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Welcome to the Office of Early Childhood Education

The OECE is a national organisation for the ECE sector and public adviser, championing high-quality education and care for every child

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Teacher Member Posts

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Teacher Professionals Early Childhood Education
Professional Learning, Mentoring & Development

Associate Teacher and Centre Information on Supporting Student Kaiako & Payment

Associate Teacher and Centre Information on Supporting Student Kaiako & Payment.

If you’re a qualified, registered teacher and you’re ready to start supporting student kaiako as an Associate Teacher, we’ve got some helpful information to make the experience as rich and rewarding for everyone involved.

Practicums are a keystone of

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Noise levels. Hearing. Speaking Up. Being Heard
Job Guidance

Hearing Loss or Ringing or Buzzing in Your Ears?

Losing my Hearing – Signs of Hearing Loss for Early Childhood Teachers and What You Can Do.

Children are by nature noisy, and working in an early childhood setting can therefore be a noisy working environment -and especially during bad weather when children are stuck indoors all day. Children screaming can damage adult ears.

Employers do h

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Teacher with girls in outside playground who are feeding their baby doll
Teaching and Putting Theory into Practice

The Concept of Tuakana-Teina dictated by Whakapapa

Tuakana – Teina Relationships. By Ngaroma Williams.

Within Aotearoa, New Zealand early childhood education pedagogy, the relationships of tuakana, teina are misunderstood, misinterpreted and/or misused. Ngaroma Williams explains how and calls for a Maori worldview to be expressed and better understood.

To understand Māori social str

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sun protection and children with sunhats engaged in waterplay in home-based ECE
Book Reviews

Insights from the Playgroup Movement: Equality and Autonomy in a Voluntary Organisation

Insights from the Playgroup Movement: Equality and Autonomy in a Voluntary Organisation by Ann Henderson (Editor).

The past histories of early childhood services are often written up in a way that make for good bed time reading if you want to go to sleep quickly. 

This book on the British playgroup movement is something different and t

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Service Provider Member Posts

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Member-Only Discussion and Sector Update

Early Childhood Alert – Service Provider Members’ special issue

September 2025, No. Issue 11.

This newsletter is intended exclusively for members to support your work and to share important OECE matters with you.

1. Reducing Teacher Qualification Requirements in ECE

Sarah sits on the Ministry’s Early Learning Regulatory Advisory Committee, where members are currently debating proposed changes to qualification requirements.

These proposals stem from the Associate Minister’s instruction that the Ministry of Education implement the Ministry for Regulation’s recommendations to make ECE qualifications more flexible.

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employment job benefits wages pay
Employer Guides and Staff Management

Staff Benefits and Wages Guide

The Staff Benefits and Wages Guide for Employers.

We provide data on usual and common benefits provided to staff, such as discounted childcare, and by which services. Data on pay rates at different services, for staff in different positions and regional variations is also shown below. Because data on pay rates can become dated as soon as it

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Health and Safety Management

HIV and AIDS Childcare and Confidentiality Guidelines

HIV / AIDS Children and Adults At Early Childhood Services.

In May 2012 a Northland Childcare Centre was publicly slammed when it decided to send home an HIV-positive child. The centre was criticised by the AIDS Foundation and the story made the national news over several days. The centre claimed its exclusion of the child was temporary only w

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Management Information Support
Employer Guides and Staff Management

Dismissal Letter

EXAMPLE LETTER OF DISMISSAL.

Below is a general draft letter of dismissal to assist you in learning how a letter can be constructed, and what things you need to consider including in it,

Private and Confidential

DATE: 

Dear <Insert Name>

Termination of your employment

This letter is to formally advise you of the termi

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Research Library – Today’s Featured Articles

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NZIRECE Journal early childhood education research
2004 NZRECE Journal Articles

Index for the NZ Research in ECE Journal, 2004, Vol 7

The titles, authors and abstracts for papers published in the NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, Volume 7, 2004 are shown below.

To view any paper, scroll to the end of this page for copies.

Archive fragments: Infant Schools for the Youngest Settler Children in the Colony of New Zealand, 1840-50s

Helen MayVicto

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NZ International Research in Early Childhood Education journal
2018 NZIRECE Journal, No. 2

Generic or Specific? Deciphering the New Zealand Approach to Professional Standards for Early Childhood

Research exploring why NZ has taken the approach to professional standards for early childhood teachers that it has – generic to the primary and secondary sectors. Read the full paper below. Or to order a pdf copy of the article go to the main NZIRECE Journal page.

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What We Do

The Office of ECE drives high-quality care, learning and teaching for all infants and young children and high-quality working environments for teachers and service providers.
Teacher supervising infant and young child playing in playground at ECE centre.

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