Years Learning Framework For Australia Research Articles

Engaging stakeholders to inform policy developments in early childhood education and outside school hours care

The application of engagement strategies to ensure democracy of decisions is increasingly valued and adopted by governments to ensure trust in the process and ownership of the outcome. This paper describes the approach and methods used to engage early childhood education and care (ECEC) and outside school hours care (OSHC) stakeholders in the contemporizing and updating of Australia’s national Approved Learning Frameworks (ALFs): Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) and My Time Our Place: Framework for School Age Care (MTOP). Theoretical underpinnings of a robust stakeholder engagement strategy ensured a range of methods were developed to communicate with and encourage participation by the diversity of stakeholders who are invested in ECEC and OSHC in Australia – broadly defined as approved providers, teachers, educators, families, children and young people, regulatory authorities and other professionals who provide support and advice. A mixed-method, sequential 3-Stage design was developed to gather the insights, responses, and perspectives of stakeholders who provided, worked in, used, attended, or supported ECEC and/or OSHC settings. Stakeholder feedback included survey ratings and written comments, focus group and panel discussions, educator documentation and video-diaries, and the writings, talking, and drawings of children and young people. Evaluation methods focus on the number, diversity, and depth of stakeholder responses. In conclusion, we reflect on the usefulness, benefits, limitations, and effectiveness of our approach to participatory engagement to inform government policy development and decision making.

Conceptualising the education and care workforce from the perspective of children and young people

Children are significant stakeholders within education and care settings. Their views can be invaluable in thinking about what matters to conceptualising, assessing and improving quality in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) settings. As stakeholders, children’s views are rarely listened to by Australian policy makers to assess what constitutes quality and how the quality can be improved. In the process of updating two nationally approved Australian Learning Frameworks (ALFs): Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia 2.0 and My Time Our Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia 2.0, children’s responses provided meaningful insights into their perceptions of the practices of the educators. The children’s perspectives were gathered in a combination of research methodologies of talking circles, dialogic drawing, and visual elicitation. Their responses about experiences in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) contexts were analysed to provide a deeper understanding about the characteristics of their experiences in the settings. The research process delivered information about children’s perspectives about pedagogical principles and practices that describe the Australian children’s education and care workforce and environments. The process of gathering the children’s perspectives is not without limitations, however the information is invaluable in considering the assessment and improvement of quality in children’s services.

(Re)considering equity, inclusion and belonging in the updating of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia: The potential and pitfalls of book sharing

Few would dispute the importance of equity, inclusion and belonging in early childhood education and care, yet translation into meaningful practice rarely centres the priorities of historically divested communities. The national learning framework for early childhood in Australia is the Early Years Learning Framework, positioning the child as a capable agent and describing inclusive, culturally competent practice. This article presents part of a larger study investigating educators’ beliefs and practices when using culturally diverse literature to address the Early Years Learning Framework’s diversity principles. A critical theoretical framework enables a robust examination of how the Early Years Learning Framework constructs, maintains, legitimises and/or disaffirms social inequities, implicitly probing how literacy education mediate/s messages children receive about their identity, cultures and roles in society. The findings suggest that instead of pursuing anti-racism and transformative justice, educators’ pedagogical practices were likely to legitimise existing racist structures. The findings are discussed in relation to 20 recommendations published by a consortium of experts in the updating of the Early Years Learning Framework. The implementation of the updated Early Years Learning Framework must act on questions of justice for whom and according to whom. To move to ideologies, methodologies and pedagogies of potentiality, it is necessary to interrogate and reject oppressive and harmful practices, inaccurate and insensitive portrayals, and pedagogies damaging to Black, Indigenous, and other communities of Color which this study shows have beenevident in the EYLF to date.

Capturing “Sense of Belonging” in Preschool Curriculum Guidelines and Implications: An Analysis Based on Chinese and Australian Curriculum Guidelines

Belonging is an emotion that is essential to children’s social development. More and more countries incorporate “belonging” into their preschool curriculum guidelines and conduct related research. However, there is still a gap in the study on belonging in Chinese curriculum guidelines. This study uses a sequential explanatory mixed-method to analyze the “Guidelines for the Learning and Development of Children Aged 3 - 6 and Being, Belong & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia” to explore the Chinese and Australian curriculum guidelines construct belonging and related concepts. The results show that the frequency of words in the Chinese curriculum guide was lower than that in the Australian curriculum guide; in terms of concept definition, neither curriculum guide provides a precise definition of the concept of belonging. The Chinese curriculum guide tends to cultivate children’s sense of belonging to a group in educational philosophy. In contrast, the Australian curriculum guide cultivates children’s sense of self-belonging. Both curriculum guides provide educational recommendations in terms of educational practices, but the Australian curriculum guide also provides an example of an assessment of belongingness. Finally, on this basis, new insights are sought to improve the Chinese curriculum guide.

Leveraging Languages for Learning: Incorporating Plurilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract: Children are members of families and communities, and the languages learnt within these contexts contribute to a child’s sense of “belonging, being and becoming” throughout life (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009). Encouraging children to bring their home languages into early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings exposes all children to additional languages and supports key outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF; DEEWR, 2009). This article looks at the relationship between key tenets of the EYLF and conditions that support a plurilingual approach within ECEC settings, arguing that multilingualism can be encouraged and effectively supported within these environments. The authors outline Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of development which continues to be influential in Australian ECEC, emphasizing the importance of proximal processes in child development. Examples are provided of educator behaviours set out in the EYLF that encourage linguistic diversity and promote language learning. The influence of three key variables on the valuing of languages is discussed, namely language ideologies, teacher beliefs and attitudes, and plurilingual pedagogies. Recommendations relating to the positive positioning of languages and the integration of plurilingual pedagogies into Australian ECEC contexts are provided.

Considering Form and Function: A Commentary on the Review of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia

An important milestone in early childhood education and care is reached in 2021 as Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is reviewed. The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) was groundbreaking. It has been influential in providing national guidelines around pedagogical principles, practice and learning outcomes for children. This commentary is intended to contribute to the wider conversation that is taking place this year. It proposes that a refined EYLF retains the focus on child-centredness and playful learning, and advocates for the structure of the revised document to include continua of learning and development. The provision of learning trajectories would assist early childhood educators to enact the planning cycle, meet National Quality Standard Quality Area 1, and thus potentially increase the learning outcomes for all children.

‘I’m learning how to do it’: reflecting on the implementation of a new assessment tool in an Australian Early Childhood

ABSTRACT The role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is to support the learning and development of children in collaboration with families. The notion of inclusion in ECEC provides children with a sense of agency in becoming a learner able to participate fully and actively in their community. This paper illustrates how ECEC assessment approaches risk labelling young children in ‘deficit’ terms. The paper through a case study critically reflects on the implementation of a new assessment tool in kindergartens in the south-eastern region of Melbourne, Australia (low–middle income). Interviews were conducted with managers about the new tool, and documents (checklists and observations) were collected from the teachers. Findings show that the children were positioned as vulnerable with the introduction of the new assessment tool, leading to a diagnosis of ‘at risk’ for many children and a subsequent referral to education consultants, and health professionals. We explore the tensions of labelling young children, ‘at risk’ against the notion of ‘becoming’ that frames the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Department of Education and Training 2019) and professional understandings of ‘inclusion’. The work of Nancy Fraser on ‘social justice’ augments the examination of this tension.

Augmented reality as a form of digital technology in early childhood education

The incorporation of digital technologies is explicitly addressed in the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. The use of augmented reality (AR) technology, as one form of digital technology, is increasingly embedded in digital applications because it allows individuals to interact with real and virtual objects. A significant body of research has reported the benefits afforded by the use of AR technology in schools and higher education settings. However, little is known about the contribution of AR technology to teaching practice and child learning outcomes in the preschool years. Here, we present a summary of the limited research that has explored the use of AR in preschool curricula and argue for the need for further research to explore the contribution of AR to high-quality pedagogical practice.

Using mathematics games in preschool settings to support the development of children’s numeracy skills

ABSTRACTIn Australia, early childhood education takes a play-based approach to supporting children’s engagement with mathematical ideas and numeracy development. To assist preschool teachers’ implementation of the outcomes in the national Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, the Northern Territory (NT, Australia) has introduced the NT Preschool Curriculum. The NT Preschool Maths Games, a suite of play-based games underpinned by mathematical concepts, was developed to support the enactment of this curriculum. Here, we explore the impact of attending a preschool classroom in which the NT Preschool Maths Games is being implemented, on child learning outcomes in a pre–post intervention design. Children were assessed in regard to their number naming, counting, and Applied Problems skills. After the baseline assessments, the teachers in the intervention rooms were equipped with the NT Preschool Maths Games and attended a one-day workshop on how to use them. Compared with children in the delayed intervention group, children in the intervention group showed statistically greater gains in their mathematical competencies in a post intervention assessment. This suggests that the NT Preschool Maths Games may support the enhancement of child learning outcomes.

Constructing positions of support: acknowledging workplace discourses in the midst of early childhood reform

ABSTRACTEarly childhood education has undergone immense change over the years. In Australia, this has included the introduction of curriculum and quality frameworks [ACECQA. 2012. National Quality Framework. http://acecqa.gov.au/national-quality-framework/the-national-quality-standard; DEEWR. 2009. Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Barton: ACT: Commonwealth of Australia. ISBN:9780642778727; DET. 2016. Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework: For All Children From Birth to Eight Years. East Melbourne, VIC: Department of Education and Training. ISBN:978-0-7594-0800-5], and changes to early childhood pre-service and in-service teacher education [ASQA. 2015. Training for early childhood education and care: Report. https://www.asqa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net3521/f/Strategic_Review_2015_Early_Childhood_Education_Report.pdf?v=1508135481]. This article is based on a broader qualitative study, which was conducted in 2015-2016. It investigated how workplace discourses supported or hindered the ability for early childhood professionals in Victorian long day care settings to engage in education reform. Using a poststructuralist lens and Foucauldian Discourse Analysis [FDA] [Arribas-Ayllon, M., and V. Walkerdine. 2017. “Foucauldian Discourse Analysis.” In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2nd ed., edited by C. Willig, and W. Stainton-Rogers, 110–123. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. ISBN:9781526405555; Willig, C. 2008. “Discourse Analysis.” In Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods, 2nd ed., edited by J. A. Smith, 160–185. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. ISBN:9781412930833], specific workplace discourses were identified. These discourses framed the available subject positions which were afforded by directors, centre-coordinators and educators relating to reform engagement. Some of these positions were supportive of reform engagement, while others hindered this process. The findings presented throughout this paper offer some insight into how workplace discourses impact reform engagement in early childhood education.

Contemporary perspectives of the child in action: an investigation into children’s connectedness with, and contribution to, the world around them

ABSTRACTChildcare within Australia has undergone significant reform as a result of the implementation of the nationally mandated Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] (Department for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR]. 2009. Belonging, Being and Becoming. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). The EYLF articulates contemporary perspectives of the child through its principles, practices and learning outcomes. Educators are required to promote these principles, practices and learning outcomes with children aged from birth to 5 years. This paper reports the findings from a research project that sought to investigate how educators applied their understanding of learning outcome two of the EYLF (children are connected with and contribute to their world). The focus of this research was educators working with children aged two to three years within childcare centres operating on school sites, in metropolitan Western Australian. The research design was qualitative and situated within the interpretivist paradigm. Observations were used as the method for gathering data and these were analysed through a process of coding. This paper presents the observational findings of educators’ practices within learning outcome two. Composite vignettes from the voice of the child are included to present the observational findings. In centralising the voice of the child, contemporary perspectives are made explicit.

The family–centre partnership disconnect: Creating reciprocity

The purpose of this article is to examine the disconnect happening in relation to family–centre partnerships. Developing partnerships with families is hotly debated and provides challenges for educators teaching in the early childhood sector. Using a comparative case study analysis, several research studies conducted in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, are examined to illustrate these disconnects. These issues are examined within Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, a national framework that is common to all programs across Australia, which identifies practice, principles and learning outcomes for young children. This disconnect is related to the language that is used by the early childhood staff and misunderstood by the parents, the ways communication occurs and its ineffectiveness. The article argues that there is a need to move beyond the current rhetoric of engaging in partnerships with families to a space that allows for transparency, reciprocity and new language.

Coaching for early childhood educators: an insight into the effectiveness of an initiative

Professional development in the form of coaching has the potential to support practitioners who are being inducted into new policy and curriculum initiatives. This paper examines the efficacy of a coaching program in its support of educators to align their practice with the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework for all Children from Birth to Eight Years (the Victorian Framework) and Belonging, Being, Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF). Aspects of the Coaching Program that were considered in the mixed-methods evaluation included the program's effectiveness, the intensity of its delivery, the approach used, and the coaching relationship. The evaluation found that the coaching program was an effective way to support educators align their practice with the Frameworks, and that readiness and commitment to change and the coaching relationships impacted on this process. The evaluation also identified possible refinements and improvements to the Coaching Program, which are noted in this article to further support early childhood educators to engage with aspects of the early childhood reform agenda.International Research in Early Childhood Education, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 73-90

Equity and educators enacting The Australian Early Years Learning Framework

The mandated learning framework, Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is part of a suite of reforms currently being undertaken in early childhood education in Australia. All educators working in direct contact with young children from birth to the age of five are required to use the Framework or an approved alternative. The reforms are aimed at achieving higher quality and greater equity of early childhood education throughout Australia. This article contemplates the equity of the Framework when the workforce required to use it is diverse and ranges from those who are degree, associate or diploma qualified, to becoming qualified. It considers the implicit construct of the ideal professional practitioner in the policy and the social justice effects of the policy. The article concludes that political concerns about a certain group of educators have been reduced to matters of technical efficiency and that as a consequence, the values of social justice and equity for this group have been subsumed to align with dominant economic imperatives.

Families’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ fostering conversations and connections by sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation

ABSTRACTBelonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia emphasises that families have an important role in their children's learning and it recognises that their earliest development is influenced through these relationships and adds that partnerships can be fostered with families by early childhood educators sharing the children's documented experiences. The research discussed employed an in-depth structured questionnaire. It involved 37 families with children aged from three to five years who attended an early learning centre in Northern Tasmania, Australia. The aim of this research was to determine these families’ perceptions, beliefs and experiences of educators sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation. The documentation included hard copy and digital formats of the children's learning, capturing their voices and explorations. The findings show that families consider the sharing of documentation fosters family conversations about the children's learning experiences and helps to create stronger connections between the centre, home and extended family. Another recurring theme from the families’ responses was that children gain pride and a positive sense of identity when their documented work is shared with families.

Digitods: Toddlers, Touch Screens and Australian Family Life

Digitods: Toddlers, Touch Screens and Australian Family Life

Early Childhood Education at the Cultural Interface

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia emphasises that children's own identity is constructed within their given context of family and community. This article presents the findings of a multiple case study project undertaken within five remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. Community Elders were concerned that while their children had a positive sense of self during their prior-to-school years, on entry into formal schooling they experienced a disjuncture between those experiences and the expectations of a Western curriculum. The project involved partnering one university academic to work with each community, exploring ways of improving 4-year-old children's pre-reading and numeracy skills to enhance their capacity to engage with expectations on entry into formal schooling. Elders were determined to have the children be successful at school and saw success there as inextricably interwoven with their sense of efficacy to explore and to learn. Outcomes included positives such as children demonstrating increased pre-reading and numeracy skills and, importantly, the engagement of the whole community in the project. Foundational to the success was making Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing key components of learning opportunities provided to the children, supporting awareness of their social and cultural heritage.

Meeting the Australian National Quality Standards: A Case Study of the Professional Learning Needs of Early Childhood Educators

THE NATIONAL QUALITY STANDARDS (NQS) now mandate the implementation of a recognised learning framework in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings across Australia. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is one such framework. This case study was conducted in a local government area of the city of Melbourne. It explored the extent to which professional development opportunities equip educators to implement programs for young children that meet Quality Area 1 of the NQS: Educational program and practice. This study found that neither the professional development opportunities available to educators nor the delivery of the content met educators' reported professional learning needs. This paper advocates for more participative, evidence-based approaches to professional learning. In addition, participants' response rate is indicative of the need for a systematic means of tracking and supporting the particular professional learning needs of ECEC educators.

Infants, Family Day Care and the Politics of Belonging

Belonging has long been conceptualised as a fundamental human need, essential for the good health of individuals and communities. In relation to young children, belonging may be linked to their developing sense of identity, as well as the way they perceive and respond to others. Belonging is emerging as an important aspect of contemporary early childhood education and care (ECEC) curriculum such as Te Whāriki from New Zealand and Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF). There is the potential for belonging to become a romanticised, simplistic and taken for granted notion within ECEC. Following Sumsion and Wong’s (Contemp Issues Early Child 12:28–45, 2011) call for belonging to be taken up in critical and reflective ways in ECEC, and Peers and Fleer’s (Educ Philos Theory, doi:10.1080/00131857.2013.781495, 2013) concerns regarding the inadequacy of everyday understandings of belonging to the full realisation of the intent of the EYLF, this paper is an attempt to begin problematizing the notion of belonging in early childhood, particularly in relation to infants in family day care (FDC). Conceptualisations of belonging across disciplines are discussed, with particular attention to the notions of a sense of belonging and the politics of belonging. Particular aspects of FDC that may be important to consider in relation to belonging are drawn out, namely its purported home- and family-like nature. Finally, in relation to infants, we argue that any discussion of infants’ belonging in ECEC must include the peer group and the active role that infants may play in the politics of belonging.

Playing with maths: implications for early childhood mathematics teaching from an implementation study in Melbourne, Australia

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia governs early childhood education in the years before school in Australia. Since this framework is not a curriculum, early childhood educators report uncertainty regarding what mathematical concepts to teach and how to teach them. This implementation study, positioned within the broader E4Kids study, explored the enactment of a suite of play-based mathematics activities by five early childhood educators in different settings over a seven-month period. The educators' approaches to incorporating the activities are discussed in light of the reported implementation frequency and the duration of activities. A regression analysis predicted significant changes in children's Fluid Intelligence/Reasoning associated with attending high-implementation programmes. Recommendations are made for further investigation of the enactment of mathematics activities in early childhood settings and for the provision of professional learning opportunities that focus on supporting children's concept development as well as their mathematical skills.