It’s time for us to have our say in the Approved Learning Frameworks update

Governments across Australia have engaged Macquarie University, Queensland University of Technology and Edith Cowan University to lead the 2021 National Quality Framework Approved Learning Frameworks Update project. The aim is to ensure the ongoing currency and relevance of the two Approved Learning Frameworks (ALFs):

The Approved Learning Frameworks Update project website is live and Stage 1 of this 13-month project is now open. In this first stage, we are seeking your feedback on gaps, silences and potential areas for updating in both ALFs.

Please complete the survey that fits your workplace—Early childhood education and care (EYLF) or Outside school hours care (MTOP).

The surveys are easy to complete, as teacher and trainer Molly attests:

Many of us in the education and care sector know that a review of the two frameworks is occurring this year, as we have been informed and have seen the opportunity to participate through marketing on various platforms.

 This is OUR time to critically reflect on our profession, the reason we do what we do, the story that informs our identity as professionals and, quite possibly, the story of thousands of children’s tomorrows.

 I urge everyone to take around 8–12 minutes to complete the survey, like I did. It was easy to navigate and understand. The survey afforded opportunities to provide comments; however, comments were not required to progress through the survey. This is your chance to have a voice, invite colleagues and families to join in and to feel proud of being an active agent of change, advocating for the future landscape of the education and care profession. You have the distinguished opportunity right now to say, ‘I was a part of that’.

The information gathered from the surveys will inform the development of a discussion paper (Stage 2), which will further inform the recommendations for updating the EYLF and MTOP (Stage 3). This is your platform to contribute to the updating of our two national ALFs, ensuring that these continue to be grounded in contemporary research and practice wisdom.

Please also share the surveys with your colleagues and the families you work with and encourage them to get involved. To assist with this, download the flyer or share the website link.

This blog piece was authored by consortium partners: Fay Hadley and Linda Harrison from Macquarie University, Sue Irvine and Francis Bobongie-Harris from Queensland University of Technology, Lennie Barblett from Edith Cowan University, and Jennifer Cartmel (Griffith University)


 

Fay Hadley

Dr Fay Hadley is a Senior Lecturer who specialises in partnerships with families and leadership in early childhood education. She is the Director for Initial Teacher Education in the Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University. Prior to academia her roles included an early childhood teacher, director, and project manager for larger early childhood organisations. Fay’s main research area is partnerships with diverse families in educational settings. She has been researching in this area for the past fifteen years and in 2008 she was the recipient of the Early Childhood Australia Doctoral Thesis award for her doctoral thesis. The award was established by Early Childhood Australia in 1995 to encourage Australian early childhood research and to recognise the excellence of early childhood research undertaken by doctoral students in Australia. Fay’s thesis examined the role of the early childhood services (from the families’ perspectives) and argued that these spaces needed to be reconceptualised including the role of the early childhood leader. Fay has published widely in journals, book chapters and textbooks. Fay is currently the chair of Early Childhood Australia Publications Committee. She is on the editorial board for Australasian Journal of Early Childhood and was previously the Deputy Editor of the journal.

3 thoughts on “It’s time for us to have our say in the Approved Learning Frameworks update”

    Vicki Gazis says:

    There is so much l want to say from a lecturers perspective and as a practitioner; there are still missing elements to our frameworks and many educators don’t unfortunately use the planning cycle effectively- l feel there needs to be core some themes embedded in our curriculum such as body safety and cultural diversity

    Luci an says:

    Good one.

    Maree Aldwinckle says:

    I have communicated my concerns about the EYLF in particular in many forums, including the current survey. It seems to me that teachers and lecturers who are teaching preservice learners have much insight into the issues, gaps and limitations of the current EYLF. When we have a definition of curriculums which is basically “curriculum is what happens” the idea of curriculum development and documentation becomes problematic!

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