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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
View our positions
- Provides membership support to ECE services, teachers, researchers, and community partners
- Actively contributes to sector analysis, research, and policy development
- Advances evidence-based best practices that prioritise children’s interests and wellbeing
View the Code of Conduct for ECE Services
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Education Bulletin and Sector Notices
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Teacher Member Posts
An Example of a ‘Teaching Story’
In this article, I take a critical, but slightly light-hearted gaze at the professional learning benefits of developing a teaching story.
I recommend that by thinking critically about their role in developing learning situations for young children, teachers can create more critical and robust documentation of children’s learning and their o
Are Learning Stories Working? Educators Share their Views
It is now some years since the Learning Stories approach to assessing children’s learning caught on and was widely and uncritically adopted by early childhood professionals in NZ.
Here we open up discussion and reflect on the use of the Learning Story approach to child assessment and how well it is working for teachers and children.
There
Transforming an Old Woodwork Table
I am James Lochead-MacMillan and I’m going to share with you our review and evaluation of the woodwork table and children’s use, and what we did to bring about improvement
Review and evaluation of woodwork
The hammers had seen better days, the saws were rusty, the screwdrivers were AWOL, the vices and the drills were all broken. The work benc
Pet Lamb – What You Need to Know
TITLE: Pet Lamb – fostering agreements, day-to-care care, benefits for children’s play and learning, and regulatory requirements
Some lambs are sadly orphaned at birth or there may be another reason why a farmer may decide the lamb would be better off to be hand-reared (such as in the case of multiple births and the mum having only one teat).
Your service could offer to help to hand-rear the lamb.
A lamb gives children a new responsibility.
A lamb is a new playmate and a friend that will love them unconditionally.
A lamb is gentle. It delights in playing but also at times needs to stop and drink or sit down and rest.
This is a pet that is dependent on care for survival and that will teach children to nurture.
Introducing a pet lamb to your early childhood service is an excellent way to naturally support children to spend more time outdoors running, jumping and skipping and enjoying the spring weather.
Below we cover aspects of
– How to get a lamb
– Agreements with the farmer and with your children for fostering the lamb
– Preparing for the lamb and what you need
Service Provider Member Posts
Responding to a Child’s Disclosure of Abuse
Getting Help for an Abused Child. By Eric Hollis.
When a child discloses sexual abuse, it will always be distressing. It is natural for adults to feel at a loss to know how best to respond.
The information provided here covers how to listen and respond to a child who tells you, or hints in even a vague way, that she/he or someone they know
Social Media Policy
Social Media Policy.
How social media is used can have a significant influence on the reputation of an early childhood service and the safety of participants.
Social media technologies if used appropriately can become an excellent way to broaden and increase opportunities for communication as well as being a powerful marketing tool.
Child Protection Policy
The Ministry of Education has identified non-compliance in services that don’t have a child protection policy with procedures that detail:
provisions for the identification and reporting of child abuse and neglect, and
information about how the service will keep children safe from abuseand neglect, and
how it will respond to suspected
Ministry of Education Audits: Funding Audit and Record Keeping Audits
Preparing for a Funding Claim Audit.
The purpose of a visiting audit from the Ministry of Education is to:
Verify that the service is claiming and receiving the correct amount of MoE funding,
Verify that a service is meeting the record keeping requirements for the grants, and to
Provide advice and assistance to services about record
Research Library – Today’s Featured Articles
Retaining Early Childhood Teachers: What Factors Contribute to High Job Satisfaction?
The results of a study on why early childhood teachers leave their jobs and factors such as better adult-to-child ratios that contribute to satisfaction in the workplace. Read the full paper below. Or to order a pdf copy of the article go to the main NZIRECE Journal page.
Index for the NZ Research in ECE Journal, 2003, Vol 6
The titles, authors and abstracts for papers published in the NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, Volume 6, 2003 are shown below.
To view any paper, scroll to the end of this page for copies.
The Growth of an Early Childhood Research Culture: Implications for Future Directions in Early Childhood Research
Joy Cu
Focus Group Methodology
Focus Group Methodology and its Usefulness in Early Childhood Research. By Claire McLachlan. Published in NZ Research in ECE Journal, 2005, pp. 113-123.
Abstract.
Focus groups are increasingly being used by researchers as a method of qualitative data gathering in educational contexts. The history of the focus group started with the ‘foc
Researching Pedagogies for Sustainability in Australian Bush Kinder
Research on sustainability and children spending more time in natural settings and Bush Kindergarten. 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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