National Early Childhood Conference

It was a privilege to be able to attend the National Early Childhood Conference in Brisbane last week, along with other ELC Directors from Catholic Education. It was an amazing opportunity to hear International and Australian leaders in Early Childhood Education and research. 

It was three days jam packed with learning and really reinforced for me the importance of our work as Early Childhood teachers and Educators. There were a number of stand out presentations for me – one presented by internationally renowned leader in Early Childhood – Alison Clark. The other by Australian creative Joe Brumm, the creator of Bluey. Though Joe is not Early Childhood trained he researched play theories extensively to inform the writing of the Bluey series – and he is a strong advocate for the importance of play in young children’s development.

Alison Clark is a Professor of Early Childhood Education of South Eastern Norway. She has worked extensively in the United Kingdom, and recently published a text based around her research called ‘Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child: Time for Slow Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education’. I think her work is really timely – as each of us are increasingly time poor and this need to hurry to fit all the things that need to be done into busy schedules is fairly characteristic of family life.

Alison’s research focuses on looking at ways we can slow down the day for ourselves and students to enable us to be more present with the children in our care. She encouraged us to look at daily routines and transitions between activities, and value them as opportunities for learning and slow these moments down. Often as adults we find ourselves hurrying children through tasks such as packing bags, or having meals, or tidying up – when we can slow down these moments and enrich them as opportunities for learning.

I can see that we have done this effectively this year by changing the way we go about fruit break. Rather than it being something all children do at the same time before they go and play, we have integrated it as an activity in our morning play sessions. This has allowed children to practice some fine motor and independence skills, as they help cut up fruit, serve themselves, and can serve out their fruit break to themselves during the morning play session. I will be encouraging staff to think about other routines in our day that we can slow down and enrich for children, to build greater opportunities for learning. 

Joe Brumm the creator of Bluey, spoke about the importance of play and the way

that different play theories and his observations of children’s play led to the creation of the Bluey series. It was a real affirmation of the importance of play for children’s social and emotional development, for their understanding of the world and to process and understand real world experiences. I will certainly be looking out for the theories of play evident in the next Bluey episode I watch!

Joe was also a big advocate for stepping back and allowing children agency in their play. He observed that the commitment to play, and for a game to progress is intrinsically motivating for children and they will make sacrifices and compromise for a game to go ahead. For example – in a game there may only be the need for one shop keeper and children playing must find the solution for who gets to be the shopkeeper if there a number of children who want that role. Play is an essential context for students to be able to develop skills such as empathy towards others, communication skills and the art of compromise – skills that are necessary for life.

It was a wonderful opportunity to attend the conference and have the chance to be immersed in all things Early Childhood. I am extremely grateful to the teaching team at St Anthony’s, who continued to do such a gorgeous job caring for our students and managing the day to day of our service, while I was away.