Following Julie’s very well received presentation at the ELAA conference a couple of weeks ago, we are excited to tell you that we have been approached by the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation to be a pilot centre in their new Early Years program – a project that is working to design a kitchen garden model specifically for the early years sector. The Foundation’s goal is for children to “cook and eat food that they grow” – Julie and Tommy will be participating on behalf of CCC. Julie has also agreed to repeat her conference presentation for the Stephanie Alexander team – while they have expertise working with primary school aged children, they have recognised that different approaches and skills are needed when working with younger children. I can’t think of a better person to show them the way!!
We were proud to be asked by the Victorian Department of Education to allow them to film this short video at our Centre as part of the launch of Victoria’s Early Childhood Reform Plan. Our State government believes in the importance of quality kindergarten for a child’s development and the new reform plan will support this.
Congratulations!! to our very own Sarah who was this week awarded the 2017 Agnes Farrance Award from Early Childhood Australia (ECA). This annual award is given to an early childhood educator who demonstrates a strong commitment to working within the early childhood teaching and caring profession. The Award provides financial support to enable the recipient to participate in a professional conference and to have the opportunity to share their experience with colleagues and peers. Sarah will use her prize to travel to Brisbane next week where she will attend (and give a presentation at) the Australian Council for Educational leaders (ACEL) 2017 Conference. Sarah’s presentation is about Distributed and Catalytic Leadership in Early Childhood.
So proud to have been announced the Victorian Early Childhood Director of the Year 2017!
Here’s me (far right) with other State finalists.
We are proud that educators and children from our Centre are featured in a series of video resources produced by the Victorian department of Education & Training. These videos profile each of the eight Practice Principles, as strengthened in the revised VEYLDF. Narrated by Anne Stonehouse, consultant for early childhood, each Practice Principle includes interviews with early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals and leaders. They also include video footage from a range of ECEC settings that exemplifies effective ways for supporting children’s learning and development, in line with each Practice Principle. This video highlights Respectful Relationships and Responsive Engagement
I’m proud to report that Caroline, Tommy and I attended the ceremony, early in November, for the Victorian Government Resource Smart Schools Awards. At the ceremony, CCC was named as one of four finalists in the Early Childhood Service of the Year category – recognising the work we have done this year to embed sustainable practices and learning into our day-to-day programs. We received a finalist’s certificate and a prize of $250 which we plan to spend on some new sustainability-related equipment for the children. Yay, Team Clarendon!!
We recently received the very exciting news that the CCC educator team have been named as finalists in the 2016 HESTA Early Childhood Education & Care Awards. The category in which we have been nominated is Advancing Pedagogy & Practice which recognises early childhood educators that have significantly advanced early childhood education and care through demonstrating innovation, quality improvement and enhanced outcomes for young children. Our nomination particularly emphasised the use of action research by our educator team to enhance our teaching practices and children’s learning outcomes. These are national awards and very prestigious in the early education sector so we are all thrilled to have reached this final stage of judging. I will now be joining Mel, Natalie and Caroline at the Early Childhood Australia Conference in Darwin (where they will be presenting some of their research practice) and we will attend the Awards Dinner on Friday evening where the various Awards winners will be announced. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Postscript: We had a great time at the ECA Conference and at the Awards Dinner. We weren’t the overall winner of our category but felt very honoured to be included as finalists – we were in very impressive company.
As a Centre, we are proud to lead by example with regard to ‘best practice’ in early education and care and, at times, we have opportunities to share our practice with a wider audience.
Late in 2015, a film crew from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) spent a day in the Magic Room. The video footage they recorded has now been used to develop two separate Illustrations of Practice vignettes that can support other early childhood teachers to understand how their practice meets the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and as an illustration of what the Standard look likes in practice.
This first vignette illustrates Setting Expectations for Using ICT.
Did you see the feature article about us in the most recent edition of “Divercity”? We are celebrating our new solar panels which are now working well and producing around 62kWh per day. We’re also looking forward to being a continuing participant in the “Seedlings” program in 2016.
I was so proud to be there with Mel last Wednesday evening when she received her “Highly Commended” certificate from Minister Jenny Mikakos at the Victorian Early Years Awards. To be one of three finalists in what was reportedly a very large field of excellent nominations for the early Childhood Teacher of the Year was a very well-deserved honour, as I’m sure you will all agree. Congratulations, Mel!!