12 minute read
THE KEYS TO EXCEED - NAROOMA PRESCHOOL
PART ONE / THREE PART SERIES
The keys to exceed Narooma Preschool
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In this three part series, Rattler takes a deep dive with a range of services who have achieved Exceeding ratings in all seven Quality Areas to share with you how they reached this high standard.
BY CAROLIN WENZEL
In Part 1 we find out about Narooma Preschool, a small stand-alone preschool in regional NSW that has made great strides in engaging with their local diverse community and improved their rating from ‘meeting’ to ‘exceeding’ in Quality Areas 1- Education, 2– Health and Safety and 7– Governance.
NAROOMA PRESCHOOL Quality rating: Exceeding
Narooma is a small beachside town in the Eurobodalla Shire in southern NSW. There is a strong local Aboriginal community, but when Director Kathy Phipps took over in mid-2015, very few Aboriginal children were enrolled.
Vulnerability of children in Narooma when starting school rose sharply in the 2015 AEDC results, with 20% of 5 year-old children vulnerable in two or more domains (double the rate for the Eurobodalla Shire that year), but were much reduced by 2018 down to 9.2% - lower than the rate for the shire (9.6%) and for NSW (11%).
Narooma Preschool could well provide a strong case study for the direct link between high quality early learning with qualified educators and reduced vulnerability leading to improved education outcomes. (A Productivity Commission report shows that children who attend early childhood education and care have half the rate of vulnerability when they start school as children who attend no ECEC). 1
Director Kathy Phipps says, “I knew from the day I started that I was expected to keep Narooma’s Exceeding rating at the next assessment – which would be four years away, so our preparation for the assessment began four years ago.” Narooma Preschool started 44 years ago in the mid-70s. Kath’s predecessor had been in the role for 35 years, and many of the staff had been there for ten years or more.
Kath wrote up the Quality Improvement Plan based on 12 months of reflection and notes made by the team, making sure the six guiding principles of the NQF were reflected in each of the seven Quality areas:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. The rights and best interests of the child are paramount
Children are successful, capable and competent learners
Equity, inclusion and diversity underpin the right to success of children of all capacities and cultural backgrounds
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures are valued 2
The role of parents and families is respected and supported Best practice is expected in the provision of education and care services Kath made the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families her highest priority. She made use of an opportunity by indigenous education consultants Ngroo Education to undertake a cultural audit to find out what they needed to do differently to make Aboriginal families feel welcome and included.
“We learned that coming through our gate was a big deal for these families – their families had been part of the stolen generation, so we had to first build trust. The first thing we did was put the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags on the front desk,” said Kathy.
Kathy enlisted the support of Natalie Bateman, an Aboriginal mother who had recently moved back to the area and enrolled her son Marrlawgay (pron: Maal-ow-gay).
“His name means ‘thunder and lightning’ in his father’s language from up north, at Nambucca and Bowraville,” says Natalie. “My family is Yuin – all my grandparents are from the Yuin clan which has 13 sub-tribes and
“I was very glad when Marrlawgay turned three and could enrol at Narooma – it’s a beautiful preschool with an impressive outside space – a big yard with trees.”
Kathy knew that Natalie was a nationally recognised artist with her work exhibited in galleries and shows across NSW, Queensland and the ACT. She secured a grant to commission some artwork and invited Natalie to create a mural for the front fence, as well as a larger mural in the yard.
“What Kath’s doing is subtle," says Natalie. "She speaks to us with respect and she’s quietly making changes, like asking me to create the welcome board at the front. I worked with the children and included their drawings of whales, dogs and a garden. The board says ‘Welcome to Narooma preschool’ in language. I painted Yuin symbols of the duck, Gulaga mountain and the sun. It’s very light and welcoming.” 1. Educational Program and Practice Kathy explains that play is at the heart of the philosophy at Narooma. She says that they aim to find the balance between following the children’s interests, and building in intentional teaching so that they support the children’s voice, but also give educators a voice.
An example is the way Kathy has embedded the practice of creating ‘circles of interest’ to draw children in to a provocation and then allow them to develop it.
“One teacher was interested in art, so she put some artwork based on famous artworks by Picasso and cubist artists onto a circular mat. The children who were drawn to it came and explored and were invited to do their own interpretive artwork.
“As a result of that project, we realised we needed a permanent art space, because art is different from craft. With this teacher, the children started doing all different styles of art – lino
Kathy tells the story of how one girl went home and used her mum’s phone to take lots of photos. When the parents saw their child’s art portfolio at the preschool, they realised what she was doing and how passionate she was about it, and bought her a camera, even though she’s only five.
2. Children’s health and safety Narooma involves the children in their health and safety processes. They discuss their routines with them, and have a song they sing when they wash their hands.
“It’s part of our interaction with children,” explains Kathy. “Our progressive morning teas are done with respect, invitation and time. Every child is provided with time to come and relax, eat and socialise. To learn about healthy eating, sustainability and caring for our world.”
3. Physical Environment The service has worked hard to make their physical environment amazing, and they leave a lot of space for the children to choose what they would like to do.
They support building children's agency by allowing them to make decisions about their world, and their learning spaces. For example instead of putting all the outdoor toys out, they open the shed door and ask the children, ‘What would you like out today?’ It’s all about working together.
“We created a rule book together to keep ourselves safe, and made signs that say things like: ‘This is a walk way’, ‘This is a run way’,” says Kathy.
“We encourage risky play, and we ask the children to work out what we need to do to keep each other safe – if they are doing something we feel is unsafe, an educator could say, ‘I’m not feeling safe with that, what can you do to make me feel safe?'”
4. Staffing arrangements Narooma has just one room and a verandah and up to thirty children attend. Five staff members are rostered every day, so someone can always take a break and there are always four people on.
5. Relationships with children Kathy tells us that relationships are incredibly important at Narooma, and that the relationship with the children includes relating to their families. She believes that it’s important for children to see the preschool as a place of cohesion and strength, especially if things are stressful at home.
“They see you as, ‘you’re my earth’, everything’s normal when I come here,” says Kathy.
Kathy tells her educators: “Our clients are four years old – they show their gratitude with their smiles and how often they call your name and hug you. You’re making a difference in someone’s life, let’s celebrate that together.”
6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities One of the challenges Narooma faced was how to connect with the Chinese and Thai parents who run restaurants and are extremely busy. One of the educators suggested they go to their restaurant as a team and have a meal there.
“They felt so honoured,” says Kathy. “It was a great solution to build connections that we came up with through teamwork.”
Kathy’s work building trust with the local Aboriginal community culminated recently at their graduation ceremony
Mural with artist Natalie Bateman and her son Marrlawgay
where a young teenager, Layton Moore, was invited to do a traditional Welcome to Country for the first time at the preschool. He wore a headpiece that represented his personal totem the magpie and a traditional possum cloak. Graduating preschool student Paeje Mathi led the children in the Acknowledgement to Country. A local Yuin Elder, Aunty Vivian was also present.
All the Yuin women who worked with Natalie and the children on the murals came and commented that they felt ‘a tide was turning’.
7. Governance and Leadership Kath shares that one of the challenges she faced as a new director with the committees was to ensure that they had a preschool vision in place, and a philosophy that was foundational to that vision. It needed to be a living document embedded in the National Quality Standards that reflected their community values and educational needs.
“Over the past four years we have worked together to create transparency through strong policy development and good Governance procedures. This has seen our committee members feel capable and confident to stay on our committee for up-to three years, which benefits our preschool management continuity. “We also educate the Committee, especially the office bearers, about what we’re doing. I invite the President to our staff appraisals, so he can understand the thinking that goes into developing our programs.”
THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS AND FUTURE GOALS Kathy and the team spent four years working up to their assessment and rating in August 2019, and she says it all came down to just two days when the assessor was visiting. Only one other staff member had been through an assessment before, so they all found the process intense and at times overwhelming.
“I was the first to arrive and the last to leave on assessment day. Some of the educators were very optimistic when the day started, but I found them later in tears, it was so nerve wracking.
“The assessor wrote down everything we said and expressed disappointment at some things she saw. You have to be prepared to be on your toes and know your stuff. By the time she left none of us were sure what rating we’d get,” said Kathy.
The result for Narooma was a significant rating improvement. In 2014, although they were rated Exceeding overall, they were only rated as Meeting in areas 1,2 and 7. The 2019
Kathy says, “We’re going to go for Excellence in Leadership next. The National Quality Standards say that leadership is a shared responsibility. We want to shift our thinking here from expecting leadership to come from the top down and seeing leadership as a shared responsibility. We are currently working on our team values. We are in agreement that kindness is our mantra”.
Look out for Part Two in the next issue of Rattler.
WHY QUALITY MATTERS
We know that for some children, attending quality early learning can have life-changing impacts. It can support children’s cognitive, emotional and social development so that they don’t start school behind.
An often quoted Australian study found that children who attend preschool score higher on Year 3 NAPLAN tests. (Warren and Haisken-DeNew, 2013). 3
Learning circle - nature objects But the key to these improved learning outcomes is Quality.
High-quality early education and care benefits cognitive development, improves concentration, and fosters better intellectual development, enhanced vocabularies and greater sociability. In contrast, poor quality care is associated with deficits in language and cognitive function for very young children, and has been associated with poorer social and emotional development (Productivity Commission, 2014 In Quality education for all, Mitchell Institute 2016). 4
The National Quality Framework (NQF) and Standards (NQS) are the sector’s guide to providing quality early learning for all Australian children, no matter where they live. Education and care services are assessed and rated by their state and territory regulatory authority and the regulator who monitors these standards is the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA).
As nerve wracking and stress-inducing as a ratings assessment can be, even for the staff and directors of the highest quality services, it’s the only way we can know to what extent quality early education and care are being provided across Australia and for all services to be held accountable to the same set of standards.
In fact, a hallmark of high-quality-rated services is the way they support the quality standards and embed the NQF principles in their philosophy, structures and daily programming.
RATTLER ISSUE 130 | MARCH 2020 | 16 REFERENCES
1. Early Learning: Everyone Benefits. (2019). State of early learning in Australia 2019. Canberra, ACT: Early Childhood Australia Fig B8 p9
2. Guide to the National Quality Framework (2020) ACECQA p10 - download here www. acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-01/ Guide-to-the-NQF_2.pdf
3. O’Connell M, Fox S, Hinz B and Cole H (2016). Quality Early Education for All: Fostering, entrepreneurial, resilient and capable leaders, Mitchell Institute policy paper No. 01/2016 p7
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