Family Information

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) is an independent national authority that assists governments in administering the National Quality Framework (NQF) for children’s education and care. ACECQA works with the Australian and state and territory governments to implement changes that benefit young children, monitor the consistent application of the Education and Care Services National Law, and support the early childhood education and care sector to improve quality outcomes for children. ACECQA is an independent national authority based in Sydney. It is guided by a governing Board whose members are nominated by each state and territory and the Commonwealth. The Board is accountable to Education Ministers.

Education and care services are assessed and rated by their state and territory regulatory authority. Services are assessed against the 7 quality areas of the National Quality Standard. Services are given a rating for each of the 7 quality areas and an overall rating based on these results. To learn more,visit the website.

In 2019, the 10 National Principles for Child Safe Organisations were endorsed to provide a nationally consistent approach to creating cultures and practices that prioritise child safety and wellbeing in organisations working with children and youth. The development of the National Principles followed the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. State-based adaptations of the National Principles have followed. In Victoria, early childhood education services implement the 11 Victorian Child Safe Standards, overseen by the Commission for Children and Young People. In Queensland, early childhood education services implement the 10 Queensland Child Safe Standards including the Universal Principle, overseen by the Queensland Family and Child Commission.

A dynamic process in which what is taught and learned in the curriculum is negotiated by children and educators, rather than being wholly directed by the educator. A co-constructed curriculum ensures children are involved in directing their learning goals, along with their educators. It is the role of the educator to provide resources and opportunities, and with older children to question to promote deeper thinking and extend ideas as knowledge is co-constructed.

The Early Childhood Australia (ECA)Code of Ethics is a set of statements about appropriate and expected behaviour of early childhood professionals. Designed especially for early childhood education and care environments and based on the principles of theUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child(1991), the ECACode of Ethics reflects current pedagogical research and practice, providing a framework for reflection about the ethical responsibilities of early childhood professionals who work with or on behalf of children and families in early childhood settings. To read the Code of Ethics,visit the website.

Children learn about consent from infancy. For example, when we verbalise to a baby what we’re about to do when moving them or changing their nappy, we model the habit of seeking consent from others before we act. Permission-seeking is one component of respectful relationships and learning about early protective behaviours which can be modelled to children from infancy. When working with children in services, it is important to model consent within the boundaries of a duty of care. For example, if a toddler responds with “no” when an educator seeks permission to change their nappy, there is a duty of care to ensure a soiled or wet nappy is changed within a suitable time frame. Educators will re-direct the question to offer alternatives such as, “would you like to bring the car or the giraffe when we change your nappy?” to ensure appropriate caregiving occurs, while still demonstrating permission-seeking behaviours in the first instance.

Curriculum in early childhood education and settings equates to everything that occurs over the course of the day, including arrival and transition from home, everyday routines, content taught and learned, the design of the learning environment, educators’ pedagogies, the flow of the day, and documentation of children’s learning and development. Curriculum in early childhood education is holistic and attends to the whole child; their capabilities, strengths and needs.

Documentation is the culmination of observations, planning and reflections on practice. It is a requirement of the National Quality Standard for services to collect documentation on children’s learning and development and the quality of the educational program. Documentation is recorded for multiple purposes including communicating a child’s learning and development with families. Educators record documentation to establish each child’s individual strengths, needs and interests and to build on their prior learning. Documentation creates a record of the educational program and demonstrates accountability and professionalism within programming and planning at the service.

Early childhood education refers to the component of early childhood education and care that is focused on brain development and cognitive growth. It involves qualified educators and teachers planning experiences that help children learn while they play.

Early childhood education and care refers to the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical abilities in a way that meets each child’s needs, to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing.

An early childhood planning cycle enables educators to make connections between observations with analysis, planning and reflections to inform the daily program. Clear connections between observations, planning and reflections ensures documentation is meaningful and not collected randomly or without purpose.

The early childhood profession is sometimes labelled as an “industry”, with “workers” who care for young children. Centre-based services afford botheducation and care, with children engaged in a quality educational program. The label “industry” suggests services produce a product and are run like factories. Sector or profession are more appropriate terms to describe the complex and precise work of educators and teachers in early childhood education and care settings. The term professionals is used within sector because educators and teachers are bound by a Code of Ethics which provides a set of statements about appropriate and expected behaviour of early childhood professionals aligned with the broader teaching profession.

Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (E.Y.L.F) is an approved learning framework under the National Quality Framework for young children aged Birth-5 years. As the first national learning framework for the prior-to-school sector, the E.Y.L.F is based on national and international evidence as to the importance of early childhood in the life span. Developed in 2009 under the auspices of the Council of Australian Governments, the Framework assists educators to provide young children with opportunities to maximise their learning. Five learning outcomes, along with quality principles and practices underpin the Framework. An update of the Framework (E.Y.L.F Version 2.0) was released in early 2023. The purpose of the revision was to ensure the document continues to reflect contemporary developments in practice and knowledge, while supporting all educators and teachers to best meet the learning and development needs of each child.

The Educational Leader is a pedagogical leader required for every early childhood education and care setting. The Educational Leader supports the quality of the educational program and is responsible for guiding and developing educators’ and families’ understandings about play-based learning and the significance of the early years in the education continuum for children. The Educational Leader has an influential role in inspiring, motivating, affirming and also challenging or extending the pedagogy and practice of educators and teachers.

An educator in an early childhood education and care setting holds a Vocational Education Training (VET) qualification. Qualifications range from trainee to Certificate and Diploma level. The National Quality Framework sets out the minimum educator qualification requirements for working with children kindergarten age and under in long day care services. At least 50% of educators within a service must be Diploma level qualified or higher. All other educators must hold or be actively working towards an approved Certificate III level education and care qualification.

Flow is a state of concentration and engagement that can be achieved when engaging in an experience or completing a task. For young children, flow in play is achieved when their skill level is challenged but does not exceed them, meaning they remain fully immersed in what they’re doing and experience joy and internal reward from the experience. The leading researcher on flow is Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi explains how happiness and levels of engagement in tasks can shift by introducing flow. In early childhood education settings, flow can be achieved when appropriate environments, resources, time and space are available for children to become immersed in experiences that interest them.