ACECQA Newsletter Issue 5 2024

CEO foreword

Welcome to our Spring issue for 2024.  

This is the time of the year when you are working with your service families in preparing children and young people for their next life stage: the transition from home to early education; from early education to school; or from one year level in school to the next. 

All life’s changes come with the potential for anxiety and bewilderment. Your critical role as an educator is to smooth the way so anxiety and other negative effects are minimized. So, this month, we have a series of articles about effective strategies for the assessment, evaluation and sharing of children’s and young people’s holistic development, and preparing them with the skills and fortitude for their next adventure.

Of course, we know that whichever stage of transition, children and young people do better when they have a clear picture of what is to happen next. As Hilary Fabian explains, it is helping them to cope with leaving their comfort zone and encountering the unknown (2006, Informing Transitions). This means teachers and educators are taking an active role in helping children and young people to imagine, understand and experience the new environment – making the unknown, known. 

It also means working with other professionals to help them understand each child’s and young person’s unique interests, strengths, skills and capabilities: to help them prepare a welcoming, supportive and inclusive environment for their ‘new’ children. It is a two way street: we prepare children and young people to be ‘ready’ and we expect that the new service, school or classroom is also ready to enrol, receive and support them in turn, seamlessly. 

In October, we celebrate Children's Week 2024. This year's Children’s Week theme Children have the right to a clean and safe environment is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Article 24: Children have the right to good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that they will stay healthy. This is the first objective of the National Quality Framework and the basis of all optimal development and learning: to be safe, healthy and flourishing. National Nutrition Week from 14 October 2024 is an opportunity to consider how your service can be more active in promoting the relationship between food, nutrition, physical activity and skill development in children’s and young people’s learning journey. Our articles this month may be of value in your professional consideration and judgement.

Finally, on 25 October, World Teachers’ Day will see more than 100 countries across the globe celebrating the work and dedication of great educators. The impact you have on your children and young people cannot be underestimated: you leave an enduring legacy by helping them to get ready for, and navigate, a world where the ‘unknown’ is an exciting adventure for which they are well prepared. From all of us at ACECQA, congratulations!

Gabrielle Sinclair
ACECQA CEO