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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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e-portfolios
Assessment of Learning

Child E-Portfolios

E-Portfolios in Early Childhood Education. By Julia Button.

This article describes and discusses the use and place of e-portfolios in early childhood education. Considerations for using e-portfolios and limitations are outlined. A special section looks at the involvement and contribution of families and others to children’s e-portfolio

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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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Book Reviews

Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education & Care Postmodern Perspectives

Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education & Care Postmodern Perspectives by Gunilla Dahlberg, Peter Moss & Alan Pence. This review was first published in the NZJES journal, 34(2), 1999,  pp. 368 – 369. Reviewed by Dr Sarah Alexander. 

Beyond Quality challenges the discourse of early childhood education and over two decade

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two toddlers touch hands
Behaviour Management & Social Development

Say Sorry – Asking a Child to Apologise

Ask a Child to Say Sorry. By Warwick Marshall

Some early childhood service teachers do not want to ask a child to say sorry. They avoid this.

But why?

And what if anything is wrong with supporting children to say ‘sorry’?

Here is some reasoning on the matter.

No doubt there’s some kind of reasoning for it but this articl

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Service Provider Member Posts

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Policies and Procedures

Curriculum Policy

Use and adapt the following curriculum policy to suit your service and meet regulatory requirements.

Your curriculum policy must be consistent with the curriculum framework and be informed by assessment, planning, and evaluation (documented and undocumented) that demonstrates an understanding of children’s learning, their interests, whānau, and life contexts.

As well as providing a curriculum policy template for you, we’ve included the questions the Ministry of Education commonly asks and focuses on when it is checking an ECE service’s curriculum policy and implementation.

RATIONALE:
To ensure the process of planning, evaluating and delivering a localised curriculum is consistent with

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Resources for early childhood services, professional support, and business help for quality improvement
Internal Evaluation, Self-Review and Staff Meetings

Building the Real Quality of Your ECE Service

Beyond Regulatory Standards and Expectations to Building Quality.

There seems to be so much to do in trying to provide a quality service, does there not?

Is all your work worth it or could a change in focus and method achieve better results?

To help you to think critically on this consider the following:

Who defines what quality is? A

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lockdown front doors early childhood centre
Policies and Procedures

Lockdown Policy and Procedures

ECE Service Lockdown Policy Template and Procedures.

The terror incident in Christchurch in March 2019 prompted many ECE services to review their lockdown procedures, leaving us questioning whether we are well-prepared for situations where we may need to go into lockdown. 

Some services in Christchurch found themselves unprepared, part

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closed early childhood centre
Financial Management and Record Keeping

Charging Fees When Closed for a Public Holiday

Charging Fees When Closed.

We asked ECE Service providers about their practices of charging fees when closed. A selection of comments is provided below. Add your comment on this topic and reply to any of the comments posted here.

See also public information on parent reactions to services continuing to charge fees when closed on statuto

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Research Library – Today’s Featured Articles

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early childhood research journal online
2012 NZRECE Journal Articles

Airplane Grows in the Tummy of Clouds: Living Through Relations in the Early Years of Life

Using a child’s expression that illustrates his mental image of constituted relations of living things, the author conceptualizes relationality, an interrelated view of being, and its importance for early childhood education. The difference between relation and interaction, and the significance of inter-human relationship are discussed as signifi

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early childhood research journal online
2012 NZRECE Journal Articles

Being Agreeable? A Critical Examination of Communication Among IP Groups in Early Intervention

In New Zealand each child with an inclusive early intervention programme is supported by a group of adults: the child’s parent(s), teachers, early intervention specialists, and education support worker (teacher-aide). The group’s joint task is to prepare an individual plan (IP) for the child to follow in their regular early childhood education

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Child Thinking
2023 NZIRECE Journal

Revisiting Rhizomatic Connections and Relationships in Young Children’s Thinking and Meaning-Making

Original theory and research on children in early years education exploring the complex nature of children’s thinking, connections and relationships. 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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