Amplify! Blog

The future of early learning is on the national agenda. This year, the new Government signalled a strong commitment to ECEC policy, with record investments at a federal level and in some states and territories. These strategies, as well as the enquiries planned for 2023, aim to deliver better outcomes for children and families across Australia. 

CELA CEO Michele Carnegie is a member of the Front Project's Apiary Fellowship, which is developing a vision for the future of early education. The Apiary Fellowship are calling for input from children across Australia: here’s how you can get involved.  

When the management team at soon-to-be-opened Futuro Childcare & Education advertised for educators to join their new service, they didn't expect to receive so many exceptional applications. Rather than turn quality educators away during such a challenging time for recruitment, they decided to look for ways to offer great opportunities to as many applicants as possible. 

After seeing our recent Amplify! article on distributed leadership at Euroka Children's Centre, the Futuro team decided to contact Euroka's Director Lorriene Bullivant to further explore the model. Find out how the Futuro team managed to attract such a great group of educators, what they learned from the team at Euroka, and what they are planning moving forward. 

Early Childhood Teacher Meg Anastasi discusses integrating equity and agency into end-of-year celebrations and why she finds it difficult to reconcile concerts with her teaching philosophy.

Do you sometimes struggle to know how to talk about holidays and celebrations in a mindful and inclusive manner? 

Stephanie Seidler is a New York based early educator and published author who is passionate about promoting meaningful and inclusive educational experiences for children. She has just published a book called Celebration Babies, aimed at giving early educators a simple way to talk about and share diverse holidays with young children.  

In this Amplify! article, Stephanie tells us about the inspiration behind her book and how we can embrace all celebrations in an enthusiastic way.  

Education and care services should be aware of two important changes recently made to NSW and Commonwealth Government policies:

1. The NSW Minister for Education and Early Learning has released a Minister’s Statement of Expectations. It means all education and care services can expect a visit from the regulator at least once each year. 

2. The Commonwealth Government has changed the rules about inducements—it means iPads and other financial incentives to encourage families to enrol at a service are not permitted from January 2023. 

Read on to find out the detail about these new changes and how they could impact your service.  

Recently, Maria Pender retired from CELA's board after a lifetime career in early childhood education.

Maria Pender is a woman who believes that if you can do something to make a difference, then that’s what you should do. Over her long and respected career as an early childhood educator, Maria made a difference in the lives of many children, educators and families. 

We celebrate Maria's career highlights and share how she went from working in a local kindergarten aged 11, to championing sustainability and innovation as the Director of Clovelly Child Care Centre and setting up programs at Macquarie University that enabled Indigenous students to become early childhood teachers. 

Children learn a lot about conversations from speaking with adults. Speaking respectfully with children will help them learn how to speak respectfully with friends and adults, contributing to their social and emotional development.

Early Childhood Teacher Meg Anastasi shares some tips and ideas about how to speak respectfully with children in various early childhood education situations. 

Supporting children during moments of stress or when confronted with behaviours of concern can be challenging in a busy early education and care space, but it is vital that educators feel confident and capable during these situations. Having an understanding of how children’s brains respond to stress can equip educators with the knowledge and framework required to confidently support children to navigate these moments. 

In this article, we explore why it’s beneficial to understand neuroscience when working with children. We provide a topline overview of key neuroscience concepts and how different parts of the brain affect a child’s response to stimuli, and share tips from CELA trainer Kerrie Maguire on how educators can help children by boosting the right brain chemicals through relationships, responses and activities.  

The Treasurer delivered the interim Federal Budget on Tuesday, 25 October 2022. Early education and care was a focus due to the Cheaper Child Care legislation, which will largely benefit young families.

The interim budget delivered on its election promise regarding cheaper child care, addressing affordability and access for vulnerable children. We are pleased with these measures as they align with CELA's advocacy pillars and our 6 Point Plan for Education and Care, addressing issues we have advocated for over many years.

As expected, the budget did not address early education and care wages. There will be another window for this to be addressed in the May budget, particularly given the Cheaper Childcare Bill will create even more demand for our workforce when it is implemented. We will continue our relentless advocacy to influence for wages to be addressed in the lead-up to the May budget.

Historically, nappy change facilities haven’t been included in every preschool service. However, history isn’t always the best determinant of how we should do things now and into the future.

As part of CELA’s consultancy work, we often come across early education and care services that cater to the 3+ age group that do not include nappy change facilities. This includes both newly built services and renovations of existing services.

In this week’s Amplify! we explore the legal and ethical implications of not including nappy change facilities to help services make informed decisions in line with current practice.