Preparing for a month of gathering stories from Educators and Educational Leaders. New year, new notebooks. I bought a stack of these because they intrigue the story tellers, making them more comfortable with sharing.

The year in early childhood education in Australia is building up. ECAs calendar looks promising. The major conference is in Perth this year! (Mercifully a 35km commute rather than a 7200km commute like last year)

Well, it felt like a battle to me. Every day was a fight with treatments, side effects, comments in the street, the ‘my aunt tried …’ bunch, the ‘don’t talk about it’ brigade, and with the strong desire to stay in bed. It sounds like you are fighting right now.
Photo of/by Mary Lloyd (it helped me)

On the list of books that I bought for someone else for Christmas but probably won’t give them because I love it too much 👇 A children’s book about writing stories

Early childhood services are working on applying for the Australian government workforce retention grant. It’s a process but the aim is in the name, it’s fantastic to have this while the award is being sorted. One fact that has sparked discussion amongst Educators is: 👇
@jasonclaremp.bsky.social

EC update: Still a staffing crisis. Still reports of using Educational Leaders (Curriculum Leadership) to fill staffing gaps rather than doing their jobs guiding quality. But worse, now getting reports of reduction (yes ⬇️) in professional learning. Quality matters. We need to put this into law #nqf