Category: Everyday Learning Series
ECA Learning Hub
Search results: 149
This module invites early childhood educators and teachers to engage in inquiry-based, child-led STEM practices. It discusses common notions of STEM and unfolds what STEM in the early years looks like. The audience becomes aware of everyday learning opportunities relevant to children’s life and develops a basic understanding of co-constructed environments, the principles of inquiry-based learning and the concept of metacognition.
Through this module, participants will gain an understanding of:
- STEM in an early years context
- the educator’s role in STEM inquiry
- why inquiry practices are important for children’s future
- what inquiry-based and co-constructed learning is
- how STEM inquiry links to Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
In this series of responsive professional learning opportunities, educators and service leaders will find support to navigate an increasingly complex and high-pressure environment where families are understandably concerned about children’s safety, and where teams are facing heightened scrutiny and, at times, a sense of mistrust.
Supporting and retaining experienced, confident educators is essential to maintaining safe environments and strengthening child protection practices across services.
These content-rich and practice-based professional learning series extend beyond compliance requirements to invite deep reflection and innovative practice design that safeguards children, asks questions of practice and builds the confidence needed to ensure all children thrive
Category: Live Webinars
Strengthening relationships after conflict
Conflict is a natural part of any close relationship—but how we navigate moments of rupture can either harm or strengthen the bond. This course supports parents and carers to better understand what causes communication breakdowns, and how to repair and rebuild after them. You'll explore practical tools for managing conflict, repairing connection, and maintaining healthy relationships with your child, co-parent, and yourself. This course is grounded in evidence-based approaches and designed to be accessible, reflective, and empowering.
Category: Conflict Resolution Service
Australia’s population is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse in the world, with an increasing number of children growing up in homes where more than one language is spoken. These children may also transition into early childhood education and care settings where many languages may be present. This reality presents a range of challenges and opportunities for early childhood professionals who educate and care for diverse groups of young children and their families.
This webinar explores the topic of childhood bilingualism and how early childhood educators can help bilingual children develop language and communication skills during the early years. The webinar also looks at supporting bilingual educators as well as how to share language and culture with young children and their families.
In this course, you will explore:
- different terms and types of bilingualism during childhood
- the various factors that influence language development in young children learning more than one language
- the benefits of bilingualism for children and their families
- how to identify and promote factors that support bilingualism during early childhood.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
In this course, we focus on how to help children learn to manage their own attention, emotions, thinking, and behaviour. Self-regulation develops rapidly in the early years, through experiences and relationships that shape brain development. What can you do to support children to develop these critical skills?
After completing this course you will:
- discover why self-regulation is a critical skill that develops in early childhood and underpins all future learning and wellbeing
- explore the educator’s role in supporting self-regulation development through reflective practice, strong relationships with children and families and embedding self-regulation support strategies into all aspects of planning and the curriculum
- examine how play, the use of language, group games, and music and movement experiences can all support children’s self-regulation skills.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
This course explains how educators can help very young children understand, name and manage their emotions and begin self-regulating their behaviour. By establishing solid relationships with children, educators can help them build strong foundations for lifelong learning and communication.
Throughout this course, you will:
- find out what self-regulation is
- understand why it’s important to help children self-regulate their emotions and behaviour
- explore tips for building children’s self-regulation skills
- unpack the role of the educator in supporting self-regulation.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
Supporting healthy eating behaviours in early childhood is about more than just providing healthy food options—it’s about how we talk with children, how we interact and care for their wellbeing, and how we create opportunities to explore where food comes from. This course invites educators to reflect on the many ways we can nurture positive relationships with food, guided by our everyday practices and interactions.
Throughout the course, educators will explore the reasons behind selective eating and gain insight into what may contribute to a child’s avoidant eating response. Educators will consider how to respond sensitively to children’s hunger and fullness cues, promoting a respectful and responsive approach to mealtimes. The course offers practical ideas for planning intentional learning experiences that focus on healthy eating, while also embracing the value of spontaneous conversations and opportunities to build on children’s emerging interests.
Educators will discover how to involve children in meaningful, play-based learning experiences that encourage curiosity, enjoyment and connection with food. There will be a strong focus on creating positive educator–child interactions during mealtimes and food-related play, helping to build trusting relationships and support children’s sense of agency and wellbeing.
This course directly relates to Quality Areas 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the National Quality Standard, and aligns with Learning Outcome 3 of the Early Years Learning Framework (V2.0), which highlights how educators can support children’s growing understanding of health and wellbeing.Category: ECA Subscriptions
The process of acquiring language is complex and language learning is considered a key developmental milestone in early childhood. Understanding the process and supporting young children in learning language is integral to the role of early childhood education and care professionals.
This module explores how language develops between birth and the age of six years. It focuses largely on ways to support the language learning journey of children who speak two or more languages, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The module also examines current theories of language learning and provides practical examples of ways to facilitate language development in the early years.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
Category: Everyday Learning Series
This course is an introduction to exploring the importance of outdoor learning in young children’s lives. Be inspired to create outdoor learning environments full of wonder, curiosity and active play! Learn about the essentials of a high quality outdoor learning environment that encourages healthy risk-taking, supporting the development of skills such as agency, self-resilience and confidence. This course also explores the role of active play in the outdoors, how educators can facilitate experiences based on children’s interests and needs through intentional teaching, discover theories and approaches to inspire planning in outdoor learning environments, and how to overcome challenges in a variety of different service settings and locations. You will also be introduced and encouraged to think deeply about the concept of ‘going beyond the gate’ and how to embed this into your early learning curriculum.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
Leading others is a sophisticated process and leaders often have to straddle two worlds. They have to nurture their team’s sense of belonging and security while inviting them to leap into new arenas and take on previously unimaginable practice challenges. They also have to consider different perspectives and encourage a lively exchange of ideas but, when necessary, make clear and non-negotiable decisions. In the landscape of children’s education and care, effective leaders are indispensable and play a pivotal role in delivering outcomes for children, families and educators.
If this held true for the ordinary practice of children’s service delivery during the Black Summer bushfires, then what more is required of leaders in the current turbulent times? As the leader of an early learning setting, you might not have imagined having to navigate the uncharted territory of a global pandemic, but it is exactly what you find yourself doing—adopting a day-by-day approach and trying to focus on your purpose. It is timely then to pause and reflect on the art of leading others in challenging times.
This webinar will help you refine the practice of guiding and inspiring others when the going gets tough. By looking at emerging literature, ECA’s Leadership Capability Framework and the ECA Code of Ethics, it will unpack key elements contributing to effective leadership and explore their use in challenging times. It will also invite you to consider practice that continually strengthens your team while maintaining a focus on your core role: enhancing children’s learning. The webinar’s online format will allow you time to reflect on your challenges, strengths and vulnerabilities so you can plan a new and responsive approach for the future.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
Play offers children opportunities to engage with the world around them. Being intrinsically motivated and freely chosen, it allows children control over their actions and their learning. Play also helps children develop their self-regulation and problem-solving capacity, and it enriches their vocabulary and language skills. Today, nearly 200 years after Froebel first argued for its importance in children’s lives, play remains an essential part of effective early childhood learning. This is reflected in the Early Years Learning Framework when it describes play as a ‘context for learning through which children organise and make sense of their social worlds, as they actively engage with people, objects and representations’.
This course will examine:
- what play is and why it is important in early childhood
- how significant play is for children’s learning and development
- the role of educators in supporting effective play-based learning
- how educators can balance intentional teaching with play-based approaches in a variety of early childhood settings
- the characteristics of play as well as the many aspects of play to be considered and planned for
- how to develop an argument in support of play-based programs.
Category: ECA Subscriptions
This module is designed to unpack what it means to be a nominated supervisor or a person in day-to-day charge of an early childhood education and care service. Participants will be assisted in understanding the role’s key responsibilities and how the legislation is constructed to give effect to this role. They will also be taken through the key legislative requirements and how these look like in practice, including what they should expect of approved providers (employers).
Through this course, participants will:
- gain an awareness of the Education and Care Services National Law and Education and Care services National Regulations relevant to the role of nominated supervisor and person in day-to-day charge
- understand obligations and liabilities of a nominated supervisor and person in day-to-day charge
- get familiarised with best practice systems and processes to ensure compliance with requirements of the National Law and Regulations
- engage in a scenario-based exercise to explore the responsibilities of the nominated supervisor or person in day-to-day charge.
Please note, part of this course includes two learning pathways to specifically cater to the two roles and ensure the responsibilities of each role are clearly understood. Learners will have the choice of completing one or both role learning pathway options. The options are 1) nominated supervisor, 2) person in day-to-day-charge. Please note, if you choose to complete both learning pathways the estimated course duration time is approx. 120 minutes.
Category: ECA Subscriptions