Early Childhood Australia is seen as the equivalent to the U.S based NAEYC. It provides information on their Code of Ethics, position statements, early childhood news, and other EC information. In viewing the website, I noticed that a lot of the international topics relate to issues that children, families and EC professionals in the U.S. These topics include:
- Quality improvement
- Secure transitions
- Partnerships
- Respecting diversity
- Learning and teaching through play
- Building confident learners
- Bullying
- Supportive relationships
- Health, and many other topics.
It was interesting to see some of the articles written on the Early Childhood Australia newsletter. In my search I found an article takes a look at how educators plan for adventurous or risky play. It talks about how children have limited outside time because parents and educators fear for their safety due to the increase in violence that has occurred.
The nightly news creates an atmosphere of fear about the outside worlds, as we view images of violence that reinforces a perceptions that it's not safe to be outside. So we protect our children even more, and in doing so we remove them from the natural environment and move indoors. In our desire to 'keep children safe' we create play environments that a devoid of adventure and interest (National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program, 2013).
To me this article caught my attention because it was interesting to see how play is viewed in the Australian community. Though this may not be the view of all that live in Australia, it was shocking to read that parents fear for their child's safety when they simple do something that many take for granted.
What I also found interesting about this web site for this organization was that there was a section devoted to school readiness and children's transitions. In this section it provides parents, caregivers, and educators with resources that will assist them in helping children make the transition from child care to preschool and preschool to school. This section would be very useful especially with school beginning this Wednesday in the area I live. For most of the kids attending my Pre-K class have never been away from their parents, especially not for majority of the day. From my experience, those children have a hard time separating from those parents. This section of the web site would be helpful in giving ideas on how to make that transition smooth for the child, parent, and teacher.
Resources
Early Childhood Austrialia (2013) http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/
National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program. (2013). Talking about Practice: Adventurous
play- Developing a culture of risky play. Retrieved
from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/NQS_PLP_E-Newsletter_No58.pdf
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