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| Child care person in the spotlight | |||||
| Sara Howe - Director of Care for Kindies, Belmore NSW | |||||
 Child care professionals share a commitment to improving society by creating dynamic and nurturing care environments for Australia's youngest learners. This month we feature an interview with Sara HoweWhat is your name? My name is Sara Howe, however my little ones often call me Rara. I am 28 years old, Which service do you work in? How many staff and children are in the service? I am the Director of Care for Kindies, Belmore (NSW). We cater to children aged 18 months to five years and are licensed for 29 per day. We have sixty children throughout the week. We have five staff including myself. I work on and off the floor throughout the day, assisting my staff and also managing the overall running of the service. What is your professional background and career experience? This is my 11th year working with children of all ages and abilities. I have worked in the UK as a teaching assistant and learning mentor in primary schools, as well as in nurseries and summer camp programs. I also worked in the USA as a counsellor at a wonderful summer camp in Pennsylvania. Here in Australia I have worked in long day care services as well as as a volunteer for youth programs such as SHINE for kids and Raise mentors. What attracted you to a career in child care? I just love working with children. Each and everyday they make me laugh and smile. I love being part of their lives and helping them to enjoy being a kid. After all I still think I am a big kid too. What does a 'normal' day look like for you? Well, there is no such thing as normal day in my child care experience and we try to make each and every day as new and exciting as the first day a child starts with us. Each morning families are greeted at the door by a familiar staff member this gives families and educators time to communicate about children's interests or things that may be happening within their lives. I am always available to meet with families throughout the day. When children come into kindy they follow a trail of fairy dust into their classroom, there they will find a variety of activities, creative art experiences and educators to play with. We all try to spend time building, creating and spending quality time with each child as they begin their day. We have spontaneous play until it's morning tea, our children have wholemeal toast and fruit and vegetables sticks to choose from. The classes are then divided for group time experiences. We have two classes, which are divided by age. Our Caterpillars (18 months-3.5 years) have a circle time that welcomes their friends in languages from around the world, they read a story of the week and explore numbers, shapes and sounds through games and songs. They then explore music and movement through games and then set off to join in a variety of spontaneous play in both the indoor and outdoor environments. Our Butterflies (3.5-five years) also begin with welcome songs from around the world and then begin their preschool readiness program which consists of incorporating concepts, letters, shapes and numbers into their interest topics. They also join in jolly phonics games and begin their preschool writing activities. We design our writing tasks around the children's interests. This week the children are learning about dinosaurs so they were able to explore the letters of the word dinosaur, draw their own dinosaur, cut it out, name it and write a story about their dinosaurs with their educators. I float between the two rooms offering assistance to the educators and the children. The children then have spontaneous play activities in the indoor and outdoor environment. I am out there with them rolling on the ground, hunting for bears and going on searches for fairies. Our children rest during the day, which gives me time to help staff with programming and documentation, as well as office duties. The afternoon is a busy time full of spontaneous play and intentional teaching activities. I love being able to take part in my children's day by being a part of their play and adventures. While my office does tend to pile up with paper to the roof, I really enjoy working on and off the floor. What makes your service unique? This will be Care for Kindies 20th year of caring for hundreds of children. We have five services throughout Sydney and are unique in that we are 100 per cent family owned and operated. We have strong family values and this is embedded into our philosophy. We have lots of special events throughout the year and have concerts to celebrate Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Multi Cultural Day and our Christmas extravaganza. We also have a rewards system that families can accrue with their fees and are rewarded with a free day to use as they wish. We offer piano lessons each week for no extra cost to families. We also have many excursions throughout the year that often include, reptile shows, The Braveheart Show, Healthy Harold, petting zoos and many other wonderful shows. Technology is used to support our children's interests, with the use of IPads and touch screen computers. We support and promote the on going learning of our educators and provide workshops and encourage staff to attend courses externally. What are some of the advantages of working in the early childhood education and care sector? The advantage of working within this sector is that it is an ever-growing industry. The people working within the industry are all likeminded, kind and caring people who are passionate about working with children. It is a fun industry to be in and there are so many development opportunities to continually learn and to progress in a large number of job roles. What are some of the biggest challenges facing the early childhood education and care sector? There are a large number of challenges that we face. The new national curriculum is a great way of ensuring that all children are receiving quality programs that reflect their interests, strengths and lives. However, it can be difficult for services to establish a curriculum that meets the need of the service while still incorporating the Early Years Learning Framework. The new assessment system does place a lot of pressure on educators to meet and exceed the ratings. The new laws surrounding ratios and qualifications is fantastic for the industry in raising qualifications and challenging educators however meeting these staff targets can be difficult and expensive for organisations. The lack of quality early childhood teachers will make it hard for centres to find ECTs and this is an issue that we will face next year when the new ECT regulations come in. How has your service changed to deal with these challenges? To meet the NQF our educators regularly attend workshops and training courses to gain more understanding of the expectations and to network with other professionals. We then collaborated to create our own program that meets the needs of our service and community. We use an online system which really helps to guide our program and documentation. This is also great as families can access it independently. Luckily our service already meets the ratios and all our staff already have their diplomas. I am currently in my second year of university studying a Bachelor of Education at Macquarie University. However we will need to begin the process of having an ECT present at our centre for six hours a day as of next year. How does the industry need to change to adapt to these challenges? I believe there needs to be more incentives for educators to continue study. The wages in early childhood education and care do not reflect the hard work that educators do. The child care steps do not increase enough to promote continual education. I believe that the government needs to provide free education to raise the qualifications within the industry, specially for people wanting to study Early Childhood at University, sadly these people receive huge HECS debts and then struggle to pay them off working in the industry as a new ECT. What advice would you offer someone thinking about a career or looking for a promotion in early childhood education and care? I would encourage anyone looking for a career in child care to give it a try. Volunteer at a local service and see if it's for you. Unfortunately some people enter the industry thinking all we do is play. While play is a huge part of our job, there is so much work that needs to get done each day. It can be a very exhausting job and at times quite stressful. I truly believe that you must not only love children but also be passionate about early childhood education to work in this industry. I believe that early childhood educators are among the hardest working people in the world. While the ever-changing regulations, curriculums and laws place a great deal of pressure and stress onto educators. These educators across the field are constantly aiming to provide young children with safe and secure environments that enable children to learn, grow and develop into strong and independent primary school children. As they say "it takes a village to raise a child" and a close bond between an educator and child creates the foundation for children to become strong, happy successful learners in the future. |
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