Current international research topics
This website is full of information about early childhood in Australia and provides several links to resources that are filled with even more information. Some of the current international research topics I found were in a link on the website for Voice which is the Early Childhood Australia's newsletter. In the most recent newsletter I found that they are researching the relationship between their Early Years Learning Framework(which is the framework that was created for early education programs and care settings) and the Australian curriculum for schools. Educators wanted to know how the framework for early learning is connected to the learning curriculum for older children and so an information paper called "Foundations for Learning" was created to answer this question. In this information paper they establish the fact that the early learning that is created in the Early Years Learning Framework creates strong foundations for success with the Australian curriculum(Early Childhood Australia, 2012). The research is about how the Australian curriculum builds on their early learning system.
Another research topic that I found in the newsletter was that of professional standards for teaching and how having professional standards in teaching will create higher quality teachers and in turn increase student achievement. The program that they are using to show that standards are important for teachers to follow is called the Annotations project. It requires that professional consultants go into early childhood settings and make record of what standards are being followed and the quality of that program because of the standards. The consultants will observe each teacher in their daily work and determine what strategies they are using that make a positive impact on children's learning(Early Childhood Australia, 2012).
Facts/Insights/New Ideas
I was interested to read the Code of Ethics of the Early Childhood Australia organization and I really liked the way they have their code organized. They have 8 different categories of ethics that professionals agree to follow. Those categories are each started by the phrase "In relation to..." The eight categories are children, families, colleagues, communities, students, my employer, myself as a professional, and to the conduct of research (Early Childhood Australia, 2012). I found it very interesting that they have a code of conduct listed within their code of ethics for research. Within this code of ethics for research they discuss how the importance of safety and privacy for children is very important and how the research must meet ethical procedures such as consent and confidentiality (Early Childhood Australia, 2012).
Another interesting insight I gained about Australia was about refugee children. Refugee children are children of asylum seekers which I had never heard of before. Asylum seekers are people who enter Australia looking for protection from the Australian government and want to seek refugee status (Early Childhood Australia, 2012). Early Childhood Australia takes extreme measures to make sure that the children of these asylum seekers (or refugee children) are treated in the same way as all other children in Australia. Many times these people and their children are held in detention centers and this organization does all that it can to make sure that they do not have to be in a detention center for very long. They only believe that children should be put in detention centers as a last resort and not for an extended period of time. Reading about refugee children and asylum seekers was a new topic for me but I was glad to see that many steps are being taken to ensure that these children and their families are treated with respect and caring.
Noteworthy Information
One very noteworthy link that I found on this website was the link: mychild.gov.au which is Australia's online childcare page. On this website, people in Australia can find information on the different types of child care that are available. They can locate services and find ways to get assistance in paying for the costs of different programs. There is a database where they can search for centers in their local area which I thought was very useful. This web page also provides links to other useful websites about children's health and well being. Another interesting fact I found on this page was that it gave details on the Australian government's early childhood agenda. In this it provided information on governmental policies that are being implemented to improve early childhood education.
I found this website to be very informative with a great deal of information and many links to resources. If you get a chance, check it out!
Resources:
Early Childhood Australia. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/
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