Currently early childhood teachers often ask parents or whānau to write comments in response to their child’s Learning Story. However, it can be difficult to obtain a contribution that leads to parents/whānau participating in their child’s learning and in planning for further learning experiences. This article reports on the development of a new ...

This article is offered as a provocation for teachers, encouraging them to reflect on underlying assumptions about the ways in which resources for children’s learning are managed. The article explores how the familiar notion of children’s “freedom of choice” was played out in a centre. It describes how, within the apparent freedom, teacher ...

In developing Ministry of Health guidelines for early childhood education (ECE) services to support breastfeeding, the authors of this article consulted widely with the health and ECE sectors early in 2009. The article discusses the main themes and issues raised by the parents, educators, advocates and health representatives who participated. Although ECE centres have ...

Global issues, such as ecological sustainability, can be difficult topics to address in early childhood education. This article reports on a research project exploring an approach based on the idea of “global citizenship”—where care for self, others and the environment are inextricably intertwined. It gives the perspective of one of the researchers and two ...

Meaningful leadership development opportunities are rare for those working in the New Zealand early childhood education sector. What difference can they make to leadership practice? This article describes the experiences of participants in a study that used a blend of ICT and face-to-face sessions to support leadership learning. For the participants, this approach resulted ...

Advocating for children’s rights in early education is an important role for teachers. This role has many challenges, not least of which is understanding what children’s rights are and how they can be used effectively to support children’s learning. This article reports on how teachers in an early care and education centre advocated ...

This article explores the pedagogy of New Zealand early childhood teachers who have consciously adopted ideas from the early childhood programme of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. It follows the learning experiences of children involved in a project investigating cows, milking and dairy processing that emerged from children’s interests related to Chinese New ...

The transition into early childhood education is a big step for children and their parents. It can help a child settle in if one teacher becomes their “primary caregiver”, giving them someone to relate to and the parents someone to communicate with. This action research project looks at one centre’s “key teacher” system and ...

Education settings are one of the key points of contact new migrants have with their host society, so the way early childhood teachers negotiate multiculturalism is important. This article is based on a study from Australia, one of the most multicultural nations on Earth. It examines how, in implementing equality by treating new-migrant families ...