Assignment Sharing Web Resources #2

The website that I have been looking at is Early Childhood Australia. This week, I took a look at their Everyday Learning series. They had topics ranging from play, friendships, dealing with anger to going green. These articles are meant for parents or anyone who cares for children. However, you have to pay for the articles. Next, I explored the link called Child Development, Family, Health, and Education Research. which brought me to a list of topics and ages. I clicked on infants to see what was available and then clicked on play. This brought me to a list of websites sharing articles about the importance of play. I will bookmark this page for future reference.

The next link I clicked on was called supporting best practice. This led to more lists of topics and fact sheets from other websites. Some useful links are babies, toddlers, early childhood practices, Diversity and inclusion, and assessment and evaluation.

I didn’t come across anything I thought was controversial. Many of their standards for quality care are similar to ours here in the US. I found an article under the link, "Every Child Magazine" called Cultural competence - ensuring individuality is integral to equity, fairness and
social justice.

Australia has recently implemented universal quality standards. This approach is partly an economic investment, but this article expresses the importance of individual children and families and respecting their strengths and diverse backgrounds. “In finalizing the logistics of National Quality Framework implementation (and what
a major initiative and achievement!) we must keep ‘deep understandings’ about children, development and learning in the early years at the top of our ‘to do’ lists. Regulations, rating and results are important, but at the core of quality programs are children and their relations with others.” I thought this quote and the full article were interesting because our discussions were about the perspectives of economists and politicians and the unintended consequences of looking at early childhood programs as strictly a financial investment.

Other than implementing universal standards, I did not find any other information about trends that are different from the US. In both countries early childhood professionals care about high quality, inclusion and diversity, ending the cycle of poverty, professional development, inequality etc. This website has many resources, but a lot of them are for members only or you have to buy individual articles. I wish more of the resources were free, but there are still some links I haven’t explored. The resources I was able to view show a commitment to the well-being of young children.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

One of my contacts, Sherry is from Australia and one thing she told me was that the biggest change in early childhood education is the implementation of a national curriculum framework called The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia which they haven’t had until recently. 

It specifically states that children should be taught through play. “The principles of early childhood pedagogy underpin practice. Educators draw on a rich repertoire of pedagogical practices to promote children’s learning by (amongst eight other points) planning and implementing through play.” (EYLF, 2009, p.14)
This means that the activities should be child oriented and initiated, not
teacher directed.Sherry stated, “Another issue in Australia is that the Federal Government has legislated that every child in the year before they attend school must have access to 15 hours of preschool per week (it is called Universal Access). As up until now children have had 10 hours, it is a big change to staffing, programming and timetabling.
Also the Government is bringing in the National Quality Standard which is divided into seven areas that contribute to the quality of early childhood education and care. These areas have been identified by research and are:
1.Educational program and practice
2.Children’s health and safety
3.Physical environment
4.Staffing arrangements (including the number of staff looking after children)
5.Relationships with children
6.Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
7.Leadership and service management
For the first time there will be consistency all across Australia in the Early Childhood sector.”

My contact Kierna from Northern Ireland also gave me an overview of their educational system.She said one difference between Northern Ireland and the US is that children start compulsory schooling at the age of four instead of five. They call it Primary 1 and she mentioned that it has become less formal over the years. Children now have more play based experiences, but they are still learning to read and write at a very young age. Kierna teaches in a nursery program for children ages three and four. It is not compulsory like Primary 1, but it is free. Kierna said that nursery teachers have to have a teaching qualification which allows them to teach children of any age in elementary school. She gives her class a lot of outdoor time and play based experiences. However, that is not the norm in Northern Ireland. There are classes that do not go out everyday or even have a good outdoor space. Kierna’s practice has been the most influenced by her experiences in Norway. She told me that the French and Polish settings were generally more formal and that she prefers the Scandinavian models.

Assignment: Sharing Web Resources

The organization I chose to learn more about is Early Childhood Australia.
Here is their mission statement. “Early Childhood Australia will advocate to ensure quality, social justice and equity in all issues relating to the education and care of children from birth to eight years.”
Their values are The rights of children, leadership, excellence, respect, courage, honesty, openness, collaboration, diversity, justice and social inclusion of children.
Their newsletter is called ECA Web Watch. The first issue they discuss on their September issue is child protection week. More than 30000 children are neglected or abused every year in Australia. The newsletter discusses how communities, organizations, adults and children are doing their part to protect children from abuse and neglect. They have created programs for this purpose.

Play a part program Aimed at children aged 0–8, their families and communities, the Play a part program is a local community engagement strategy that aims to prevent child abuse and neglect through the creation of child-friendly communities.

All children being safe program aimed at preschool and early primary children aged 4–6, the All children being safe program uses non-threatening ways to help young children feel strong and stay safe in their communities, and to make people aware of support services available in their local communities.

Another issue that caught my attention was an article called, “For Full-time Fathers The Pressure is On.”

This article looks at how the lifestyles of Australian fathers have changed in recent decades.
Various research programs and studies reveal that on average, Australian fathers
are working more, spending more time with their children and helping with domestic
chores—and the pressure to ‘do it all’ is starting to show.

The newsletter offers a resource sheet which discusses Closing the gap in outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. This requires a focus on early intervention/education of Indigenous young children (from birth), their families and communities. I mentioned this because it relates to culture and diversity which is the topic this week.

 

Establishing Professional Contacts & Expanding Resources

To find professional contacts outside the US, I contacted a couple of the bloggers that I follow. My first contact was from Northern Ireland. She has been a nursery teacher for over twelve years and has been involved with Comenius projects which has allowed her to visit schools in Poland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and France. She writes a blog called Learning for Life. Much of her blog focuses on the importance of exploring nature and outdoor play.

My second contacts were two people who have taught together in Melbourne Australia for many years. They have a blog/website called Irresistible Ideas for play based learning. They share many inspiring and creative ideas for classrooms and write about their visits to other area preschools. I have not received any E-mails from them both yet but I am trying to figure out what to ask them first when I do.

The website I chose for part two of the blog assignment is Early Childhood Australia. I looked at a few of the other resources and this one seemed the most interesting to me. I chose this website because it has a variety of links and information to explore. I also subscribed to their newsletters.

I’d like to thank my two contacts for being willing to help. I appreciate them taking the time out of their busy days to answer my questions. I’m looking forward to learning new information from my contacts and through the website.