National school chaplaincy and student welfare program guidelines

The National School Chaplaincy Program is a voluntary program that assists school communities to support the spiritual, social, and emotional wellbeing of their students. This can include support and guidance about ethics, values, relationships and spirituality; the provision of pastoral care; and enhancing engagement with the broader community. Commencing in January 2012, the Program builds upon the success of the National School Chaplaincy Program and supports school communities to establish school chaplaincy and student welfare services or to enhance existing services. The major changes to the Program include: a new title for the Program choice of support worker minimum qualification requirements for funded school chaplains/student welfare workers improved complaints handling mechanisms an increase in the maximum grant for schools in remote locations and minimum standards for funding recipients

Developing an early childhood teacher workforce development strategy for rural and remote communities

The North West Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Workforce Development Strategy offers students in the Pilbara and Kimberley the opportunity to enrol in a Western Australian University’s fully accredited Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary) part time and externally – so they can continue to live and work in their communities. The Western Australian Department of Education and Training (WA DET) and the Commonwealth Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) have funded the project, enabling the University to provide mentoring support and provision for Recognition of Prior Learning, on a case-by-case basis, depending on their individual experience and levels of skill. On completion of the course students will be fully qualified to teach from Kindergarten to Year 7. Added to this they will be able to bring their own knowledge of their unique communities, languages and cultures to their teaching

Final Report: Preparing Academics to Teach in Higher Education

This work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- ShareAlike 2.5 Australia Licence. Under this Licence you are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to make derivative works. Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Constructing quality childcare: Perspectives of quality and their connection to Belonging, Being and Becoming

Discourse on quality, within the context of childcare, has moved beyond the level of licensing to consider children’s right to belong. Within Western Australia (WA), there has been a paradigm shift as international research literature on quality childcare has advocated the long- term benefits for individuals and the community when children experience high quality early education and care. This paradigm shift has resulted in new legislation in WA that articulates the components of quality across childcare, as well as the criteria on which centres are assessed. This paper reports the findings of an investigation into the constructs of quality from two stakeholder groups; parents and educators. Findings from this study indicated that, when it comes to quality, what matters most to both parents and educators are the types of interactions children have with others and their environment; the ways in which children’s needs are met; and children’s experiences for development and learning. These findings align with the themes of the nationally mandated early years’ document – the Early Years Learning Framework (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR], 2009) Belonging, Being and Becoming

Listening to Music in the First, but not the Last 1.5 km of a 5-km Running Trial Alters Pacing Strategy and Improves Performance

We examined the effects of listening to music on attentional focus, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), pacing strategy and performance during a simulated 5-km running race. 15 participants performed 2 controlled trials to establish their best baseline time, followed by 2 counterbalanced experimental trials during which they listened to music during the first (M-start) or the last (M-finish) 1.5 km. The mean running velocity during the first 1.5 km was significantly higher in M-start than in the fastest control condition (p < 0.05), but there was no difference in velocity between conditions during the last 1.5 km (p > 0.05). The faster first 1.5 m in M-start was accompanied by a reduction in associative thoughts compared with the fastest control condition. There were no significant differences in RPE between conditions (p > 0.05). These results suggest that listening to music at the beginning of a trial may draw the attentional focus away from internal sensations of fatigue to thoughts about the external environment. However, along with the reduction in associative thoughts and the increase in running velocity while listening to music, the RPE increased linearly and similarly under all conditions, suggesting that the change in velocity throughout the race may be to maintain the same rate of RPE increase.Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace RelationsAustralian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relation

Contemporary perspectives of the child in action: An investigation into children’s connectedness with, and contribution to, the world around them

Childcare within Australia has undergone significant reform as a result of the implementation of the nationally mandated Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] (Department for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR]. 2009. Belonging, Being and Becoming. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). The EYLF articulates contemporary perspectives of the child through its principles, practices and learning outcomes. Educators are required to promote these principles, practices and learning outcomes with children aged from birth to 5 years. This paper reports the findings from a research project that sought to investigate how educators applied their understanding of learning outcome two of the EYLF (children are connected with and contribute to their world). The focus of this research was educators working with children aged two to three years within childcare centres operating on school sites, in metropolitan Western Australian. The research design was qualitative and situated within the interpretivist paradigm. Observations were used as the method for gathering data and these were analysed through a process of coding. This paper presents the observational findings of educators’ practices within learning outcome two. Composite vignettes from the voice of the child are included to present the observational findings. In centralising the voice of the child, contemporary perspectives are made explicit

Access to early childhood education in Australia: insights from a qualitative study

Based on interviews with 94 parents in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia, this report investigates parents\u27 knowledge of and attitudes towards early childhood education. Executive summary This report documents the background, methodology and findings from the Access to Early Childhood Education (AECE): Qualitative Study, undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and commissioned by the then Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR; now the Department of Education) on behalf of the Early Childhood Data Subgroup (ECDSG). This research was commissioned within the context of the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education (NP ECE), which jointly committed the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments to achieving universal access to preschool by 2013. The AECE Qualitative Study was undertaken in order to develop a qualitative evidence base about how the concept of “access” to early childhood education (ECE) is defined and understood, and to explore what reasons and barriers exist in relation to access to ECE. A qualitative framework was chosen for this study to enable more in-depth study of any barriers to ECE, and/or factors that lead to parents making particular decisions about their children’s use of ECE. &nbsp

Bridging the gap: who takes a gap year and why?

This report looks at the characteristics of those taking a gap year, the activities undertaken in the gap years and subsequent study and employment outcomes. The report also investigates whether there is any evidence that young people were taking a gap year in order to qualify for Youth Allowance payments.This report was prepared for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to throw light on the growing trend of taking a \u27gap year\u27 between school completion and commencing university study.&nbsp

The Power of Data in Aboriginal Hands

TThis Topical Issue presents the the text prepared by Peter Yu as the opening pleniary paper at the conference Social Science Perspectives on the 2008 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, held at The Australian National University (ANU) on 11–12 April 2011. The conference was convened by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research and generously supported by ANU, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, and The Economic Society of Australia. At the time of writing, Peter Yu was Chief Executive Officer, Nyamba Buru Yawuru Ltd, Broome and a member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council of the Australian Bureau of Statistics