Our experienced journalists are well-versed in researching, interviewing, editing, copywriting, proofreading and indexing - generating content for both online and print audiences.

Take a look at some of our previous work.


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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