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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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Learning Activities - Outside the Box Ideas

Playdough Recipes and Play Variations

Here we’ve got an all-time favourite recipe of early childhood teachers for cooked playdough.  

We also include recipes for:

– uncooked playdough

– special playdough suitable for shaping into Christmas tree ornaments and gifts to be painted later when hardened.

Playdough is great fun but when the novelty wears off children can become bored and their creativity declines.  So we give you some ideas to keep the playdough fun alive, and invite you to contribute your favourite recipes and ideas too.

First, you may wish to consider cultural concerns on the use of food ingredients and how you may mitigate these concerns.

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fit hole peg descion-making
Book Reviews

Critical Issues in Early Childhood Education

Critical Issues in ECE by Nicola Yelland (Editor).

Typically an edited book is a loose collection of chapters written by various authors around a theme or topic, agreeing on and promoting to the reader a particular position.

Yelland has instead taken a bold approach of producing an edited book to present “diverse viewpoints, so that reade

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the importance of touch as part of caregiving and teaching children
Teaching and Putting Theory into Practice

Teaching Literacy – An Early Childhood Educator’s Guide

Guide to Teaching Literacy. By Dr Sarah Alexander.

From their earliest speech experiences through to contact with written language and technologies, what happens in children’s homes and communities shapes their early literacy learning.  How, and whether this early learning is taken up and extended through early childhood educational practic

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woodwork room
Learning Activities - Outside the Box Ideas

Woodwork Tables, Tools, Gender Issues, and Rules

This article covers many topics and gives advice and tips on:

– What carpentry tools (age appropriate) and wood to get and from where.

– How to set it up.

– Rules to set for children’s safety.

– What can be made – what to make.

– Extending children’s learning.

– Female teachers can do it too.

Happy reading!
Share your experiences with us.

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Service Provider Member Posts

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child with binoculars looking out
Financial Management and Record Keeping

Financial Sustainability

Early Childhood Service Financial Sustainability.

Unless as much or more money is coming in than is going out, your service could come to be at risk. Here are some strategies for financial sustainability and increasing your revenue stream when necessary. What strategies you agree with and disagree with will depend on your values and the reasons

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Right of entry and visitors to an early childhood centre
Policies and Procedures

Right of Entry Policy

Regulations require that certain groups of people, including parents, union staff, and public officials, have a right of entry to the early childhood service under certain conditions, and set out the responsibilities of the early childhood service.

Below is a Right of Entry Policy and a set of procedures for different situations. Adapt and re-w

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Policies and Procedures

Losing a Child or Preventing Children Escaping Policy

Prevent Child Escapes.

Having a child slip out of a gate un-noticed or being sent home with the wrong person is something that everyone would dread.

It is expected that children are safe in their ECE environment and cared for at all times.

So in terms of developing policy and involving parents and others to play their part in ensuring th

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scales balance Montessori equipment
Employer Guides and Staff Management

The Difference Between a Salary and a Wage – and Work Hour Maximums

Salary and Wage Differences.

An employment contract must state the type of pay an employee will be paid.

Wage refers to the amount of money that is paid to an employee, by the hour, and it may vary from one pay period to the next depending on the number of hours the worker is employed. 

Salary refers to a fixed amount of pay regardl

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Research Library – Today’s Featured Articles

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Young children making music at kindergarten.
How-to-do Research

How to do Action-Based Research or an Inquiry, and Writing Your Report

What is Action Research?

Action research is defined in the glossary as:  

A hands-on approach to research for change in a setting and/or to one’s own practices, thinking and knowledge. Action research can be a collaborative endeavour or carried out by an individual.

When action research is being undertaken to bring about change in a se

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early childhood research journal online
2016 NZRECE Journal Articles

Removing Socio-Economic Barriers to Participation in Early Childhood Education

This paper reviews policy approaches to increase the participation of children from low socio-economic families in quality early childhood education. Problems are identified with current policy approaches and an equitable way forward is proposed. 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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