Episodes

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as a “spotlight” - shining a bright light and illuminating the existing inequalities in our societies. Early education is no exception. While services have been fighting to survive a complex maze of last-minute funding changes, the focus has had to be on funding and economics. But existing social justice concerns haven’t disappeared, and may in fact be getting worse.

To discuss how COVID-19 has changed the landscape for social justice and the early education sector, Lisa, Leanne and Liam are joined by Dr Red Ruby Scarlet (activist, early childhood teacher-researcher, consultant, speaker, artist, academic, and Creative Director of Multiverse) and Stephen Gallen (early childhood consultant and Director of Cawongla Community Preschool).

After a first wave that affected the entire country in April and May, COVID-19 cases are now particularly affecting Victoria. The Melbourne area is in lockdown, and early education services are finding themselves back in a situation where they are having to balance health and safety, financial viability and an uncertain funding arrangement. While most of the sector is transitioning back to the Child Care Subsidy, many Victorian services are facing a much tougher battle.

Listen to three fantastic conversations that are part of the University of Wollongong Early Start’s Expert Insight series, facilitated by Leanne Gibbs. The discussions include:

• Dr Gai Lindsay on children and the arts

• Associate Professor Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett and Professor Marc de Rosnay on How to support children’s emotions when the world is changing

• Dr Lyn Cronin on school transitions during COVID-19.

COVID-19’s impact on the early education sector has meant that we’ve been having advocacy conversations that we didn’t expect to be having in 2020. The Government implemented free early education - for a short time. Early childhood educators were seen as frontline workers - but not supported properly. Will this be a brief moment before we get back to normal, or have things changed for good? Australia has had lots of changes to our early education system before, thanks in no small part to advocates and feminists who pushed for fairer and more equitable policies and systems. What does that history tell us about what’s happening today?

To discuss that question, Lisa and Liam are joined by one of Australia’s leading advocates for social reform - Eva Cox.

The Federal Education Minister has announced that CCS will be back on Monday July 13, along with a number of other new measures. From the Government’s perspective, the economy is getting back to normal, and the early education sector is first cab off the rank for “snapping back”. But the Government’s planned transition is complex and will require an already-strained sector to once again adjust to significant changes. What does this all mean for children, educators and families?

This episode, we’re bringing you the audio from an online Town Hall Meeting conducted by parent advocacy group The Parenthood on Tuesday the 26th of May. Lisa was invited to speak on the panel, alongside Danielle Wood, an economist from the Grattan Institute; Polly Dunning, a teacher and writer; and Jay Weatherill, the CEO of Thrive by Five.

The event was hosted The Parenthood’s campaign director Georgie Dent, and tackled a variety of important questions - including how families have been affected by the funding changes to the sector, what free ECEC would mean for Australia, how educators and the sectors can be better valued, and what we all need to do to work together as advocates during this time.

Like the rest of Australia, the early education sector has had to significantly change the way we operate over the last two months. A lot of this time has been spent worrying about funding and financial security, but it’s also opened up opportunities for experimenting with new ways of working. This episode, we wanted to turn the conversation back to children and educators and hear from early education professionals about how children are responding to these changes.

We’re bringing you a conversation with six people from the Northside Community Service team Liam works with, discussing the operational changes they’ve made and some of the unexpected results. That conversation is facilitated by psychologist and consultant Beth Macgregor.

Australia’s early education sector has been given a huge shake-up during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Child Care Subsidy system was replaced with a Government Relief Package that provided centres with 50% direct Government funding, and eliminated the usual gap fee paid by parents. In effect, children are now getting their early education for free. But the current funding system is short term and doesn’t fit all centres. This episode, we’re going to ask the question - how do we advocate for properly-funded, permanent, universal and free early education after COVID-19?

The COVID-19 health crisis continues to affect the entire world. Governments have had to respond to the effects of this crisis in different ways, as we have seen right here in Australia. For those of us who work in early education, we’ve seen some stark differences between how ECEC services and schools have been treated when it comes to health advice, closures, funding and more. This episode, we look at those differences, think about why they’ve appeared, and how we respond as advocates but during and after this crisis.

“As of Sunday night, What we will be doing is turning off the old system and going to a new system.” Those were the words of the Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan earlier today, as he stood next to the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and announced wholesale and immediate changes to how Australia funds early education. It’s hard to underestimate what this will mean, but what we know is the sector has four days notice that the Child Care Subsidy system - which took over nearly 3 years to develop and legislate - will be gone, and a new system of direct Government funding of services will be in place on Monday. And the Conservative Prime Minister of this country stated that ECEC will be free.

The COVID-19 situation remains the biggest issue facing Australia’s early education sector. Although as we speak the Government is saying that early education services should remain open to support the economy, children are leaving services in droves. It seems likely that at some point services will be directed to close. What does this mean for young children and their learning? What does “remote learning” look like in the early years? How can we stay connected to children and families during a period of isolation?

Early education services and professionals have not had detailed advice from Health Departments or Education Departments about exactly what infection control processes services should be following during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. As Leanne, Lisa and Liam are not infection control experts we decided to ask someone who is. Kylie Warren Wright is Goodstart Early Learning’s National Safe Work and Wellbeing Manager, and she’s responsible for giving health and safety advice to over 650 early education services. Lisa contacted her to discuss how we can stay healthy at work during a pandemic.

After an unprecedented summer of fire and smoke, communities around Australia are facing yet another emergency situation. Coronovirus, or COVID-19, is spreading around the world, with the World Health Organisation officially declaring it a pandemic. Although the risk to most people is minimal, countries - including Australia - are having to take significant steps to try and minimise its impact. These measures will have a big impact on early childhood services, and the children and families they work with. This episode, we’ll try to provide as much facts and clarity as we can about the situation we’re all facing.

Australia has just come out of a terrible summer of unprecedented bushfires. According to the Australia Institute, More than half of all Australians have been directly affected by bushfire crisis, including millions suffering health effects. This includes young children and their families, as well as educators and services. Entire communities will be dealing with this summer for years to come. This episode, Lisa and Liam discuss what working with young children now means as we face an ongoing climate emergency that will affect the children we work with long into the future.

The inaugural National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell has released her final report on children’s rights in Australia. It’s described as a “full and frank look” at how Australia is faring on a range of areas related to children and young people, and makes over 80 recommendations to improve our record.

This episode, Lisa, Leanne and Liam have a discussion about how the early education sector is engaging with issues of children’s rights, before we hear an interview Liam conducted with Megan Mitchell on her report and her time as the first Children’s Commissioner.

It's the end of another year, which mean's it's time for our annual Year in Review episode! We look back on the year that's been for early education, look ahead to 2020 and answer some listener questions.

6000 children under 5 live in Mt Druitt in NSW. 33% of those children are considered ‘developmentally vulnerable’ when they start school. The Hive is an initiative started in 2015 by the Ten20 Foundation, United Way Australia, and NSW Family and Community Services to ensure that all children in the 2770 postcode start school well.

This episode features voices from the graduation ceremony of the Collaboration 4 Learning (C4L) project, a unique professional development opportunity established for educators to engage in their own research projects.

The NSW Government has announced that services in NSW will be required to display a star rating alongside their usual National Quality Standard rating, in an apparent bid to help families better understand ratings. The star ratings have had a very mixed response from the sector, raising issues of professional identity, the marketing of the NQF to the community and how well services are being supported to improve quality. Lisa, Leanne and Liam discuss this new initiative before Lisa chats with presenter and researcher Anthony Semann.

Christmas, Anzac Day, Melbourne Cup, Mother's and Father's Days, Australia Day - celebrations have become a controversial and challenging topic for many in the early education sector. This episode, we take a look a like at why celebrations are so contested and how educators can explore different perspectives on commonly-held celebrations.