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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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Teacher Member Posts

CV Writing and Making a Good Job Application
Applying for an Early Childhood Job.
Having a great application is important for getting the job you want.
Your initial application may be the only chance you get to impress your potential employer, especially if they do not interview every single person who applies. This means you cannot leave things out of your application assuming you w

How to Find Common Ground with Dads
Relationships with Dads in ECE.
How can we as female educators find common-ground with Dads that is non-threatening? Karen (ECE teacher).
Dr Alexander Replies:
* A major common-ground between female educators and Dads is the child – talk with Dads about their children, what their child has been doing during the day, ask questio

Nappies – The Options and What’s Best in ECE
As professionals, teachers are often presented with situations that require them to consider what is important to the families of the children they are teaching, while ensuring that they are working in an environment where they are comfortable and where their training and experience is valued and appreciated.
In deciding how to approach the reus

Earthquake Drills
Earthquake Drills and the Turtle Drop – Reflections and Discussion about what is Best Practice. By Warwick Marshall
A big earthquake shakes while you’re in the kitchen at your house. What do you do?
Of course you throw yourself to the floor and drop like a turtle. Yeah right! Adults are known to wait to see if an earthquake
Service Provider Member Posts

Raising Concerns – Complaints Policy
Does your early childhood service have a well-written, well thought-out complaints policy? Getting it right is essential to support people to raise their concerns and avoid situations escalating and further problems.
Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa. Let us keep close together, not far apart
Regulatory requirements and Te Whāriki

Redundancy and Making a Position Redundant
Redundancy and the process for making a position redundant.
There may not be the work for an employee because child enrolments have dropped, your service is restructuring, or you can not longer afford to keep an employee on.
Whatever the reason, there are certain processes to follow to ensure you do not run into legal problems.
This arti

The ECE Safety Checklist – Daily Hazard and Safety Checklist
The ECE Safety Checklist – A Daily Hazard and Safety Checklist for Every ECE Service. Checklist items include regulation requirements and reflect learnings from tragic incidents that have happened in ECE.
How to Use the Checklist
This checklist is to assist in conducting and recording the daily inspection.
It is more thorough and detaile
Being Inclusive of LGBT Teachers
Equality and acceptance of LGBT teachers in the New Zealand education system is still far from established.
Discrimination can be subtle, such as whispering the word ‘gay’ so that the children can’t hear, but can also be obvious and inappropriate through direct discrimination and exclusion.
Teachers, and particularly leaders, in early c
Research Library – Today’s Featured Articles

Influences on SENCo Practice in Early Care and Education Settings in England
Research on the challenges for special education needs coordinators and implementation of child health care and learning plans in ECE settings. 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, 2000, Vol 3
The titles, authors and abstracts for papers published in the NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, Volume 3, 2000 are shown below.
To view any paper, scroll to the end of this page for copies.
The Early Years: Conceptual Issues and Future Challenges
Joy CullenMassey UniversityNZRECE Journal, Vol. 3, 2000, pp.&nbs

What is Research? Methodological Practices and New Approaches
A fantastic guide to doing research! Jeanette Rhedding-Jones explains that there is much to learn, understand, and consider when planning, doing, publishing and evaluating research.

Contents – NZ International Research in ECE Journal, 2022, Vol 24
This special issue examines how parents and families shape early childhood education, from partnership models and parental wellbeing to fathers’ participation and culturally diverse perspectives on engagement.
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