Education and Care Program Design in early Childhood

Write an essay on Education and care program design in early childhood settings.
For this assessment you will need to:
Debate the range of Australian State and Territory approaches to early childhood documentation, planning and assessment methodologies and pedagogies.

Introduction

The education and care program when initiated at early childhood makes the children to have a better commencement of life. The education of the children gets enriched with the needful resources and strategies which are formulated by the concerned authorities and governing bodies. There is wide range of Australian State and territory approaches to the early childhood documentation and planning. There are also different assessment methodologies and pedagogies. The essay focuses on the education programs and care program designs for the early childhood setting. It also highlights different aspects of early childhood education system in Australia.

Body

Documentation of children’s learning:
The Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority has played a pivotal role in the development of early childhood care frameworks such as the approved framework known as National Quality Standard (NQS) that emphasizes the need of documentation of child care and education. The educators might observe an array of processes for ensuring the best possible care and education to the children. They are inclined to offer the services to the children, their families and the community. The educators must concentrate on the documentation of the children for supporting the outcomes related to the quality of care and early-childhood education. For an educator, it is essential to look at documentation as an integral part of their work with the children and their families. Documentation is one of the most essential parts of a cycle of care and education techniques such as observing, analyzing, planning, implementing and reflecting. The documentation process might include capturing of the voices of the children fir future planning, documentation and analysis of progress. The teachers and care-givers can try out different methods in order to determine the best possible strategy for the children, and their families. They should then set those processes as benchmarks that might be applied in similar situations in future and must monitor them regularly. The educator must wisely choose to what to record as it is impossible to record each and every activity or learning that happen regularly. 
Need for children documentation:
When working with children and their families, the educators and care-givers must consider the documentation process as an integral part of their work and the cycle must constitute of phases such as observing, analyzing, planning, implementing and reflecting (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009). The voices and ideas of the children must be recorded as a part of the documentation and evaluation processes. The teacher or care-giver should indulge in documentation of children behavior for efficient planning of the current and future learning as well as the development of the children. Documentation is also required for the successful communication of the learning and development of the children to the other assessors and also to the families of the children. It helps to assess the degree to which the early-age students have progressed in terms of the learning outcomes and if there is a gap in the desired progress then identifying the cause of such impediment. Documentation also helps in the identification of children needing special care and concern in achieving the learning outcomes and for offering assistance to their families in case they require help from specialists. Documentation also helps in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the learning environment, experiences and scopes and the techniques adopted for ensuring successful learning and well-being of the children. Deciding on the method of pedagogy according to the need of the children and the context of education and care-giving is another helpful aspect of documentation (Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority, 2018).
Early childhood planning:
Early childhood planning is one of the most important functions of a teacher or care-giver as it is important to have a distinct and convenient curriculum that will be implemented in treating the early-age children (ACECQA, 2018). The planning for the curriculum refers to a collection of all the activities, interactions, events and routines that might be planned or unplanned that take place in a setting that has been offered for fostering learning and development if the children. The curriculum planning consists of documenting the probable choice of strategies to be undertaken as a part of the services and support to the children's education for facilitating their effective learning and development. For making the opportunity favorable for the children in realizing their full potential, they need to be offered with an experience that consists of adequate compassion, care and consideration. The effective planning of the curriculum for early-year children is facilitated by the guidelines mentioned in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and the Framework for School Age Care (FSAC) in Australia. The frameworks are extremely useful in making the teacher understand the ways in which learning happens in children and also how as teachers can extend the learning and development process further by implementing effective intentional teaching and the various other regular practices. A well-planned curriculum for the children will contain an effective balance between planned as well as prompt experiences (Australia, 2012).
The government of South Australia has come up with its resources on the pedagogy. The curriculum is formed based on the attitude of the educators who are passionate and responsive towards the effective facilitation of education and care programs to the children. This guideline believes in the development of encouraging and supporting methodologies with high expectations. It is also based on the interactions and activities in the environments where the children are brought up. The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008), the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (1989), Belonging, Being & Becoming (2009) and National Quality Framework are directed towards the protection of the children’s rights to quality education and care (Government of South Australia, 2013). 
In Western Australia the Kindergarten Curriculum is used for the facilitation of the early childhood education and care programs. It provides a guideline where learning is to be provided optimally to the children of Kindergarten. The guideline is based on the Early Years Learning Framework that is, EYLF. The focus is given on the Western Australia Kindergarten year. This guide makes the teachers or educators to frame the curriculum for the kindergarten children of Western Australia (Government of Western Australia, 2017).
On the other hand, in Northern Territory the Preschool Curriculum has been developed as one form of practical tool that guides the teachers and professional in early childhood in implementing the results of the Early Years Learning Framework or EYLF. This curriculum is developed for the children belonging to the age group between three to five years. The government of the Northern Territory comes up with major commitment in its Early Years Strategic Plan named ‘Great Start Great Future’ through the Indigenous Education Strategy 2015-2020. The Preschool Curriculum is an important part of this initiative (NORTHERN TERRITORY GOVERNMENT , 2017). 
The Queensland kindergarten learning guideline is based on the Early Years Learning Framework or EYLF framework but it believes that every child should experience learning by getting involved and engaged and that will help to build a bright successful life for the children. This is the mission and vision of this guideline which is highly followed by the educators of Queensland. Here the teachers put their professional knowledge into the resources of the EYLF (Queensland Studies Authority, n.d.).
The State of Victoria Department of Education and Training comes up with the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) which is based on a comprehensive method towards the learning and development of the children. In this approach the health of the children is highly considered to be the key factor towards successful learning. The method believes that if the health of the children is taken well care of then the learning process becomes effective. The wellbeing of the children is being recognized by VEYLDF. It says that a child has the right to be healthy and to be a competent and capable learner since its birth. The method includes the engagement of the children’s parents and families and even the children in the process of learning (State of Victoria Department of Education and Training, 2016). 
Assessment methodologies:
Assessment is one of the important steps that are needed to evaluate the outcomes of the strategies and approaches being used for the early childhood education and care program settings. The assessment helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the programs and to ensure the opportunities are rightly availed of. The education programs must be able to get instigated in the minds of the children and they must be able to get feasible and quality education. Whether they are getting right amount of knowledge, education and care has to be evaluated and for this the assessment approaches are needed to be implemented. 
•    On Entry Assessment Program helps to assess students of the primary sections in respect to numeracy and literacy. 
•    The Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline is a guideline which is used for the students from kindergarten to class 10 in the Western Australia. The curriculum regarding the assessment and learning is provided by it. The teachers get the support in effective assessment of the students’ learning and reporting in the achievements of the students. 
•    The quality of the early childhood education can be assessed by documentation of descriptive information about the care and education programs (HARRISON, UNGERER, SMITH, ZUBRICK, & WISE, ND). 
•    Ongoing assessment processes are also used to monitor the outcomes on regular basis.
•    Assessment processes which are culturally relevant and also linguistically feasible are used for convenient assessment of the learning and care programs.
•    Inclusive assessment approaches where the students and their guardians or parents are involved also fetch the educators and teachers with effective results and outcomes.
•    The educators sometime include the parents and the guardians in the process of assessment and make the students to be aware of their performance and progress helps the entire system to become more effective (Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace , 2009).

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Pedagogies: 
Pedagogies are related to the curriculum. The pedagogy is the essence of the frameworks or strategies which are formulated to facilitate the students to have an education system. Pedagogies are the instructional strategies enabling the education and learning resources to take actual shape and to come up with ample opportunities for the facilitation and acquisition of the skills, knowledge, attitudes in respect to specific social context and also to the context of materials. Pedagogies have become essential for some nations in particular like Australia as the strategies of education and care programs of modern time enable the children to avail of the scopes of learning and education in the within the limits of the provisions. It is known that the brain development of the children takes place within the five years. During this time frame if the education and care is given in the right direction then not only the brain development of the children will take a faster pace but also the skills, knowledge and personality will be developed. The attitudes of the children also depend on the education and care they get from their guardians and the educational institutions. It is obvious that the education and care programs should be guided by some approved guidelines and frameworks where the outcomes will be highly appreciable. The pedagogies are significant for the proper facilitation of education.  The regulatory frameworks of Australia impact the pedagogies of early childhood education and care programs (Wall, Litjens, & Taguma, 2015).
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008), the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (1989), Belonging, Being & Becoming (2009) and National Quality Framework are directed towards the protection of the children’s rights to quality education and care. The children have to be provided with proper education, learning and care since early childhood when their brain development starts. These initiatives have impacted the pedagogies as formulated in Australia. It has been observed that any linear predictable way or path can direct or influence the pedagogies. The pedagogies must not have any predictable and fixed procedure or plan. It must be able to provide the parents or the guardians to learn with their children and also from their children. The documentation, planning and reflections must influence the pedagogies. The needs can be different and on that basis the methodologies are to be shaped. The learning environment of the children at their early childhood must be encouraging, challenging and motivating. The pedagogies are not always found to be responsive to the rights, ideas and areas of interest of the children. To enhance the responsiveness the information and knowledge about the children’s needs and interests has to be collected. The interactions between the guardians and the teachers is an effective tool in this respect (Government of South Australia, 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that for effective child care and early-age education, it is pivotal for a teacher or care-giver to understand the importance of ethics and the motive of offering benevolent services. There are various methods of teaching those are applied by the teachers to facilitate learning and development of the young children across various states and territories in the country. The early-childhood documentation must consist of various phases of actions those must be undertaken by the teachers for the purpose of successful imparting of teaching to the children. The basic functions of the teacher in early-years education for children should consist of the activities such as documenting the child behavior and actions to the extent possible on a daily basis for future reference, planning an effective curriculum as per the EYLF and FSAC frameworks, undertaking the most effective methodologies of assessment of these children and finally offering care-centric pedagogy to the early-age children that should consist of care, concern, empathy and the desire to improve the learning and development of these children so that their progress achieves an upward curve gradually.

Reference

ACECQA. (2018). Educators My Time, Our Place. EDUCATORS’ GUIDE TO THE FRAMEWORK FOR SCHOOL AGE CARE IN AUSTRALIA, 1-70.
Australia, C. (2012). Effective Curriculum Planning and Documentation Methods In Education and Care Services. How To Series, 1-41.
Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority. (2018). Guidelines for documenting children’s learning. National Quality Framework; Information sheet, 1-3.
Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace . (2009). BELONGING, BEING & BECOMING The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. BELONGING, BEING & BECOMING The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, 1-49.
Commonwealth of Australia. (2009). BELONGING, BEING & BECOMING. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, 1-47.
Government of South Australia. (2013). Early Years Learning Framework PERSPECTIVES ON PEDAGOGY. Retrieved from decd: https://www.decd.sa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net691/f/perspectives_on_pedagogy_early_years_learning_framework.pdf?v=1456704111
Government of Western Australia. (2017). Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines. Retrieved from scsa.wa: https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/p-10-curriculum/kindergarten-curriculum-guidelines
HARRISON, L. J., UNGERER, J. A., SMITH, G. J., ZUBRICK, S. R., & WISE, S. (ND). Child care and early education in Australia. Social Policy Research Paper No. 40, 1-222.
NORTHERN TERRITORY GOVERNMENT . (2017). NORTHERN TERRITORY PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM. Retrieved from education.nt.gov: https://education.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/359778/nt_preschool_curriculum_web-96dpi.pdf
Queensland Studies Authority. (n.d.). Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guidelines. Retrieved from qcaa.qld.edu: https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/qklg.pdf
State of Victoria Department of Education and Training. (2016). Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework for all Children Birth to Eight Years. Retrieved from education.vic.gov: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/veyldframework.pdf
Wall, S., Litjens, I., & Taguma, M. (2015). EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE PEDAGOGY REVIEW. Retrieved from oecd: https://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/early-childhood-education-and-care-pedagogy-review-england.pdf

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