to develop that openness.”

“From the beginning,” Ms Cook adds.

“So rather than not hearing from your child’s teacher or learning advisor until they have done something, it is set up at the beginning to have that dialogue, as Kay said, for us to learn more about their children from the families, rather than us being the tellers.”

Lessons learned

For early childhood services looking to challenge their status quo, Ms Cook and Ms Clifford have some advice.

“They have to know what their worldviews and their own beliefs about learning are,” Ms Cook says. “You can’t replicate what other people do, but you can connect in terms of what you believe.”

“You need leaders that are brave and prepared to not go along with policy guidelines necessarily totally all the time, but can see the need

for constructing understanding,” Ms Clifford adds. “In the early days, the leadership group worked on developing the principles and elements for effective learning that came from all the frameworks that we needed to be using, but it was constructed by the learning advisors. So the ownership was there; their understanding became greater. It’s all that background, that professional learning and construction of what we do and how we do it that is specific to a site.”

Ms Cook agrees: “There was a lot of investment in building that professional learning community; a lot of investment into what our beliefs are.

Because when the going gets tough, you need an anchor.”

You also have to be prepared for the mess and the struggle, because it’s not easy. “It’s always challenging and it’s hard work to interrupt an industrial model of education,” Ms Cook says. “We don’t want people to think that you get any of the good bits without the struggle.”

“And it looking really messy much of the time,” Ms Clifford adds.

“The struggle and the mess is really important,” Ms Cook explains. “Hearing other people’s stories, you always present them like an end point. But there’s never an end point; everything is always evolving. It’s not about getting it right, it’s about getting it as right as you can on that day for as many people as you can.” ★

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Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 9

WHY CAN’T WE GET IT RIGHT?

Complex, ever-changing and unsustainable funding arrangements mean many Aboriginal children are missing out on vital early education and care services. Camille Howard and Lisa Bryant wonder why it’s so hard to get right.

I

n 2008, every state and territory government and the Australian government acknowledged: “many Indigenous families miss out on early childhood services even though they stand to benefit most”.

In recognition of this, they agreed to jointly work together to “improve the early childhood outcomes of Indigenous children by addressing the high levels of disadvantage they currently experience to give them the best start in life”.

Seven years later, it is clear that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in NSW are still missing out, despite, or perhaps because of, the multitude of overlapping and everchanging state and federal government programs that exist to provide early education and care.

The question needs to be asked: if as a country we have acknowledged the importance of early education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, why on earth are we providing it in such a way that children and families miss out, access depends on location, services struggle to remain afloat, and so much of the provision is based on haphazard funding that is 10 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

based on flawed understandings?

A summary of the programs that exist or are about to start shows the problem: ◆B udget Based Funded (BBF) services,

including Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services (MACS)

◆ Aboriginal Child and Family Centres

◆s ervices funded under the Indigenous

Advancement Strategy (IAS)

◆p reschools that receive equity funding

for Aboriginal children

◆p roposed integrated services to be

delivered as part of (billionaire) Andrew Forrest’s Creating Parity review.

Some of these programs are funded for one year, some for three. Some are about to have their funding chopped and changed so much that they are scared about their service’s viability.

It’s a “very crappy” system, says Eva Cox, and one that rather than close the gap will likely see more children fall through the cracks. Instead of concentrating on service provision for families, and delivering quality education to vulnerable children, services end up spending valuable time just trying to access funding to stay operational.

PHOTOGRAPHY: AMANDA JAMES / COURTESY NIKINPA ABORIGINAL CHILD AND FAMILY CENTRE

“Trying to negotiate your way, if you’re running a service, between a whole lot of different funding formulas takes up an enormous amount of time and energy, and if you’re a communitybased service, you don’t have the staff to do those things. You end up getting a bit from here, a bit from there and a bit from somewhere else.”

Ms Cox also takes issue with the federal government’s plan for Aboriginal services, such as MACS, to transition to a mainstream funding model—whereby services are funded through the proposed new Child Care Subsidy and families’ fees—in a bid to make services self-sustaining. The objective is to have Aboriginal services operate under the same market model as other services, despite the fact that the very nature of the community hubs established in Aboriginal communities exist in ‘markets’ that are unlikely to become viable.

“The government also has this idea that if you’re a service needing support you should be able to work your way out of it within two to three years,” Ms Cox says. “We know that if you’re going to run a service which is very closely

connected with the community, has the capacity to offer additional support services and so on, you’re much better with a direct funding model than trying to win your way through a model that was essentially set up for working parents.”

A system of stigma

The proposed Child Care Assistance Package includes a Child Care Safety Net, which is supposed to direct funding to children and families who need it the most. It includes an Additional Child Care Subsidy, a Community Child Care Fund and a new Inclusion Support Programme.

Through this funding model, Ms Cox says the government has created a problem in the way children and families are labelled to determine access to funded care. Unless children come from families that are working or studying, their only way to access funded education and care is via identifying with a category of ‘remedial’ prioritisation: a child is labelled disadvantaged, based on their Aboriginality, family income or disability.

“You’ve got to, in a sense, sign your child up as having a deficit of some sort

or other, and that becomes particularly difficult for Indigenous families,” Ms Cox explains.

For white, middle-class families, she suggests, it’s not difficult to seek the appropriate documentation, for example from a doctor, which says your child needs to attend a service. “So they get in,” Ms Cox says.

“But Aboriginal families don’t use that sort of [process] because they are worried about welfare, they’re worried about being seen as poor parents, so anything that involves the parent having to identify themselves, or their child, as needy in some way or other is likely to mean they just won’t try. There is a huge level of anxiety about getting tangled up in the welfare system.”

Like Eva Cox, Geraldine Atkinson, deputy chairperson of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), is also concerned that while there are multiple different mechanisms within the proposed childcare package under which Aboriginal children and families might gain some funded access to childcare, they all are based on a deficit model.

“The complexity of the maze is such a Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 11

PRESCHOOL FUNDING MODEL

Under the NSW Government’s Preschool Funding Model, preschools are funded ‘equity’ rates for Aboriginal children. So any service enrolling an Aboriginal child is eligible for the maximum base funding rate ($5,270 per annum) for that child.

Preschools are then expected to offer significantly lower fees for Aboriginal children.

While part of this funding comes from the NSW Government, around half comes via the Australian Government, courtesy of the National Partnership on Universal Access to Early Education.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are offered an additional year of funded preschool education under the Preschool Funding Model, which means Aboriginal children can enrol in a preschool from the age of three. This offers little joy to many Aboriginal-managed preschools in NSW, who have traditionally taken children as young as two years old.

As a strategy for increasing Aboriginal children’s access to early education, its value is questionable, and disputed. The proportion of Aboriginal children accessing preschool is among the lowest in Australia—estimated at just 81 per cent by Deloitte’s Review of the National Partnership Agreement, or 60.3 per cent by the Productivity Commission’s 2015 Report on Government Services.

nightmare for families experiencing vulnerability,” she says.

“The Productivity Commission identified a 15,000 place gap in services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. We are not only concerned that the new package won’t make significant inroads on closing this gap, but that it will actually increase it.”

Ms Atkinson says several Aboriginal services have examined how many of their existing children will retain eligibility for funded care, with some having calculated that less than five per cent would still be eligible for the same amount of care that they have now.

“Of course, it is not just children and families who are losing here,” she adds.

“Services can’t be viable if they are reliant on subsidies that their children are no longer eligible for. With the current information released on the package, however, it is really difficult to know how services will be impacted.”

SNAICC is working with Deloitte Access Economics to examine on a service-byservice basis the impact on enrolments and funding and plan to release this before the end of the year.

The former Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison, assured SNAICC that the intention of the package is to ensure that Aboriginal children will be better off. “We hope this is true and are very keen to work with the government to ensure that this is happens. However, we are yet to see the evidence.

Fundamentally, a user-pays model is not a feasible or appropriate model through 12 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

which to provide culturally-strong early childhood education and care programs for many of our families and communities,” Ms Atkinson says.

Ms Atkinson also questions the competitive tender component of the Safety Net. “Competitive tenders here are not necessary and not in the interests of quality, trusted, collaborative, integrated services in our communities in most need. Pitting our community-based services against large mainstream organisations with professional tender writers is not fair and is not the right approach for outcomes for children. The results of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) should be enough evidence of that.”

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do things differently and to actually value the critical role that community controlled services play to empower children, their families and their communities. We are really worried that this opportunity will be missed. How much evidence do we need before governments will listen?”

What does work

According to SNAICC, integrating early childhood programs with other community services is most effective in breaking the cycle of disadvantage and achieving stronger outcomes, which requires additional government investment.

SNAICC suggests these services need to address the following needs: ◆ i ncorporation of identity and culture, including culturally appropriate

practice led by Aboriginal staff

◆ strengths-based approach

◆h olistic and integrated service delivery

to meet broader family needs

◆ community-controlled governance

◆ community focus, not service focus

◆a ddressing and overcoming access to

barriers, such as access to transport and high costs.

By investing in integrated early years services for Aboriginal families, not only will outcomes improve for children but family access will also be improved to vital services, generating employment opportunities and fostering community strengths and decision making.

“Aboriginal integrated early years services, where they exist, are a bedrock of their community: they not only nurture and educate children, but also support families to raise healthy children, provide integrated support to families, generate employment opportunities and enable parents to get work-ready and secure employment,” wrote SNAICC chairperson Sharron Williams, for National Close the Gap Day. Productivity Commission recommendations

When the Productivity Commission completed its review on Child Care and Early Childhood Learning, it recommended new funding to deliver new and existing early education and care services for vulnerable children in disadvantaged communities, such as Indigenous communities, with these services and existing BBF services transitioning to mainstream funding over time.

At the same time, the report acknowledged that some services may never fully transition to child-based funding and all should have their funding reassessed at three-yearly intervals.

What was delivered

The Australian Government appears to have only heard the mainstreaming bit. Its proposed Child Care Assistance package will require all services to come under the Child Care Subsidy funding model—‘mainstreamed’ within two years.

This means BBF services will have to follow prescriptive Child Care Subsidy rules, such as hours of operation, administrative compliance around absences, child and family documentation, Centrelink records,

immunisation records, children changing residences—all of which is likely to result in reduced access to services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Additionally, where both parents or carers fail to meet work, training or study requirements, the subsidy will only be available to low income earners, and even then for only 12 hours per week.

A problem arises in that many BBF services are set up in areas of extreme disadvantage, with low employment rates, so a user-pays model would not suit these communities—if parents can’t pay fees, children won’t attend and services are likely to close.

As well as the Child Care Subsidy, the government proposes a Child Care Safety Net, to improve access to early education services for disadvantaged and vulnerable children. This includes an Additional Child Care Subsidy, a Community Child Care Fund (CCCF) and an Inclusion Support Programme.

Under the proposed Additional Child Care Subsidy, $156 million will be allocated to provide ‘top-up’ fee support for ‘genuinely disadvantaged’ children and families, such as children ‘at risk’ and families experiencing temporary hardship or transitioning from income support.

Another $304 million dollars is to be allocated through the CCCF, to assist services in disadvantaged communities, low-income families, services operating in low viability markets, and to help develop integrated childcare, maternal health and family support services in disadvantaged Indigenous communities.

Unfortunately, the proposed CCCF is a competitive grants program, which means that services will be effectively tendering against each other for funding. This may put at risk the very services the program is trying to assist.

One only has to look at the allocations made to children’s services under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy this year to see how this plays out.

Within the CCCF, the government has proposed that $20 million (over two years) would be allocated to establish integrated children’s services, based on recommendations from Andrew Forrest’s government-commissioned Creating Parity review.

At this stage, it is not clear exactly how the $10 million a year will be allocated, but in August this year, Scott Morrison, then Minister for

ABORIGINAL CHILD AND FAMILY CENTRES

In 2009, the Australian Government partnered with the states to establish 38 Aboriginal Child and Family Centres (ACFCs) across Australia.

Operating as integrated service models, they act as ‘community hubs’, providing support to children from birth to eight years, as well as their families.

Federal funding for ACFCs ended in June 2014, and the nine ACFCs in NSW currently receive funding from NSW Family and Community Services—‘residual’ funding from the National Partnership under which they were created.

This funding is due to end in June 2016, and services will be required to be selfsustaining from this time, despite a report from the National Audit Office which warned that the childcare components may not be self-sustaining.

Social Services, said it was earmarked “for integrated service delivery in a number of disadvantaged Indigenous communities”.

The government has already established one tranche of integrated services across the country, but failed to allow for their ongoing funding.

As part of the National Partnership on Indigenous Early Childhood Development, 38 Aboriginal Child and Family Centres (ACFC) were established to offer integrated childcare, health and other community services (nine of these were established in NSW).

Federal government funding for these services ended in June 2014. While some state governments (NSW, Victoria, Queensland) stepped in to fund these for another two years, their future is uncertain beyond 2016.

What will happen to the new services when their money also runs out?

The Australian Government also funds state governments to increase access to early education for Aboriginal children via the Universal Access program. This has been extended for 12 months only, with no guarantee of ongoing funding.

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 13

The NSW Government also operates preschools within government schools. Twenty-four of these are in communities with high Aboriginal populations. And many community based preschools in NSW either identify as Aboriginal preschools or have large numbers of Aboriginal children enrolled.

Many of these are now struggling under changes to the preschool funding model, which a number preschools believe has made their services less viable.

There is also federal funding available to individual services under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS).

Under this competitive grants program, services could apply for funding for “Strategic activities that focus on getting children to school, improving education outcomes and improving access to further education as well as supporting families to give children a good start in life”. This funding, however, is offered for 30 months, before services will need to reapply or before a new program is developed.

We need a rethink

Essentially we have a mess. No wonder SNAICC has called for a rethink from the government. In its response to the Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) on the Child Care Assistance Package, SNAICC requested that the Australian Government: 1. Quarantine a proportion of the Community Child Care Fund for use for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, with the proportion determined in view of the Closing the Gap strategy and in consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and peak bodies.

2. Amend the Additional Child Care Subsidy to provide access to 30 hours per week (three days) of early learning for children from low-income families, where both parents do not meet the activity test.

3. Significantly expand provision for integrated services. The Government’s recognition of the importance of funding the integration of child care, maternal and child health and family support services in Indigenous communities is positive. However, the amount allocated is tokenistic and manifestly inadequate to begin to implement the early childhood reforms proposed by the Forrest review.

4. Expand the capital support provision of the Community Child Care Fund to 14 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

FEDERAL FUNDING

Until this year, services in NSW could access Supplementary Recurrent Assistance (SRA) funding “to assist providers to accelerate educational outcomes for Indigenous Australians beyond those which could reasonably be expected from mainstream and own-source funding alone”.

In July 2014, the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) was introduced. Under the IAS—administered by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet— all existing Indigenous funding programs, including SRA, came under the one program, with five key funding streams, one of which is Children and Schooling.

Since the release of the results for the first funding round, the competitive grants process has received wide-ranging criticism for its failure to deliver adequate funding to frontline Aboriginal services, and for the fact that it pits services against each other for funding dollars.

In NSW, Aboriginal preschools received the greatest amount of funding, with overall funding allocated for amounts ranging from $863,500 to $17,600.

SRA versus IAS

Many of the services funded under the IAS in NSW were community based preschools. Some of these that Rattler spoke to are worse off under the IAS, while others are better off.

For Gunnedah Preschool, the funding received under the IAS was much less than under the SRA. Orange preschool was also worse off.

Culburra and District Preschool Inc received around the same amount, while Leeton Preschool received significantly more.

All agreed, though, the process to apply for funding under the IAS was more difficult. Under the SRA, services received a set funding amount for each Aboriginal child. The IAS is based on a service presenting its work with Aboriginal children and families as projects.

There is a huge disparity in funding awarded to different services. Why? It seems to be based on submission writing skills, and an individual service’s capacity to ask for a particular amount. Often amounts granted reflected amounts asked for. Ask for a few hundred thousand and have a good story and submission and you would receive it. Ask for only a few thousand, that’s what you got. The actual cost of service delivery was never really part of the equation.

fund set-up costs of new services in areas of need to ensure supports not only for existing services but expand access to close the 15,000 place gap in child care services for Indigenous children.

5. Build flexibility into the Child Care Subsidy to ensure prescriptive requirements and administrative barriers do not cause vulnerable families to drop out of the subsidy system, and temporary exemptions are provided for those that do.

SNAICC suggests that $250 million dollars is needed to close the 15,000place gap. The money would go towards delivering holistic, evidence-based services, funding stability for existing services, and 20 new services each year to help close the service gap—as well as specialised services where they are needed most, using a culturally appropriate model that overcomes access barriers.

The impact

For Emma Beckett, centre director at Nikinpa Aboriginal Child and Family Centre in Lake Macquarie, the impact of mainstreaming and the lack of ongoing federal government funding is likely to be felt by nearly half of her families.

“There’s no way, in any form, that our kids could afford a significant fee increase; we just don’t have that clientele,” she says.

“When you’re talking about the most vulnerable population anyway, you don’t want to be putting up barriers.”

–Emma Beckett, director,

Nikinpa Aboriginal Child and Family Centre “Of the 63 kids enrolled in long day care, 32 kids will be negatively affected by the proposed subsidy and activity changes.”

She says the government’s requirements to access additional subsidies are likely to present a barrier for her families. “It can be really confronting to families,” she says.

“When you’re talking about the most vulnerable population anyway, you don’t want to be putting up barriers.

“Our service now currently runs as a mainstream service. It was costed to break even if we had every bum on every seat every day. But there is no way that we can run a quality service without additional funding,” she adds.

For example, in her preschool room of 16 children, there are six or seven children each that identify as having additional needs. Without adequate funding, Ms Beckett says the service won’t be able to provide quality care for these children.

“I understand you can apply for additional funds through inclusion

BUDGET-BASED SERVICES

Services such as Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services (MACS) were funded on the basis of their operating costs, in recognition of the fact that mainstream childcare subsidies for parents would not work for these services.

Services funded this way became known as Budget Based Funded (BBF) services.

Of the 337 BBF services around Australia, 80 per cent are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services, which are community owned and driven. Services include MACS, long day care, mobile education and care services, out of school hours care, crèches and playgroups.

At the moment, funding has been received on a year-to-year basis, leaving many services in limbo.

Furthermore, under the new Child Care Assistance Package, the Community Support Program under which they have been funded will cease and BBF services will be required to move to a mainstream funding model in two years.

According to SNAICC’s Geraldine Atkinson, “a user-pays model is not a feasible or appropriate model through which to provide culturally-strong early childhood education and care programs for families and communities experiencing entrenched disadvantage”.

Instead, SNAICC has called for continued Australian Government funding under three-year plans.

support but, again, you have to have a diagnosis. And our families don’t always have that.”

The additional funding the NSW Government provided ACFCs like Nikinpa is due to run out in June 2016, and these services will be expected to run on mainstream funding alone from this time. Ms Beckett says this won’t be possible for Nikinpa.

“The Child and Family Centres all have a community component, and they also have a medical component. We have doctors operating out of here, Medicare, local psychologists, counsellors from Relationships Australia, a speech pathologist, child and maternal health services, and they all pay rent to work from here, but it doesn’t go anywhere near to covering the cost of running the service or the building. And some services have indicated that if we continue to charge them rent, which we have to in order to survive, then they won’t be able to provide a service from here. So the whole hub model falls to the ground anyway.”

The model has been getting great results for Nikinpa. On top of receiving an Exceeding rating, the service is reaching many children who haven’t previously accessed early childhood education and care.

“The amount of Aboriginal kids we’re getting in an early education and care service that hadn’t accessed early education previously (75% of all enrolments), is significant in itself,” she says. “What’s happening here for kids and families is working. We can tell people when the doctors are going to be here and if we have concerns about a child or a family there’s always someone that we can refer them to.”

Which is why the changes have her worried.

“Forty-six per cent of our kids will have their access to early childhood education and care reduced,” she says.

“And some of them won’t have any subsidies at all, if they don’t meet the Activity Test.” ★ Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 15

KIMBERLEY After two years managing Little Nuggets Early Learning Centre in Halls Creek, East Kimberley, in remote Western Australia, Kerry Bradley shares some memories— and lessons—of her time there.

T

he Kimberley: enormous sky, air so clean, silence of the surrounding bush, amazing red soil, families of boab trees, breathtaking landscapes, bird life and wildlife. It’s either very dry or very wet or very hot.

It’s predictable in an unpredictable way.

When you arrive, there are a few sudden realisations: your phone doesn’t work (unless it’s with Telstra) and you can’t access things you normally can—it’s a 300-kilometre drive to a larger town to buy the ‘essentials’ (at a reasonable price) and petrol prices are ridiculous so you only make necessary trips. After a time, though, you find that you don’t really need all the things you’re used to having; you learn to make 16 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

do. And when you do make the big trip, you load up for yourself and your friends, coming back loaded to the roof.

Your first lessons from the locals are always carry lots of water and always stay by your vehicle if it breaks down.

The local Jaru, Gija and Gooniyandi mobs (and many more mobs) are used to seeing us whitefellas—“gadia”, in the Kimberley—come and go. We’re like a big whirly: we come in, raise the dust then move on to the next camp to do the same. I feel shame that I was a whirly. I tried not to be, but that whitefella in me could only change so much.

I reflected deeply on my cultural competence (or incompetence) each day, and consulted my fantastic committee to ensure I was doing the job they expected, asking for honest feedback. I mucked up several times and was over-enthusiastic often, particularly when I first arrived. I wanted to be a whitefella who could blend in, though I’m not sure that’s possible.

A deeper understanding

It is said that those who come to work in the Kimberley are missionaries, misfits or mercenaries. It is true of the past, but there are also the mobile travellers, grey nomads, Taiwanese

and Indian workers and people like me who have always wanted to work in an Aboriginal community to gain a deeper understanding of my country and its ancient past.

There are plenty of government ‘consultations’ that occur (they’ve been happening for decades) to help them gain a deeper understanding of the needs of remote communities.

This gives representatives in each remote community an opportunity to give feedback to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The general feeling in communities, though, is that the feedback goes back to the “big whitefellas”, who then decide that these blackfellas don’t know what’s good for them, instead filtering through a whitefella mind that knows or has heard of a better way. Imagine never being allowed to make a big decision for yourself!

An example of this occurred when local women were asked to get together to design the perfect house for families.

A consultant was brought in (all expenses paid) and the women were cautiously waiting to see the outcome.

Unfortunately, the consultation failed and none were built. Instead, the government continues to build inefficient gadia houses. They lay lawn that dies in the dry and returns to red dust. New houses are built so close you have no privacy. There are no solar panels installed on roofs, no rainwater tanks, and no fire pit built in the backyard—they are not homes for this remote community.

can no longer offer after school care or vacation care, and the multi-million dollar building is not fulfilling its COAG Closing the Gap function. With so much need in the community, it’s a wasted opportunity.

Another major struggle was to find highly motivated and qualified educators to share their knowledge and expertise with trainees. You cannot operate a remote service without several highly committed and skilled staff, because it’s not like anywhere else on earth: it’s the Kimberley.

My dream team took 12 months to pull together, and included an early childhood teacher, Renee, from the north coast of NSW, and an early childhood nurse, Aya, from Japan. We worked hard to support several local women to do their Certificate III in early education and care, including Miss Maggie, who has gone on to do her Diploma. I am so proud of her—she will be running Little Nuggets one day. The service will need to have a group of 10 trainees a year to ensure the future of the service, so it can be staffed by locals.

New houses are built so close you have no privacy. There are no solar panels installed on roofs, no rainwater tanks, and no fire pit built in the backyard—they are not homes for this remote community.

People and culture

The people of the Kimberley are amazingly resilient, respectful, calm, generous and joyful. Until “sorry business”—it hits everyone, and then the whole town is so sad. I remember my first weeks: a 16-year-old passed.

Two weeks later, it was his cousin. A week later, another cousin.

When it comes to sorry business, I learnt that Kimberley law is strong.

The realities

There were long, busy days, where I was cook, educator, admin, carer, tutor, mentor. There were ongoing struggles to get government departments to hear us and deal with our issues. My job was to move the service from Budget Based Funding and into the Child Care Management System (CCMS). When funding from the National Partnership ran out as I was leaving Halls Creek, we had to reapply for Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) funding, but only got half as much money.

A major problem for Little Nuggets— which can accommodate 65 children— is there is still no allocation of housing for qualified early childhood staff. And because they can’t hire (and house) qualified educators, numbers are now restricted to 30 children a day, they Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 17

Once a person passes, you can no longer use their name.

Funerals are enormous. Notices go up all across the Kimberley and weeks are spent pulling together the ceremony book and photos for the slide presentation. The wailing is heartbreaking, particularly when it’s someone young, which is all too often.

Funerals are often six months after someone has passed, to give the family time to save money for the ceremony, and time to travel to the ceremony from all over Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

I have been asked why so many young people are dying in remote Aboriginal communities, and one factor is a cumulative load of sorrow, of deep longing, of fear of the past and the future. Healing programs aim to help.

I attended a fabulous session with a wonderful psychologist from Perth, Christabel, who is respected by the communities because she gently listens.

She would come up once a month, or whenever finances became available, to sit with communities and help them 18 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

understand how to address this scourge of sorrow in their families.

Sense of community I just adored these children and families.

I miss their spirit of freedom, honesty and respect of community and family.

Once, I was challenged by an elder about “family”, and her belief that gadia don’t have solid family. I didn’t agree because I come from a close, solid family. On reflection, I now understand what that means in an Aboriginal community: people give up jobs, houses, move away for long periods of time, give up whatever is needed for a member of family. Not many of us would just pack up and go to help our mother, father, brother, sister, cousin for months or years, and then come back and resettle (because you always go back to country).

The children I lived and worked with were refreshingly energetic, honest and playful, with massive smiles and glowing eyes. They just loved to play and joke around. “Hey Mrs, can I have a drink of water?” usually opened a conversation, and then the questions

flowed: “Where you from Mrs? You got any kids? Where are they? You got any pictures?” I got them a beauty when I showed them a photo of my son with Adam Goodes. (They insisted I ring my son so they could talk to him about how he came to be in a photo with Adam Goodes. It was hilarious!)

The Aboriginal kids I met were so inquisitive, but white man’s education is letting them down, because it has to be done our way and it just doesn’t work.

I made my own share of mistakes by doing things the whitefella way. My first big one came when I told one of the mums that the dentist was coming to town, and maybe she could take her son who had cavities. Wrong, wrong, wrong—this was only the second time we had met. My urgency was due to the fact that the dentist only turns up every six months, but my direct approach was offensive. And it turned out the child’s father had been fighting cancer. From then I resolved to discuss issues with a committee member before speaking to a parent again, so as not to offend.

The important lesson Halls Creek Aboriginal community taught me is that you have to yarn a long time to resolve anything. And you have to listen. If you don’t, nothing will happen.

Decisions aren’t rushed, because everyone is given the chance to have their say; consensus is vital.

At the same time, you don’t need to fear making mistakes. The Aboriginal people I worked with were so nonjudgemental, with generous spirits.

Possessions meant little to the community—it’s all about family and country. However, it is vitally important to have a great sport jersey, either football (and footy boots) or basketball, cowboy hat and boots (for the rodeo mob) and a great outfit for NAIDOC Ball (I was amazed at the pride and effort the community puts in). Also, a crisp white or blue shirt, or a favoured colour of the deceased, is needed for sorry business.

Little Nuggets is now looking for a new team for 2016, so please get in touch with them if you’re interested in a life-changing experience. ★ * Kerry Bradley is a professional learning facilitator at Community Child Care Co-operative. She managed Little Nuggets Early Learning Centre, Halls Creek, Western Australia for two years.

TREVOR KEE

RACHAEL KEE

KATHRYN WHITE

DYNASTY

NEXT GEN?

LOIS JACKSON

TONY KEE

GAYLE KEE

T

ony Kee’s family has been involved in early education for almost 60 years, across three generations and four states and territories. At Rattler’s request, he put together the stories of his family’s long involvement in the sector…

Anthony William Kee (30 years), early childhood teacher

Tony Kee has become a passionate educator and advocate for men in early education and care, thanks to early experiences of growing up around his mother’s and grandmother’s preschools.

My first experiences with early childhood education and care were as a toddler growing up in Melbourne, when mum would take me to work with her. I also remember my family day care mum Abla, who used to give us small cups of black tea! When my sister Kathryn was born, we moved back to mum and dad’s home town and I was offered the choice of attending community preschool at either mum’s or grandma’s kindergarten (I chose grandma’s!).

I started working in early childhood education in 2002 after I finished my HSC (living in NSW). I was keen to study sport science or do a trade, such as building or landscaping, but my parents encouraged me to give early childhood a try! I was nervous to start with, as early childhood is not considered an overly masculine profession. But I loved it from the start and my ideas have certainly changed as I have grown, learned and matured.

In 2004, I won Child Care NSW Trainee of the Year, and went on to complete my diploma and then teaching degree in 2011. My biggest influences have been my family, colleagues and early childhood advocates, such as Tim Gill and Claire Warden. I love adventurous, active outdoor play and creative construction and team play.

As a male in early childhood education I now advocate for other men to get involved.

Working in a family business has been an awesome learning experience, as has watching the national changes in funding, accreditation and educational curriculum over the past decade.

I am currently working as centre manager within the family business, and helping to establish an Early Childhood Australia group on the Mid North Coast.

My two-year-old son attends our early childhood service (maybe he’ll be a fourth generation educator?!).

It all started with Grandma…

Lois Romilda Jackson (aka Grandma, 79 years)

After deliberating between nursing, librarian or x-ray therapist as a career, I finally decided preschool was the area for me, as I enjoyed engaging with children and families.

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 19

After training from 1954 to 1956, I taught in kindergartens across Melbourne and regional Victoria for more than 13 years (taking on roles as training director within these kindergartens), before becoming preschool teacher at Papunya Aboriginal Settlement, Northern Territory (approximately 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs), from 1971 to 1972.

From 1974 until my retirement in January 1993, I was director at North Wonthaggi Kindergarten, a council-run facility in country Victoria.

In retirement in 1993, I filled a threemonth vacancy in small local childcare centre. From this experience, as well as my time as training director, I firmly believe that preschool teachers should spend a significant amount of time in childcare centres, and vice versa.

Both could learn from each other— the differences, the challenges, the central purpose and functions—and could engender more respect and understanding of each other’s career choice.

I have been around long enough to understand the ‘pendulum swing’ of styles, community expectations, how flexible we need to be in planning; so

20 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

much to take into account as times change.

I have experienced programs that delivered very formal teaching/ instruction to children in a ‘sit-on-achair-in-a circle’ style, and those with the ‘open plan’ set-up, when children were allowed to virtually do what they liked, when they liked, however they liked, to extreme—programs had little structure, and helpful recorded evaluations of children’s development were rare.

Fortunately, by the time Gayle trained in the 1980s, the pendulum had swung again to the more moderate, inclusive style of teaching I had been trained for.

She, too, was able to teach in a way that allowed for adult input and extension of children’s learning about some unfamiliar areas, used the richness of children’s experiences and knowledge to be part of the learning program, and allowed for a variety of developmental techniques from many of the educators (Steiner, Montessori, Piaget, etc) to be used appropriately in order to cope with the many different learning styles of individual children. It was fascinating to see the full swing of the pendulum during my time.

Then came mum…

Gayle Elizabeth Kee (aka mum, 53 years), early childhood teacher

As a young child, and in my teenage years, I observed the incredible passion, commitment and dedication that both my parents shared for teaching young children and teenagers. Also, having an experience of our family moving to an Aboriginal settlement in my primary school years and watching my parents share their knowledge and develop programs with Indigenous children and families, definitely steered my interests and career path.

In 1983, I graduated from the Institute of Early Childhood Education in Kew, Victoria, and went on teach in both city and regional community-based kindergartens in Victoria for 13 years.

My husband and young family then moved north to Queensland, and I was employed to assist with the set up and running of two large early childhood centres. In 1998, we relocated our family to the town of Wauchope, on the NSW Mid North Coast, and built our first early childhood centre.

Over the past 32 years, I have observed many changes within the early childhood sector, and have myself had

lots of reflection, challenge and change in my own personal philosophy. My programs and belief in the value and importance of having qualified teachers in the early childhood setting remains solid. I am also aware, however, that as service providers we need to not just focus on the children, but also on family and community and, importantly, on our teams of educators.

As a landscape designer, my husband Trevor has always been involved in each of the centres I have worked at, re-designing natural playgrounds and play spaces. His skills lie in the vision, design and construction of beautiful children’s gardens, with creative play spaces carefully designed within them.

The combined talents of both of us are so complementary, as we believe that creating the best possible environment, both indoors and outdoors, is the basis for the culture and service we provide.

Over the years, there have been a lot of changes as research and discoveries are made in the early childhood area: children’s development, brain research and various socio-cultural and social theories have developed. This obviously influences how our programs and curriculums are developed.

I enjoy staff mentoring and training, and have always believed that staff are any centre’s most valuable and important asset. If educators are supported and happy, this has a flow on affect to the children, families and community. We have developed a strong culture and unique environment within our services, and several of our educators have gone on to receive both NSW and national awards for outstanding contribution to the early childhood field. Building teams and providing opportunities for educator development and assisting them to see pathways and reach their fullest potential is very important to us.

I am thrilled to have our three adult children also branch into the early childhood field, with each of them also making a significant contribution to the lives of young children in their services.

There’s also a sister…

Kathryn Elizabeth White (26 years), diploma trained

My enjoyment as an educator stems from my grandmother’s and mother’s influence as early childhood educators themselves. I have always dreamed of

Tim and Kathryn White, with daughters Chelsea (top) and Emma (bottom).

creating the same nurturing learning environments as they created for young children. Growing up with a family in early childhood gave me a fun and exciting journey through my early years, and I am fortunate to have learnt many quality practices to support children’s learning and development.

I was enthusiastic to start a traineeship in early childhood after finishing school in 2005, and this lead me to gain a Diploma in Children’s Services. I have been working in the early childhood profession for 10 years, all the while starting a family of my own.

My husband Tim and I have two young girls, Emma, six, and Chelsea, four, who have attended our services. We now live on the Coffs Coast in NSW and we support a team of 21 educators as we deliver care and education to our local community, inspired by a Reggio Emilia approach.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my role is working together with families and children to build a culture which respects childhood as a time to explore, create and be joyful. As an educator, I love the part I play, being a keen observer, documenter and partner in the learning process.

An exciting part of my role working alongside my team is to create a welcoming, nurturing, home-like environment with a range of natural materials. When you look around our setting you will see natural loose parts,

offering open-ended play and learning opportunities. I love the element of being resourceful as we gather, collect, reuse, recycle and bring in a range of resources to use in our environment.

A quote that rings true to me and one that I will continue to reflect upon is: “Children are at the heart of every decision”.

Now another one has joined…

Rachael Liana Kee (19 years), diploma trainee

I was always against the idea of doing what my family did. But when I finished school, I had a few days work and realised how much I loved it and how much it suited me.

Growing up in childcare meant I spent every afternoon of my primary school years in the childcare setting. Learning, watching, helping, growing and loving being part of an extended family, while being encouraged to play and have fun!

I love watching and being a part of children’s creativity, whether it is painting, building with blocks or boxes, cooking in the sandpit or digging in the dirt, and watching them learn to interact with each other in dramatic play experiences and become more confident in themselves.

I love being a part of the child’s journey in learning new skills and discovering new ideas. I love watching them be proud of something they have made or accomplished. ★ Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 21

VOXPOPS

early childhood teacher

ACCREDITATION

Early childhood teacher accreditation starts in 2016, so we asked teachers and stakeholders what they thought of the new system.

Melinda Gambley, director Clunes Community Preschool

Verena Heron, Industrial Officer, Independent Education Union

The Independent Education Union believes teacher accreditation is a positive step forward for early childhood teachers, who will have the same professional recognition as their colleagues in schools.

Teacher accreditation is about the individual teacher as a professional and is different from centre accreditation.

Teacher accreditation is examining the work of a teacher against common professional standards, whether they are in a school or early childhood setting.

For too long, early childhood teachers have been seen as the ‘poor cousin’ of their schools colleagues, with lower pay and lack of professional recognition.

How many people outside of the sector know that early childhood teachers have the same qualifications as their school colleagues but are paid significantly less and have different working conditions?

The professional recognition that comes with teacher accreditation will mean that there is one less argument as to why early childhood teachers are paid up to 30 per cent less than their colleagues in schools.

22 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

Leanne Gibbs, CEO Community Child Care Co-operative International research has found the benefits of teacher accreditation lie in enhancements to overall quality of education, teaching pedagogy, improvements in professional development, work environments and institutional leadership. These are all great signals for early childhood teachers and the profession, as there will be new confidence gained, new pride and an opening for increased status and pay.

As a young teacher, I was involved in the launch of the voluntary NAEYC accreditation system for early childhood settings in NSW (in the late 1980s). This was the most exciting development I had been a part of in my career—a system for embedding quality in practice meant greater recognition, respect and understanding of early childhood education and care. Teacher accreditation feels like this to me: another opportunity for positive impact for children, families and those who have chosen this as their life’s work and vocation.

I think teacher accreditation is a really positive move forward for early childhood teachers. With my colleagues, I’ve been advocating for pay parity as part of the Teachers are Teachers campaign, and this is a small but significant step towards this. Sadly, the preschool funding model has made it difficult for some preschools to retain their early childhood teachers, let alone give pay parity, but the recognition is really important.

Teacher accreditation will raise our status with other professionals and within the community, and it acknowledges the work that early childhood teachers do. Teacher accreditation recognises what the research has been telling us: early childhood teachers are critical to quality early childhood education and, in turn, to children’s long term wellbeing and success.

Peter Whiteman, department head, Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University

Rules and regulations can be good: giving way to the right, obeying the speed limit and stopping at red lights increase our chances of staying alive on the roads. Regulations that safeguard our very existence are good regulations.

I often find myself wishing for some sanity in rules and regulations that govern us in the nanny state we live in, though. Taking risks, whether intellectual, physical or in any other sense, is the way we advance knowledge and foster creativity. An overly riskaverse population is one that aspires to mediocrity.

On the other hand, we can turn regulation to our advantage. This is so with accreditation for early childhood teachers. Acknowledgement by a professional body can only increase standing in the community. In turn, lone voices become collective champions and quality teaching that we know anecdotally, can be made systematically visible to a wide audience. Accreditation can be good for the profession; it will be great for the profession if everyone prosecutes it to the fullest extent possible.

unite all Australian teachers.

A great service would be granted to the very young children and families if their early childhood teachers were recognised and remunerated through BOSTES proposed examination of standards and accreditation. By extending government-led pay parity

alongside understandings of the complexities, knowledge and skills involved in teaching and learning relevant to the EYLF, quality early education will be sustainable and highly conspicuous.

The role of early childhood teachers has influenced primary and secondary practice in the UK where I have been teaching over the past 24 years.

Fantastic conversations surrounding the tenants of playful learning, assessment, curriculum design and delivery, expectations and standards have filtered and ‘pushed-up’ into older phases of learning. Early childhood is seen as the first phase, no less important than any other. There is parity. Australia’s turn next.

Rosanne Pugh, director KU Ourimbah Preschool and Children’s Centre Current deliberations surrounding professional teaching standards for early childhood teachers are a welcome opportunity to position the sector alongside our primary and secondary colleagues. Education is a continuum which begins from birth—some would argue from the womb—and standards advocating excellence in teaching that illuminate what great learning looks like for babies, toddlers and preschoolers, would provide a professional platform to

Emily Donnan, Big Steps campaign organiser, United Voice As an avid advocate for children’s right to quality education, I believe that any policy designed to lift teaching standards is a good one.

As one of the key stakeholders in

the BOSTES working group, I have been consulting with United Voice members who are already ECT trained or are currently enrolled to become a qualified ECT. The consultations and provision of information ensures they feel comfortable with the changes and welcome another step to professionalising early childhood education and care.

Teachers say they feel positive about accreditation for many reasons, including being recognised as equals to primary school educators, targeted training and development, lifting teaching standards where children will always benefit, and another clear example of why they deserve pay parity.

I believe this is an opportunity for educators to get organised and use this platform to get the professional wages they deserve.

Shelley Chandler, director Corowa Preschool

It’s great that we are being recognised in the same way as teachers in schools, but I’m waiting to see how this translates for us in real terms. At the moment, we have an extra $100 per year to pay and what will it mean? We won’t get pay parity because services like mine, a community based preschool, are under more pressure than ever to just exist. (My preschool receives transitional funding under the preschool funding model, which this means we take a funding cut from 2016.)

Accreditation won’t change my willingness to engage in training. I have always loved inservices. So what will it mean? I have heard that I can be deemed proficient and could work in schools.

What will this process be?

I love early childhood but I am really worried about job security. I’m looking forward to the session the IEU is running later in the year.

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 23

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uality Area 2: Q Children’s health and safety

2.3 Each child is protected 2.3.1 Children are adequately supervised at all times.

2 study case

Risk presents valuable opportunities in early childhood, but some services are wary. Neville Dwyer shares how his team have embraced risk at Griffith Child Care Centre Inc.

2.3.2 Every reasonable precaution is taken to protect children from harm and any hazard likely to cause injury.

2.3.3 Plans to effectively manage incidents and emergencies are developed in consultation with relevant authorities, practised and implemented.

2.3.4 Educators, co-ordinators and staff members are aware of their roles and responsibilities to respond to every child at risk of abuse or neglect.

DON’T BE TOO CAREFUL

O

bsession with safety and removal of risk is damaging how children and adults engage with the world, decreasing our capacity to make good judgements around how to assess and manage risk. This means we are devaluing opportunities for children to take risk, learn how to manage risk and to also learn techniques to minimise the risk of damage to themselves or others.

You don’t have to look very far to see why we need to provide more risk-taking opportunities and in turn bolster an individual’s resilience, and intrinsic reward system. Data from the 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (by the Australian Bureau of Statistics) found that one in four young people aged 16 to 24 years had a mental disorder— young people are increasingly susceptible to anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders.

The ability to identify, manage and take risks is learnt at a young age, and if children don’t have opportunities to make mistakes, get up, brush off the dirt and go back to resolving the problem, then we as educators and parents are leaving these children with less resources to cope with life’s challenges as they meet them in the future.

The word “risk” appears four times in the Early Years Learning Framework, and while it occurs on 22 pages within the National Law, these mentions don’t relate to play or the program. Instead, the National Law asks us to take into account the recommendations of other agencies, such as Standards Australia, Building Code of Australia and Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia. This last organisation has a vast range of resources to guide with playground design and resourcing. So where has this obsession with risk come from?

24 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

None of us want to harm children, but we have become fearful of bumps, minor scratches and the occasional bruise.

At the first minor scratch we complete incident reports, head for the Band-Aids and live in trepidation of the upset parent wanting to know how we could have damaged their child in such a way and how we’re going to stop this happening in the future. The zero-risk world is limiting children’s freedom to roam, play and engage with the natural world. We treat children as fragile, rather than capable and resourceful.

In a 2005 edition of The Ecologist, Tim Gill wrote that the rise in obsessing about children’s safety and risk coincided with the rise in what sociologist Frank Furedi calls the culture of fear: “a generalised anxiety about all manner of threats that found fertile ground in turn-of-the-millennium families, even though children are statistically safer from harm now than at any point in human history”.

That said, the 2011 Planet Ark study into children’s outdoor play (Climbing Trees: Getting Aussie Kids Back Outside) found some alarming indicators for children’s play: ❖ 73% of respondents played outdoors more often than indoors when they were young, compared to only 13% of their children. ❖ 72% of respondents played outside every day as kids, compared to only 35% of their children. ❖ One in 10 children today play outside once a week or less.

But it’s not that adults don’t want their children to play outside.

In fact, more than 93 per cent of respondents in the same play survey agreed that outdoor play was valuable, reduced stress, helped develop motor and physical skills, and helped children build their imaginations.

PHOTOS COURTESY GRIFFITH CHILD CARE CENTRE INC

In order to set children up to learn and engage for life, we need to build their capacity to take risks, to learn how to assess risk and manage the outcome.

According to the EYLF: “Outdoor learning spaces are a feature of Australian learning environments. They offer a vast array of possibilities not available indoors. Play spaces in natural environments include plants, trees, edible gardens, sand, rocks, mud, water and other elements from nature. These spaces invite open-ended interactions, spontaneity, risk-taking, exploration, discovery and connection with nature. They foster an appreciation of the natural environment, develop environmental awareness and provide a platform for ongoing environmental education.”

In order to set children up to learn and engage for life, we need to build in the capacity in children to take risks, to learn how to assess risk and manage the outcome, sometimes to take a risk without being aware of what the outcome will actually be.

As educators, we watch as children arrive in their best clothes, and quake in our boots as we dread the afternoon pickup and the response from parents as they discover the paint stains, grass stains and mud speckled across once pristine outfits. Our role, though, is to remind parents that play is very messy work, and the best outfits are play (work) clothes.

There is a place for trees children can climb, rocks to clamour across, hills to roll down, along with grass, mud, chooks, rabbits, veggie gardens and the like. The challenge for educators is getting the information they need to do the job properly and also to bolster the arguments of the play space upgrades, or program inclusions, with sound knowledge from which to give value to your cause.

Life is a circus

We recently completed a five-week ‘Artist in Residence’ with Tom, a young guy who graduated from the Flying Fruit

Fly Circus in 2013. When I discovered Tom was around and between jobs, I knew I had found the person to drive something quite unique.

I have a huge love of circus, and the physicality of the performers and the inherent risk in many of their acts. Circus has also been around for a long time, evolving into the modern performances we see today, which rely so much on human strength, talent, movement and theatricality. In effect, it demonstrates how resilience is built over time.

My idea for our circus program, though, was twofold: to expose children to some new fundamental movement skills, tricks and performances, as well as exposing children to a new range of risks, and provide them with the inbuilt skills and resources to address challenges they would face in the program, and later.

For parents, I wanted to create that gasp of fear as they watched their very young children do some pretty amazing tricks. But also the immense pride as they recognised the smiles on the their child’s face demonstrated the intrinsic self-reward of knowing they achieved something.

This becomes part of the motivation to try new things, take on new tasks and to learn. Seeing their children motivated by just knowing they can try new things provides parents with a new way of seeing their children, and how they use this motivation of self satisfaction and pride to help children feel good about themselves and participate more in family life. Plus, there’s less chance of expensive rewards to cajole children in completing tasks.

The power of self-motivation is critical in the new world these young children will step into. Increasingly, they will be in control of how and what they learn, they will be preparing for Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 25

❖b egin to develop self regulation and awareness of self motivation ❖ c hallenge adults in how they see their children—not as fragile, but as capable and resourceful people who can manage and take risks ❖h ave lots of fun ❖e xpand on the opportunity for resilience building—the power to overcome obstacles that appear in life’s path.

jobs that currently don’t exist and they will make discoveries and tackle problems that haven’t yet emerged.

Roll up, roll up

In our five-week circus program, the children (aged from two to five years) worked with Tom in small groups of five for around 20 to 30 minutes each day. He worked on balance, tumbling, climbing, falling, juggling and jumping.

By the end of the first week, the children were standing on Tom’s shoulders and weren’t holding on, balancing as they stood proud, with smiles you couldn’t wash off. They engaged in every skill presented, bolstered by the talent Tom has as a teacher, his gentle prodding to encourage everyone to try and try again, as well as by the sense of achievement as they mastered a new skill.

Circus is risky, that’s what makes us go to watch—not only to see the amazing feats that are performed by these athletes, but also the risks they take as they leap, jump, roll and tumble about. Our circus was no less scary: standing on an adult’s shoulders, using your arms to balance, and then leaping on to a crash mat can be pretty daunting if you are only three years old. Every activity had an inherent risk, but part of the process was for children to help assess the risk and make changes, as well as to take care of themselves and their friends.

By the night of our performance in our outdoor circus arena, with 300 to 400 parents and friends watching on, all of the children were participating. A program had been developed to show off the children’s best skills, and they didn’t hold back.

We funded the project ourselves, along the parameters of artist-in-residence programs run for regional arts groups. Tom was paid and we also purchased all the resources he needed to undertake the project. There was no cost to parents except for a colourful t-shirt for the performance.

The project had a number of key outcomes to achieve: ❖ learn new skills ❖b e challenged by physical and psychological barriers that are sometimes put before us ❖b uild spatial awareness and awareness about what our bodies can do ❖p rovide opportunities for children identify, modify and manage risk 26 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

In many ways, the arguments I put forward to justify this program are not too different from those in place to explain a creek bed in the nursery playground, hills, animals—in fact nearly everything we have created or used in our learning environments. We encourage the children to help set up the play equipment, check that climbing equipment is locked on properly and is safe for all children, and they are encouraged to make the changes and to monitor it throughout the day.

Our children leave our care with a huge array of skills and attitudes. They see themselves as being capable, resourceful and resilient. They can look after themselves and others around them, they can manage risk and, I think, appreciate the efforts of educators who allow those risks to be taken.

Parents and the community see confident and in control children, and this is a powerful self-agency for children to have as they enter school. For us, the educator team, the success of watching children engage with the world is immensely powerful, the identification of risk drives our motivation to allow children to take more risks, and for our own skill, knowledge and practice to be driven by the reward of self satisfaction of a job well done.

The National Quality Standard isn’t asking for a one-sizefits all approach. It is challenging educator teams to come up with answers for why they have made decisions around the standard, and what is the motivation for that. We can opt for complete safety, where we acquiesce to the helicopter parents and the bubble wrap brigade and totally protect children from ever getting a scratch, or dirty, or any bumps or bruises, or we can opt to let them choose life, with an immersion in real world experiences.

Where to next?

Maybe the challenge in all our early childhood spaces is for us to reflect on what we do and why, and ask how might we do it differently so that it enables, challenges and builds capability in children and adults.

We could also explore the language we use around children so they bolster their self-esteem, but also self-satisfaction in knowing they achieved something. So our response could be, “you must feel really proud/happy/excited that you have completed that task”. The reward is not the adult praise, but rather the internalised self-reward and the flood of positive endorphins because we have done something fabulous or risky, or something we thought we couldn’t do. ★ *Neville Dwyer is the manager of Griffith Child Care Centre Inc, a community based early childhood service based in Griffith NSW, and operates two early childhood services, Dorothy Waide Centre for Early Learning and Griffith Central Preschool.

For a full list of references, and the author’s additional research, see ccccnsw.org.au/rattlerresources

Rattler catches up with Dr Marina Papic, director of the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University, whose research is helping to demystify mathematics for educators and improve mathematical and numeracy outcomes for children.

How do you get educators to embrace mathematical content in their practice, especially those who find the idea of ‘maths’ intimidating?

Many early childhood educators have anxieties and fears about mathematics because of their own negative experiences at school. These fears can affect their ability to see opportunities for mathematical development and exploration in everyday practice.

Professional learning that is fun and hands on is critical. When working with early childhood educators, I show them how simple, everyday resources and experiences can provide children with opportunities to explore mathematical concepts and enhance their mathematical thinking. Supporting educators to see that mathematics is all around them and there are lots of opportunities for numeracy in the early years context is the key.

Why is mathematics so important in the early years?

The foundations of mathematical thinking occur in the early years, as children notice and explore mathematics in their world.

They find patterns, compare quantities, explore space and solve problems.

Play can provide rich opportunities for mathematical exploration and thinking.

Research has demonstrated that children’s mathematical ability upon

entry into formal schooling is a strong predictor of later academic success, even more so than early reading ability. Children who enter formal schooling with little mathematical knowledge will remain low achievers in mathematics throughout their school years. The quality and quantity of early mathematical experiences are the central factors in determining future mathematical success.

You explored early numeracy through an Australian Research Council Linkage project, didn’t you?

The ARC Linkage ‘Patterns and Early Algebra Preschool (PEAP) Professional Development Program’ was a three-year early numeracy project conducted with 15 Australian Aboriginal community children’s services across NSW and the ACT between 2010 and 2013. The project involved 66 early childhood educators and 255 children—aged four to five years—in the year prior to formal school.

The program focused on patterning and developing children’s early algebraic thinking. Pattern recognition is considered a sign of one’s ability to generalise and abstract ideas, and research has shown that it is integral to the development of mathematical cognition: the processes of representation, symbolisation, abstraction and generalisation. Early development of pattern and structure influences

mathematical achievement overall and enables a stronger foundation for mathematical thinking.

Educators in the study developed mathematical content and pedagogical knowledge. This was a critical aspect of successfully enhancing children’s mathematical thinking skills. Children developed their skills in problem solving, justifying and reasoning and these skills led to greater confidence, engagement and persistence.

How have programs like this been received?

Early numeracy programs, such as PEAP PD, have been very well received by the early childhood sector, as they build educators’ mathematical content and pedagogical knowledge, so they can confidently plan and implement various learning opportunities and experiences for children.

Programs such as PEAP PD align with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and support a combination of play based and intentional teaching.

EYLF has a strong numeracy focus within it; however, educators need to be supported through ongoing contextual professional development to feel confident in planning and documenting children’s mathematical development.

What’s next for you?

My current ARC Linkage project (2014–2017) with industry partners Gowrie NSW and Maari Ma Health Aboriginal Corporation explores effective ways to enhance access to early childhood education and health as well as promote social inclusion in Indigenous communities. It will evaluate a research-based model on how organisations in remote communities can collaboratively plan and implement an effective education program focused on mathematics and science, that simultaneously improves the quality of ECEC, connects families with their children’s education, and provides vital access to health information and services.

What is your wish for the future?

Children who are confident mathematicians are confident learners generally.

We need to invest in the early years and provide appropriate professional learning for educators so they can develop children’s mathematical and early numeracy skills so they can enter school not only confident mathematicians but confident thinkers, communicators and problem solvers. ★ Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 27

It takes a village Parents have been using it for nearly a decade, but it’s a resource that is unknown to many early childhood educators. Dr Julie Green explains how Raising Children Network can help educators support families.

I

n this age of evidence-based practice and the portability of devices, early childhood educators are increasingly influential in connecting parents to quality information that is grounded in what works.

Raising Children Network (www. raisingchildren.net.au) has been providing trusted information for parents, and professionals who work with parents, since 2007. Unlike many other parenting sites, the Raising Children website is evidence-based, commercial-free and free to use.

Around 30,000 Australian parents and professionals access the website daily, looking for answers to questions on a wide variety of health, learning, development and wellbeing topics for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and schoolaged children.

There are more than 2,200 articles, videos and multimedia resources available on the site, and everything is created in partnership with recognised experts across Australia—so resources incorporate the latest research and

NEWSLETTERS FOR EDUCATORS

Designed especially with health professionals and educators in mind, the free monthly Raising Children professional emails keep you up-to-date with the latest in childhood research.

The emails contain an overview of new and updated resources available on raisingchildren.net.au. They may also contain any family policy changes relevant for parents, and cover topical and newsworthy subjects relating to families and raising children.

Sign-up is free at www.raisingchildren.net.au/subscribe.aspx

28 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

best practice. All content focuses on being practical, positive and factual, going through a very rigorous quality assessment process and approval by the site’s Scientific Advisory Board, who are leaders in their field.

Raising Children Network’s content is also reviewed constantly, to make sure it’s up-to-date and relevant on important areas, such as early brain development, social and emotional wellbeing, or supporting children through important transitions.

For parents and educators who need information on support services, the website includes up-to-date telephone hotline lists, referral organisation information and general information on support resources, including services for children with disability.

Educators may find the resources highlighted on these pages particularly useful. *D r Julie Green is executive director for raisingchildren.net.au, an initiative of the Parenting Research Centre and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute with The Royal Children’s Hospital Centre for Community Child Health.

GROW AND LEARN TOGETHER

Given the importance of learning through play in the early years, raisingchildren.net.au has developed a dedicated resource for parents and those working with children, providing tips for play-based learning.

Grow and Learn Together (www.raisingchildren.net.au/ growandlearn) takes users through key child development stages on video, with fun play ideas to boost children’s learning.

There is practical advice from birth to age eight, with each age group divided into sections, including play tips, relevant things to remember for each age stage, and ‘more to explore’ links with further developmental information.

ASD AND DISABILITY APP

raisingchildren.net.au’s Children with ASD and Disability app allows parents and educators to access services and the latest on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and disability from a smartphone or tablet.

With this free app, an educator can assist parents by: ◆ using

the pathfinder to navigate each stage of funding, services and support before and after diagnosis

◆ connecting

to ASD or disability services in their area with a mapping tool and key contacts directory

◆ navigating

the Australian services system with step-bystep expert guidance

◆ learning from parents’ experiences

through parent videos

◆ getting more information about

disability and ASD from up-to-date, evidence-based articles.

MY NEIGHBOURHOOD

The My Neighbourhood feature of the Raising Children website gives parents the ability to find and connect with relevant services in their area.

An Australia-wide map service, it allows parents to search within any postcode for resources, such as early education and care, government services and general health and family services, among others.

It is particularly useful for educators when discussing early intervention with parents, as it allows a search within an area to direct parents to relevant local services, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy or psychology.

Find out more at www.raisingchildren.net.au/ myneighbourhood

Rattler 116 Summer 2015 | 29

book worm In Rattler’s literary roundup, we preview what’s new on the shelves…

Unearthing Why: Stories of thinking and learning with children

By Clare Britt and Jill McLachlan Pademelon Press RRP: $64.95 Aiming to inspire and challenge educators, Unearthing Why draws on the metaphor of an educational tree to structure our thinking around practice. So many important tasks guide what we do each day: experiences, outcomes, collaboration and curriculum planning. The authors encourage us not to be distracted by these important tasks that might keep us from seeing the root of the matter: the ‘whys’ of education (hence the metaphor of the tree).

With examples from Britt’s and McLachlan’s own experiences with children from early childhood into primary school, Unearthing Why inspires us to explore the why that lies beneath what we do and how we do it.

Answers to practical questions in the final chapter will provide opportunities for readers to reflect upon their own philosophy and stimulate further conversation with colleagues.

The Cow Tripped Over the Moon

By Lisa Miranda Sarzin and Lauren Briggs Random House RRP: $24.99* Simon loves collecting things, and when his uncle sends him a beautiful boomerang, he can’t wait to show his classmates. What results is an exploration of the national apology to the Stolen Generations, which sees Simon gain an appreciation of the past, as well as hope for a brighter future.

A thoughtful and engaging book aimed at primary school children, Stories for Simon tackles a challenging social issue in a simple and meaningful way, acknowledging the past so we can work towards true reconciliation and respect in the future. *All author and illustrator royalties will go to the GO Foundation, which provides scholarships for Indigenous children to access quality schooling.

Being an Early Childhood Educator: Bringing theory and practice together

By Lisa Bryant Community Child Care Co-operative RRP: $33.95 Community Child Care Co-operative’s popular management handbook for community based early education and care services has been given an update.

Written for new and existing management committee members, So Now You Are on the Committee is an easy-to-read guide that outlines the roles and responsibilities of a committee, as well as tips on managing conflict and accessing COMMITTEE SO NOW YOU resources and support.

ARE ON THE It’s a must-read for management committees and a Community Child Care Co-operative handy reference for directors, education and care staff and students.

Being part of a management committee of a communitybased early education and care service can sometimes be overwhelming, with so many responsibilities and issues for members to be aware of. This book is here to help!

Being part of a management committee of a communitybased early education and care service can sometimes be overwhelming, with so many responsibilities and issues for members to be aware of.

The essential part of working within a management committee of an early education and care service is to have the passion for ensuring your service offers great care and education to children, an interest in the good management of the service, the ability to listen, the ability to be fair and… the time to be involved!

SO NOW YOU

COMMITTEE ARE ON THE A HANDBOOK FOR COMMITTEE MEMBERS OF EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE SERVICES

The essential part of working within a management committee of an early education and care service is to have the passion for ensuring your service offers great care and education to children, an interest in the good management of the service, the ability to listen, the ability to be fair and… the time to be involved!

Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW) LISA BRYANT

So Now You Are On The Committee outlines what a management committee actually does, and provides an easy-to-read guide for all those wishing to become a member, or for those already acting in this role.

It’s a must-read publication for management committees and a handy reference for directors, educators and students.

ABOUT COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE

Community Child Care Co-operative is a not-for-profit organisation that works to make sure children have access to high quality affordable education and care (childcare).

We help increase the quality of education and care service provision by providing professional development, training and information to educators and those that manage services. We support education and care services, especially those that are community based not for profit services.

We advocate (often quite loudly) to governments about the importance of early education for children and the importance of not for profit provision of early education. We aim to inform, inspire and develop a strong and professional education and care sector. We aim to influence government policy, practices and programs so that children have access to quality education and care.

So Now You Are On The Committee outlines what a management committee actually does, and provides an easy-to-read guide for all those wishing to become a member, or for those already acting in this role.

SO NOW YOU

ARE ON THE A HANDBOOK FOR COMMITTEE MEMBERS OF EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE SERVICES

Community Child Care Co-operative LISA BRYANT

Illustration: Deborah Kelly

It’s a must-read publication for management committees and a handy reference for directors, educators and students.

Community Child Care Co-operative is a not-for-profit organisation that works to make sure children have access to high quality affordable education and care (childcare).

We help increase the quality of education and care service provision by providing professional development, training and information to educators and those that manage services. We support education and care services, especially those that are community based not for profit services.

We advocate (often quite loudly) to governments about the importance of early education for children and the importance of not for profit provision of early education. We aim to inform, inspire and develop a strong and professional education and care sector. We aim to influence government policy, practices and programs so that children have access to quality education and care.

Illustration: Deborah Kelly

COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE

ABOUT COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE

SO NOW YOU ARE ON THE COMMITTEE

By Felicity McArdle, Megan Gibson and Lyn Zollo Allen & Unwin RRP: $45.00 Written for students studying to become early childhood teachers, this practical guide aims to help students prepare for prac and enter into their professional careers.

Authors McArdle, Gibson and Zollo are early childhood lecturers at Queensland University of Technology, and have written the text to encourage students

So Now You Are on the Committee

COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE

30 | Rattler 116 Summer 2015

Stories for Simon

SO NOW YOU ARE ON THE COMMITTEE

By Tony Wilson and Laura Wood Scholastic Press RRP: $24.99 We all know what happens in the famous nursery rhyme, when the cow jumped over the moon, but do you know what happened behind the scenes in the lead up to that amazing bovine feat?

“It seems a moon clearance, Takes great perseverance…” writes Tony Wilson, whose hilarious retelling of the rhyme is set to Laura Woods’ gorgeous illustrations.

Just like life’s adventures, jumping the moon takes a fair bit of practice, courage and perseverance, something all young children can relate to.

to bring together theories learned at university with ways of working with children in real settings.

Chapters include advice and information on how to develop lesson plans and plan for prac, how to think and act like a teacher, understanding documentation, how to be more employable, and how to manage and connect with young children in different settings, so teachers can successfully transition from student teacher to confident, prepared professional.

COMMITTEE A HANDBOOK FOR COMMITTEE MEMBERS OF EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE SERVICES

LISA BRYANT

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When you choose Guild’s Children’s Accident Protection Insurance, you’re protected in this scenario and will be able to act quickly providing financial support to the family of an injured child.

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Insurance issued by Guild Insurance Ltd, ABN 55 004 538 863, AFSL 233791 and subject to terms, conditions and exclusions. Guild Insurance supports your association through the payment of referral fees. This document contains general advice only and doesn’t take into account what you currently have, want and need for your personal circumstances. It is important for you to consider these matters and read the Product Disclosure Statement. GLD3248 Children’s accident protection press ad 06/2015.

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