For our last regular episode of the year, we turn the microphone over to two early childhood education leaders. Anna Whitty (Executive Director, Northside Children’s Services) speaks with Wendy Mackay (Centre Director of Harrison Early Childhood Centre) about leading her centre from a Working Towards rating in 2015, to an Exceeding rating in 2018. The discussion documents the highs and lows of this three-year journey of quality improvement through leadership, self-reflection and professional identity.

Got a question you’d like us to answer in our End-of-Year Q&A episode? You can ask us right here.

Exploring the NQS: Our Patreon-exclusive series on the National Quality Standard has launched. Element 1.2.1 “Intentional teaching” now available.

This week Lisa and Liam talk about community management of early education services with the ex-President of Alstonville Community Preschool Katherine Buckley. Katherine talks to us about the challenges in saving Alstonville from funding challenges, how she and the committee work with the Centre Director and what the biggest challenges are for this model.

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

Exploring the NQS

This week we tackle one of the most exciting and thrilling topics in early education - service policies and procedures! We discuss why they’re actually important, how you can approach them and why they’re great resources for you and the work you do.

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

Exploring the NQS: Our Patreon-exclusive series on the National Quality Standard has launched. Element 1.1.2 “Child-centred” now available.

Lisa, Leanne and Liam are joined this week by Professor Deborah Harcourt to discuss the growing trend of early education environments all having similar looks. Where has this trend come from, and what does it mean for children and educators?

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

Exploring the NQS: Our Patreon-exclusive series on the National Quality Standard has launched. Element 1.1.1 “Approved learning framework” now available.

This week Lisa and Liam chat with Charlene Smith from the Mitchell Institute about their new report The Capable Country, which calls for rapid government action to boost capabilities across all stages of learning.

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

Earlier this week, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologised on behalf of the nation  for failing and abandoning the thousands of survivors of institutional child sex abuse. The Apology came after the Royal Commission conducted a years-long investigation into Australia’s failure to keep children safe in many instances.

This week, we take a look at how the Royal Commission and the Apology affects early childhood education services, what it means to be a child-safe organisation and what the Commission’s proposed Child Safe Standards mean for children and the sector.

Please note: This episode contains discussions related to child abuse and harm.

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

Lisa and Leanne are taking an extra (well-deserved) week off, so Liam takes a look at the Labor Party's recent early education policy announcements regarding three-year-old preschool and free TAFE places.

He chats about Labor's new policies with the Shadow Education Minister Amanda Rishworth, and then talks with Mitchell Institute Director and policy expert Megan O'Connell to take a deeper look at what they mean for the sector.

Find the full shownotes at earlyeducationshow.com.

This week we briefly discuss the Labor Party’s plans to crackdown on freebies and giveaways to families to get more enrolments, before chatting with CEO of Big Fat Smile Jenni Hutchins.

As CEO of an organisation with more than over 40 children’s services, Jenni is also the Approved Provider for Big Fat Smile under the National Quality Framework. Jenni discusses navigating the compliance and regulatory system as an Approved Provider, supporting Nominated Supervisors with their legal obligations, and how to lead and support an organisation during a prosecution.

This week, we're bringing you the third of a series of conference presentations from the Victorian Government's Realising the Potential Conference.

The presentations this week all fall under the theme of “How do I lead and improve excellence in early learning?” and feature Professor Joce Nuttall, Director of the Teacher Education Research Concentration in the Learning Sciences Institute Australia, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University; Dr Dan Cloney, Research Fellow, Policy Research and Practice, Australian Council for Educational Research; Andrew Hume, Chief Executive Officer, Gowrie Victoria; and Anthony Semann, Semann & Slattery.

You can also check out interviews we conducted with many of the speakers featured here in Episodes 69 and 70 of the podcast.

The audio for this session has been generously provided by the Victorian Department of Education and Training. Find out more at http://www.education.vic.gov.au/ecforum.