Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Kelly Seaburg: Advocates for Early Learning Excellence Chair on the ENRICH programme
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Erica Stanford's going big on early language support in EC centers.
- 0:03Speaker 1: Centers going from sixty five to five hundred kids starting
- 0:07Speaker 1: school can barely speak some of them. Too much screen
- 0:10Speaker 1: time a problem too. Kelly Seberg, advocates for Early Learning
- 0:14Speaker 1: Excellence chair and a News Shoots Sunny Nook director, joins
- 0:17Speaker 1: us this morning.
- 0:18Speaker 2: Morning, Kelly, morning Ryan, how are you very well?
- 0:21Speaker 1: Thank you?
- 0:22Speaker 2: So what is it?
- 0:23Speaker 1: From what I can understand yesterday, this is about getting
- 0:25Speaker 1: EC staff to be more engaged with talking to young
- 0:31Speaker 1: to talking to the kids. Is that about right?
- 0:35Speaker 2: Yeah? And look, it's a program. I've had colleagues and
- 0:37Speaker 2: staff who have gone through it and they rave about
- 0:39Speaker 2: what they've learned and what they're putting into practice with children.
- 0:42Speaker 2: So it's a really highly regarded program in the sector.
- 0:46Speaker 2: And you're thinking about intentional teaching strategies around oral language.
- 0:50Speaker 2: So it's wonderful to talk to children and that's great,
- 0:53Speaker 2: but we really want to think about our questioning skills,
- 0:56Speaker 2: how we're eliciting responses from children and being much more
- 1:00Speaker 2: aware of developing all language skills in early learning. So
- 1:04Speaker 2: it's a fantastic program because one of.
- 1:06Speaker 1: The important things, and this is what EC centers. I
- 1:09Speaker 1: mean some parents worry about ECE centers because are there
- 1:12Speaker 1: enough instructors or teachers there to give the child everything
- 1:18Speaker 1: that they need to develop those skills. Because when you're
- 1:20Speaker 1: that young, it's very much about one on one, isn't it.
- 1:24Speaker 2: Well, one on one or a small group is what
- 1:27Speaker 2: you need. But you've got to remember an early childhood education.
- 1:30Speaker 2: The vast majority of staff thirty three thousand qualified registered
- 1:34Speaker 2: teachers are in early learning, so we have highly qualified staff,
- 1:39Speaker 2: but this is about Belding professional development. So and if
- 1:42Speaker 2: you think about most ely learning services might have a
- 1:45Speaker 2: one to four ratio, four or three or four ratio
- 1:48Speaker 2: for their under twos, and as they're moving up, you
- 1:51Speaker 2: know they might be only one to seven, one to eight,
- 1:53Speaker 2: a maximum one to ten for their up to five
- 1:56Speaker 2: year olds. Those are really quality ratios on across internationally
- 2:01Speaker 2: and with qualified teachers. This is great. But like all teachers,
- 2:06Speaker 2: everyone needs a focus on particular parts of curriculum and
- 2:11Speaker 2: this is a program that really supports that. And I
- 2:13Speaker 2: think what's really important is when we're focusing on oral language,
- 2:18Speaker 2: you know, we really do have an opportunity to build
- 2:21Speaker 2: a connected zero to eighteen years literacy pathway. And I
- 2:24Speaker 2: think this is why the Minister is so interested, because
- 2:27Speaker 2: we know that when we build strong foundations in oral language,
- 2:32Speaker 2: that leads on to you know, early literacy, which feeds
- 2:36Speaker 2: into his structured literacy and curriculum and schools, teacher education
- 2:39Speaker 2: and ongoing professional developments. You can't just sort of set
- 2:42Speaker 2: teachers and then leave them. It is around really focusing
- 2:47Speaker 2: what their practice is looking at and their ongoing professional learning.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Kelly, it all sounds fantastic to me. I mean it's
- 2:53Speaker 1: targeting exactly the area we need to be targeting, because,
- 2:56Speaker 1: as we know, if we don't get it right before
- 2:59Speaker 1: they get school, then they are far less likely to
- 3:02Speaker 1: get it right while they're there. Kelly Seberg advocates for
- 3:06Speaker 1: Advocates for Early Learning Excellence, Cheer News Shoots Study Dork
- 3:10Speaker 1: director with us this morning. For more from Early Edition
- 3:13Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it'd be
- 3:16Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio