A Rights-based Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education and Care in Australia: Applying a Standards Framework

Author(s):

Helen Wildy(presenting / submitting)Gerardine Neylon Dee O'Connor Christine McGunnigle

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

25. Research on Children's Rights in Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

25 SES 10, Children’s Rights in Early Childhood Settings

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

15:30-17:00

Room:

207.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Jenna K Gillett-Swan

Contribution

Compared with some OECD countries, with their well-developed Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services and their high level of investment in the ECEC sector, Australia lags behind. Indeed, the underdeveloped nature of Australia's ECEC provision has been correlated with its poor performance on international scales (UNICEF, 2008). Australia, along with countries such as Ireland which also scored poorly, has introduced overarching policies relating to funding, curriculum frameworks and increased provision of ECEC.

Australia's effort to address international standards is manifest in its introduction of a National Quality Framework. The Framework has two components: National Quality Standard (NQS); and the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) called Belonging Being and Becoming (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009). The Early Years Learning Framework outlines curricular guidelines for those who work with children from birth to eight years, in school, pre-school and childcare settings. The EYLF is founded on postmodern, relational and rights based pedagogical approaches influenced by Nordic and Reggio Emilia philosophies.

This is the first time that an agreed and explicated pedagogy, directly addressing the care-education debate, is to be implemented in early childhood services in Australia.

Historically, care has been relatively unregulated and ad hoc. Multiple providers and stakeholders in a variety of settings have operated within an unwieldy, cumbersome mix of services, spread across the for-profit and not-for-profit sector, with disparities in financing levels and management.

The launch of the national co-ordinating body, Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), in 2012 began the process of unifying policy, training, pedagogy and assessment in the sector. Since 1 January 2014, long day care and preschool services must have access to an early childhood teacher for at least 20 per cent of the time that the service provides education and care (ACECQA, 2014). As part of the NQF (COAG, 2009) educators in the childcare sector are responsible for implementing the EYLF, which spans the integration of education and care across 0-5 year old settings.

The National Quality Framework mandates that programs and practice ensure that each child’s current knowledge, ideas, culture, abilities and interests are the foundation of the program. Educators are required to adapt the curriculum to support each individual child including cultural factors which contribute to who they are, how they learn and how they respond. This has posed a challenge because, historically, the aim of the school has been education, and the aim of the childcare service, ‘to care’ (Childcare Act, 2007; School Education Amendment Bill, 2012b).

The significance of this study lies in its ability to investigate the implementation of this policy document in the unique context of school-based childcare for very young children.

The research question posed in this study is: how do practitioner/educators interpret and apply the EYLF in the planning, programming, resourcing and evaluating of their programs?

The proposed paper to be presented to ECER is one of a series of papers generated from this study.

Method

The study addresses how the EYLF is interpreted and applied by practitioners/educators, and is appropriately situated in the interpretivist paradigm. The research seeks to understand the meaning that lead educators in school-based care centres make of their world, through their beliefs, values, and behaviours. The research is positioned in the narrative inquiry tradition (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Richardson, 1994). The sample consists of four early education settings in metropolitan area of the capital city of Western Australia, two from each of the Catholic and Government sectors. As early childhood care has only recently been associated with schools, in contrast to stand-alone provision, the four selected sites comprise nearly the total population of such sites in the region. The focus of the study was the interaction of the lead educator in the room in which 2 to 3 year old ‘toddlers’ are cared for. This age range was selected because it is situated nearest to the traditionally provided 4 to 5 year-old Early Childhood programs which are widely accepted across the state as part of the school level provision. Furthermore, the structure of the program for the 2 to 3 year old toddlers provides scope for observing a variety of activities that might demonstrate planning for the five key themes of the Early Years Learning Framework: • Children have a strong sense of identity • Children are connected with and contribute to their world • Children have a strong sense of wellbeing, • Children are confident and involved learners • Children are effective communicators Working in pairs, the research team visited each centre twice, conducting classroom observations of practice and interviews with educators. Narrative accounts were created to depict and illustrate the range of ways lead educators interact with children to develop the key EYLF outcomes. The focus for the paper reported is the theme: 'Children are confident and involved learners'. In particular this paper reports findings concerning how the educator and environment can either help or hinder the child to become a confident and involved learner.

Expected Outcomes

The expected findings of this part of the study relate to the ways in which the EYLF is applied and interpreted by lead educators. There is evidence that at the policy level, all four centres have received extensive briefing and even professional development relating to the newly mandated standards. Application of the EYLF standards is evident to varying degrees, ranging from an explicit uptake among those educators who are recently graduated EC teachers, or currently studying for their qualifications. The prepared environments also ranged considerably, from highly risk-averse constructions with heavily scrutinised safety and health routines, on the one hand, to relatively more free flowing, creative and natural settings in which children's wellbeing was monitored with an eye to building their confidence rather than ensuring they experienced no risk of danger or potential harm. The discussion of these findings draws attention to the amount of latitude given to 2 to 3 year old toddlers to explore, experiment, learn, make mistakes, and interact with their peers. The concept of the hidden curriculum is discussed: in some of the sites, the message being taught to children appears to relate to avoidance and fear, with harm being constrained through tight carefully guarded routines. In other sites, the message seems to be that children have a right to be curious and that learning takes place when children experiment unhampered by adult interference.

References

Australian Children Education and Care Quality Authority. (2014). Higher qualifications http://www.acecqa.gov.au/National-Quality-Framework/key-changes/higher-qualifications Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). (2006). Early Childhood Education Pathways to quality and equity for all children. ACER Press, Victoria. http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/AER_50-QualityAndChoice.pdf retrieved 9th April 2014 Childcare Act. (2007). Western Australian Parliament. Retrieved from http://www.communities.wa.gov.au/education-and-care/nqfgb/Documents/child_care_services_act_ 2007_wa.pdf Commonwealth Government of Australia. (2012). School education amendment bill 2012. Retrieved from http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/bills.nsf/9C3F5760B9E6EF2148257A850006E580/$File/Bill315-1.pdf. Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(4), 2-14. Council of Australian Governments. (2009). National quality standard for early childhood education and care and school age care. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (2009). Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Canberra Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. UNICEF. (2008). Report Card 8 Innocenti Research Centre A League Table of Early Childhood Education and Care in Economically Advanced Countries. Florence: UNICEF.

Author Information

Helen Wildy (presenting / submitting)

The University of Western Australia, Australia

Gerardine Neylon

The University of Western Australia, Australia

Dee O'Connor

The University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, Australia

Christine McGunnigle