A great place to work for women

In a female-dominated profession known for employing women in their childbearing years, family-friendly staffing arrangements are a priority at the University of New South Wales’ three long day care centres—Kanga’s House, The House at Pooh Corner and Tigger’s Honeypot.

Jemma Carlisle, general manager of Early Years@UNSW University Services, says educators at the recently amalgamated group of UNSW services are offered flexible work arrangements including 36-weeks paid maternity leave (for staff employed for fives years or more) and 26 weeks for staff employed for less than five years.

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Step outside – why excursions are valuable

Excursions are valuable for everyone — children, educators and the community. Stepping outside the centre gate is not only an opportunity for children to see the world but also for the world to see what children’s services do. Ingrid Maack reports.

These days it is rare to see young children walking hand-in-hand in our streets and public spaces. As young children spend more hours inside children’s services and fewer services travel beyond the centre gate, children are becoming less visible in our communities.

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A state above the rest?

Have NSW regulators succeeded in preserving our state’s higher standards for early childhood education and care services and how do children in other states and territories fare? Lisa Bryant lifts the lid on the new National Regulations.

The dominant belief in NSW has long been that the requirements demanded of NSW services were higher than those demanded of early education and care services in other states. The requirement for qualified early childhood teachers in all centre-based services bigger than 29 places, for example, is often cited as the best example of why we needed to ensure that NSW did not lose out when national regulations were framed.

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Rattler turns 100!

25 years is a long time in anyone’s language. A child born in 1987 is now an adult and many things in our world have changed. In this our 100th edition, Eddy Jokovich and Ingrid Maack look back at Rattler’s advocacy roots and editorial policy of rattling the cage!

In publishing terms, producing 100 editions of a magazine over 25 years is the equivalent of going to the edge of the universe and back. Publishing is an incredibly fickle field and to provide an idea of how tough it can be, of all the magazines that were launched in 1987, only 5 per cent still exist. Of all the magazines that were being published in 1987, 90 per cent have disappeared.

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Growing up in coal country

On the brink of a mining boom, the town of Mudgee is questioning how its fossil fuel-driven future will reshape the early childhood education landscape. Ingrid Maack visits Mudgee Preschool—one of the biggest early education and care services in NSW.

When I grow up I want to be a miner’, reads the text on a child’s artwork featuring a smiling stick figure with a miner’s lamp and a bag full of coal. The artwork hangs on the wall of a gallery in an exhibition, themed ‘Belonging, Being and Becoming’, organised by staff and children at Mudgee Preschool.

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Connecting with children

Quality Area 5 of the National Quality Standard (NQS) focuses on respectful and equitable relationships between educators and children. Dr Leonie Arthur explores why educator–child interactions should always be respectful, responsible and reciprocal.

Relationships aren’t static; each day, our interactions shape and reshape them’ (Casper & Theilheimer, 2010, p.80). How do your interactions with children shape your relationships with them? Are there changes you can make that will strengthen these relationships?

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Australia’s youngest prisoners

Last year, Australia marked the 20-year anniversary of the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child but with 1,048* children currently in immigration detention, there is little to celebrate. Ingrid Maack reports.

Australians watched in horror last December as we saw televised images of a boatload of refugees swept into the sea off Christmas Island.

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Where emus run

A child’s drawing of an emu dances across the screen and a small finger points to Wilcannia on a map. Welcome to Barlu Kurli—a preschool where the fruits of two cultures blend. Ingrid Maack reports.

If an emu were to run from Broken Hill to Wilcannia it would take four hours to get there,’ says a child’s voice in the opening scenes of a film made by Wilcannia Central School students during the Wakakkiri Film festival.

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Landscapes for learning

The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and National Quality Standards (NQS) emphasise the importance of the physical environment as both a key practice and now a Quality Area to be assessed in services. And yet what does a high quality physical environment look like? Luke Touhill looks at spaces that support children’s learning.

The physical environment is a central component of the programs that we offer children. It is not necessarily the most important element in creating a high quality service—ultimately it will be the quality of the relationships and interactions within a centre which determines the quality of care. However the environment plays a major role in either supporting or hindering the development of such relationships.

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Wild things: Nature Kindergartens

Alongside the global trend towards risk aversion is a growing group of people fighting for a child’s right to feel ‘the knot in the stomach’— that feeling of anticipation and exhilaration when taking risks during play. One such person is Scottish educator and founder of Nature Kindergartens, Claire Warden.

Risk taking should be part of childhood. We learn through the point where we feel challenged. The feeling of having a knot in your stomach is the place where you feel out of your comfort zone.

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