The recent NSW election saw the re-elected Liberal government committing $120 million to a set of promises to help Outside School Hours Care (OSHC, or more commonly ‘OOSH’ in NSW). We rounded up the commitments in a post-election story, and launched a national survey (now closed) to help policy makers better understand the nature of […]
Square pegs in a round hole Vicki Olds is an early childhood teacher, but lately she’s wondering why. For years she’s delivered specialised and responsive early childhood education programs to some of Australia’s most remote and vulnerable families as part of the Broken Hill Outback Mobile Resource Unit, a BBF (budget-based funding) service that covers […]
OSHC Survey 2019 Take the national OSHC survey for 2019 and help gather the knowledge we need to share with politicians and policy-makers. Head to this collector link to begin the survey now. There are 30 questions, mostly multiple choice, and it should take around 10 minutes to complete. Take the survey now. Related […]
While Easter occupies many early childhood educators’ thoughts and programs at present, this year Anzac* Day is less than a week after Good Friday. Will your service be commemorating both events? Neither? One but not the other? Let us know in the comments or on CELA’s social media accounts. In the meantime we’ve put together […]
With a significant cabinet announcement for ECE in NSW, we take a spin around the nation to see how each state and territory treats early childhood education in Cabinet Minister rankings. How does your jurisdiction stack up? New South Wales The NSW Premier has elevated her Early Childhood Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, to the state’s […]
Children are too important for politics One third of Australia faced an election last weekend. We’ve been bringing you the NSW issues in some detail because, more than usual, this state contest and the Victorian election before it, have featured promises with national implications. The re-elected Premier promised NSW “could have it all” – and […]
The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) reports every three years on how Australian children have developed by the time they start school. It looks at five areas of early childhood development domains: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and communication skills and general knowledge. The 2018 report is out […]
As recently as the last NSW election in 2015, there was an acknowledged need for 45,000 or more places in outside school hours care (OSHC, or OOSH) in both public and private schools. In 2019, a new election promise from the current NSW Government (Coalition) might come close to resolving that deficit if they are re-elected, with […]
Early childhood and early primary years educators are quite possibly the most active poetry readers in Australia. Don’t laugh: it’s true! Regardless of whether you have sonnets by your bedside, or you don’t know your iambic from your pentameter, chances are that you read aloud from a book of poetry nearly every day at work. Poetry […]
17-23 March 2019 Almost 50% of all Australians were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas, a fact that the organisers of Harmony Week 2019 are keen to share this year. That’s right: Harmony Week. This year is the first time organisers (currently the Australian Department of Home Affairs) have extended […]
