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  2. Guide to the NQF
  3. Section 3: National Quality Standard and Assessment and Rating
  4. Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice
  5. Standard 1.2: Practice
  6. Element 1.2.2: Responsive teaching and scaffolding

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Element 1.2.2: Responsive teaching and scaffolding

Educators respond to children’s ideas and play and extend children’s learning through open-ended questions, interactions and feedback.

What Element 1.2.2 aims to achieve

Children and young people's learning is extended when educators make decisions and implement actions that respond to children’s ideas and play to enhance their learning. Responsive teaching and scaffolding involves:

  • following up on children’s ideas and interests with open-ended questions and providing positive feedback
  • building and sustaining respectful and trusting relationships and interactions with and between children to share decision making and learn together (relational pedagogy)
  • respectfully entering children’s play and ongoing projects, stimulating their thinking and enriching their learning and development
  • thinking carefully about how children are grouped for play, considering possibilities for peer scaffolding or extending children’s learning through engagement with other children
  • encouraging children to further explore their interests and stimulate their thinking
  • being aware of, and responding to, strategies used by children with additional needs to negotiate their everyday lives
  • using planned and spontaneous ‘teachable moments’ to enhance children’s play and scaffold their learning (adapted from the Early Years Learning Framework; and the Framework for School Age Care).

Responsive teaching is achieved by valuing and building on children’s current and evolving strengths, skills and knowledge to ensure their wellbeing, motivation and engagement in learning. Children learn best when the experiences they have are meaningful to them and are focused on the here and now. Because children constantly learn new skills and gain new insights into their world, educators continuously assess, evaluate and implement responsive teaching strategies.

Educators reflect on the inclusiveness of their practices, including whether these are responsive to individual children and whether they acknowledge all children’s contributions to the group. They view all children as competent and capable, and recognise that equitable means fair, not equal or the same, and some children may need greater access to resources and support to participate in the program. Educators also recognise and respond to barriers that some children face, including attitudinal and practical barriers (Early Years Learning Framework; Framework for School Age Care).  This updates their knowledge of individual children and helps them to plan new and follow-up experiences that are relevant to each child. All of these experiences are implemented within a social context where peer interactions are encouraged and supported, building a sense of belonging for all children.

Assessment guide for meeting Element 1.2.2 (for all services)

The assessment will be undertaken primarily through observation and discussion with educators.

Responsive teaching and scaffolding practice

Assessors may observe:

 

  • educators:
    • intentionally scaffolding children’s understanding and learning and creating opportunities for peer scaffolding
    • using planned and spontaneous ‘teachable moments’ to extend children’s learning
    • responding to children’s displays of learning dispositions by commenting on them and providing encouragement and additional ideas
    • responding to children’s ideas and using their interests and curiosities as a basis for further learning and exploration
    • noticing children applying their learning in new ways or between different contexts and talking about this with them in ways that build their understanding
    • modelling mathematical and scientific language and concepts
    • using language associated with the creative arts
    • talking explicitly about phonological concepts, such as rhyme, letters and sounds when sharing texts with children
    • joining in children’s play experiences when invited, taking on a range of roles and co-constructing materials, such as signs that extend the play and enhance literacy and/or numeracy learning (adapted from the Early Years Learning Framework; and the Framework for School Age Care).
  • children:
    • being curious and enthusiastic participants in their learning
    • using their own ideas to develop their play
    • engaging with stories about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture, customs and celebrations
    • using technologies and media for creative expression, problem solving and social connection (adapted from the Early Years Learning Framework; and the Framework for School Age Care).

Assessors may discuss how educators:

 

  • recognise and value children’s involvement in learning
  • provide learning environments that are flexible and open-ended
  • plan learning environments and provide children with resources that offer challenge, intrigue and surprise, and support their investigations
  • encourage children to use language to describe and explain their ideas and theories and make them visible to others (adapted from the Early Years Learning Framework; and the Framework for School Age Care).

Assessors may sight the written program, including examples of:

 

  • documented critical reflection relating to educators’ responses to children’s ideas and play to scaffold and extend their learning.
  • documentation and monitoring of children’s learning, development, wellbeing and engagement
  • project or inquiry work where children are given the opportunity to take the lead in an investigation, or collaborate with peers, educators, family members and other members of the community.