Choosing work and care : four Australian women negotiating return to paid work in the first year of motherhood

Australian women make decisions about return to paid work and care for their child within a policy environment that presents mixed messages about maternal employment and child care standards. Against this background an investigation of first-time mothers’ decision-making about workforce participation and child care was undertaken. Four women were studied from pregnancy through the first postnatal year using interview and diary methods. Inductive analyses identified three themes, all focused on dimensions of family security: financial security relating to family income, emotional security relating to child care quality, and pragmatic security relating to child care access. The current policy changes that aim to increase child care quality standards in Australia present a positive step toward alleviating family insecurities but are insufficient to alleviate the evidently high levels of tension between workforce participation and family life experienced by women transitioning back into the workforce in Australia.

‘They get fed up with playing.’ Parents’ views on play-based learning in the Preparatory Year

Within early childhood education two ideas are firmly held: play is the best way for children to learn and parents are partners in the child’s learning. While these ideas have been explored, limited research to date has investigated the confluence of the two - how parents of young children view the concept of play. This paper investigates parents’ views on play by analysing the views of small group of parents of Prep Year children in Queensland, Australia. The parents in this study held varying definitions of what constitutes play, and complex and contradictory notions of its value. Positive views of play were linked to learning without knowing it, engaging in hands-on activities, and preparation for Year One through a strong focus on academic progress. Some parents held that Prep was play-based, while others did not. The complexities and diversity of parental opinion in this study echo the ongoing commentary about how play ought to be defined. Moreover, the notion that adults may interpret play in different ways is also reflected here. The authors suggest that for early childhood educators these complexities require an ongoing engagement, debate and reconceptualisation of the place of play in light of broader curricular and socio-political agendas.

'These are my photos of when I was little' : Locating Media Arts in the Primary School Curriculum

‘Media Arts’ has been included as a fifth area of the Arts for the Australian Curriculum which will become mandatory learning for all Australian children from pre-school to Year Six (Y6) from 2014. The current curriculum design is underpinned by an approach familiar to media educators who combine creative practice and critical response to develop students’ media literacies. Media Arts within the Australian Curriculum will place Australia at the forefront of international efforts to promote media education as an entitlement for all children. Even with this mandated endorsement, however, there remains ongoing debate about where to locate media education in school curricula. Historically, media education in Australia has been approached through diverse curriculum activities at the secondary school level. These include subject English’s critical literacy objectives; vocationally oriented media and technology education or ICTs education; and Arts courses using new media technologies for creativity. In this chapter we consider the possibilities and challenges for Media Arts, specifically for primary school student learning. We draw on empirical evidence from a research project that has trialled a Media Arts curriculum with students attending a primary school in a low socio-economic status and culturally diverse community on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland.

Looking back and looking forward : exploring distributed leadership with Queensland Prep teachers

There is an increasing expectation that early childhood teachers will be pedagogical leaders, particularly in a global context of curriculum reform. This paper reports on the distributed leadership experiences of early childhood teachers’ during the 2003 Preparatory Year (Prep) trial in Queensland, Australia. In 2010, 13 of the first Prep teachers participated in interviews to discuss their definitions of leadership and reflect on the opportunities they had to lead curriculum development during and since the 2003 trial. Data were examined using a conceptual framework based on the work of Woods et al. (2004), with a focus on the structural and agential aspects of distributed leadership. Participants identified a range of contextual influences, challenges, skills and enabling strategies that illustrate the complexities in leading curriculum.

Deleuzian dolls : subverting identities through intergenerational collaborative drawing

This paper explores concepts of desire and rhizomatic working through a series of intergenerational collaborative drawing episodes. Particularly, mother/daughter relationships are examined via drawings created by the author and her young daughter. Drawings hold on their surface unpredictable connections to things experienced, known, conceptualized and imagined. In the context of this paper desire is seen to drive adults and children into expressing and making a mark, to make an imprint. Here, the prompts that inform a drawing are regarded as a rhizomatic network of chaotic actions and thoughts that connect each drawer to the tools, the paper and each other in unpredictable and mutable ways. The paper concludes by discussing how these intergenerational collaborative drawing episodes offer opportunities to re-imagine relationships, communications and learning in early childhood education.

Finding out about children's meaning making through drawing together

When I was seven I worked on a science project about caterpillars and moths. I was completely immersed in this project, fascinated by caterpillar body markings, the rhythmical, semi-circular pattern caterpillars adopt to eat leaves, their spiral construction of the chrysalis, and their transformation into moths or butterflies. I demonstrated my fascination, my research and study through carefully executed and detailed drawings. I could read and write well, but I wasn’t as interested in writing and produced a half-page summary to support my visual work.

Professional practice research : ensuring teacher development through a critical approach to professional learning

Currently the development of a national system for the ongoing enhancement of teacher professionalism across Australia is underway. The initiative led by Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) on behalf of the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (now SCSEEC) is progressing rapidly with a finalised set of Professional Standards for Teachers and a set of Professional Standards for Principals approved by Ministers in 2011. It is clear that there is an inextricable link between the newly proposed professional standards and the professional education of teachers and principals across Australia. Further, it is imperative that the education sector will need to work in a unified manner through ongoing consultations to ensure the standards truly reflect what teachers and principals desire of the profession, in terms of teacher preparation, professional learning and training, and professional recognition.

Good practice for safeguarding student learning engagement in higher education institutions : Final Report 2012

The project 'Good practice for safeguarding student learning engagement in higher education institutions' commenced in late 2010 as a Competitive Grant with funding provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. The project is now overseen by the Office for Learning and Teaching within the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. The project was completed in December 2012. The project was lead by QUT and comprised of the project team: Professor Karen Nelson, (project leader), Ms Tracy Creagh, (project manager) and Adjunct Professor John Clarke. Commencing in late 2010 the project invited a total of eight institutions across Australia and New Zealand (including QUT) who had either: existing programs and activities that monitored student learning engagement (MSLE); were in the early stages of implementing MSLE programs, or; who were piloting MSLE activities. As well, the project involved an advisory group and project evaluator comprising of academic and professional staff across two additional universities.

Supporting young children on the autism spectrum

With one in every 100 children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it is highly likely that you may have a child with this diagnosis in your group from year to year.

Let the children (and young people) play-where, how, why?

This paper reports on current research work with children and young people on the importance of public and private space for good health, wellbeing, social, educational and developmental outcomes. In many urban locations in Australia and elsewhere, public space is under attack from developers and attempts by authorities to control public space (Watson 2006). Private space in the home and garden-backyard is also under attack from development densification and trends towards bigger houses on smaller plots of land where gardens disappear altogether or a postage stamp remains (Gleeson and Sipe 2006). At the same time public policy advocates the benefits of outdoor exercise, set alongside fears about using public space exacerbated by notions of ‘stranger danger’ and control measures such as child and youth ‘curfews’. In this increasingly complex context, it is important to discover what children and young people value and need most in using private (home) and public space. In conjunction with the University of Otago, New Zealand, children and young people are consulted to discover how they use public space in parks and shopping centres and home space and the issues encountered and their proposals for improvement, to better inform policy debate, planning and formulation (ARACY 2009).