Early years

The fourth topic in a series revisiting the ‘big five’ challenges in Australian education asks what progress has been made towards ensuring all children get off to the best start in life. Ahead of their webinar this week, expert panellists Dr Dan Cloney, Myra Geddes and Mary-Ruth Mendel give Teacher readers an overview of what they’ll be discussing.

In Strong Foundations: Evidence informing practice in early childhood education and care, Associate Professor Anna Kilderry and Honorary Professor Bridie Raban lead a team of 34 contributors, sharing knowledge and insights from research and links to everyday practice. This exclusive extract for Teacher readers discusses the ‘Principles of quality assessment’.

A study of children participating in book talks in libraries has shown differing lines of priority between classroom teachers and librarians when it comes to reading, and suggests they should work together more cohesively.

A primary school in Melbourne will be implementing a new four-week program for incoming Foundation students next year to better prepare them for learning following disruption to their kindergarten year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What bullying policies and procedures are in place at your school? Do you have a specific anti-bullying education program? In this podcast we talk to Dr Lesley-anne Ey about her work with early childhood teachers in South Australia to identify problems with bullying in their own school context and co-design tailored activities and strategies.

A new series of research papers related to integrating science learning in the early years aims to help educators of children in preschool to Year 2 to incorporate the latest research into their teaching. In this podcast, we speak to the paper’s co-author Gayl O’Connor.

A new research-based series encourages early years educators to take advantage of everyday teaching and learning opportunities to improve young children’s scientific understanding, and shares four step-by-step activities for the classroom or learning at home.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented some unique challenges for early years educators as they move to a remote learning approach. In today’s article, Dr Deborah Price discusses some practical ways for embracing the teaching and learning opportunities this new environment provides.

Helping Indigenous children get the best start to their formal schooling by modelling the day-to-day running of an early primary classroom is one of the aims of the animated children’s series, Little J & Big Cuz, which is back for its second season.

The newly established Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child will work on a world-first longitudinal study into the impact of digital technology on children. We speak to the lead researcher about why we need more research in this area.