In this series of the ECA Podcast, Partnering with parents in the early years – Tech and Media join Associate Professor Kate Highfield and Dr Fiona Scott, as they discuss current research and explore practical strategies to help build children’s digital literacy and support healthy digital engagement. With a focus on supporting parents and carers, this podcast is ideal for parents, carers and educators who are partnering with families in this space.

In this very special episode of the ECA podcast, we talk with Thomas Mayo, a signatory of and advocate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Thomas discusses the importance of voting ‘Yes’ in the upcoming referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Australian Constitution—a position ECA wholeheartedly supports. He also explains why we owe it to our children, who understand the importance of the Voice, to vote ‘Yes’.

In this final episode of Talking Pedagogies we will be exploring the last pedagogical landing – Play. In 2022, ECA launched the draft Statement on Play and it is hoped that it will assist educators and teachers to articulate the power of play – something we know we have at times struggled with over the years. This episode will examine the idea that perhaps it is the place of play in the context of our other pedagogical landings, rather than play itself that makes it distinctly Australian.

In this episode, we will be exploring our sixth and second last landing – Teaching and Assessment for Learning. This is an area that we tend to avoid yet, it is a tidal wave coming at us. We will unpack why this is an opportunity rather than a sacrifice and how it can support the notion of knowing about where children are at in their learning journey.

In this episode we will be exploring our fifth landing – Relationships with Children, Families and Community. We will unpack what makes this commitment uniquely Australian and how relationships with families and communities cultivate active citizenship and are central to outcomes for children.

In this episode, we will be exploring our third landing – Nature Pedagogy. Ever since we began our unique Australian Pedagogies conversation last year, this seems to have become more and more fundamental to practising early childhood pedagogy in Australia – so much so that most of us take it for granted.

In this episode we will be exploring the second landing – Inclusion, with a foundation in post-modern perspectives. These are the challenges to privileged ways of constructing knowledge and invite us to critically reflect on how our theories and actions can advantage some while disadvantages others.

In this episode, we will explore our first (and arguably) our most important landing, First Nation’s Perspectives or as we know it in the updated Early Years Learning Framework – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing. Any attempt to define Australian early childhood pedagogy must rightly begin with a profound and systemic recognition that teaching and learning has been taking place on these lands since humans first made this wide brown land their home.

Join Dr Sandra Cheeseman and Catharine Hydon in the first episode of the ECA Podcast, Talking Pedagogies where they will revisit the question Is there a unique Australian Pedagogy? They will recap the seven pedagogical landings that were shared by teachers and educators based on what they saw as unique to our country and people.