How to complete your nomination submission
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I keep dokie. So. What I'm going to talk to you first about is from an educator's perspective as to how you can go about answering the submissions. Uh, the submission questions for your educator of the year nomination. So the first thing that asks is empowering children. So, how do you empower children in your care? Uh, sorry.
How do you empower children? You care for, to be active participants in their own learning and development? How do you plan and implement educational programs that are relevant, engaging, and intentional. Yet flexible enough to meet the individual needs of children. How do you learn from and build on the strength of children, families, and the wider community? And what sets your family daycare apart from others? These are really great questions because they actually make you think about what it is that you do that is different to everybody else.
And not one person, even if you operate where we all operate under the same framework. But even if you operate under the same policies, we'll be doing things exactly the same. So this is a fabulous opportunity. Not only for you to talk about what you do differently with other people. But for you to recognize your own strengths.
So the first thing that we want to talk about is discussing the ways that you empower children as active participants in their learning. So describe the child led activities or the projects that the children do. How do you facilitate more of that to happen within your service? How do you create resources or provide resources or plenty of time in your day to day to allow the children to explore these ideas even further? So creating an environment that encourages that exploration and choice.
How do you do that? What do you do that makes you stand out in that regard? So we're looking at reflective practices as well. So let's emphasize the importance of the reflective practice for ongoing learning and quality improvement. So how do you look at the way you're doing things? Why do you do the things that you do? If you have the reasons for that, let's talk about that.
How are you discussing with your coordinator? The things that you're doing, or do you join the big-hearted education planning, online planning sessions? Um, little shout out the next one's on the 3rd of August. Uh, our link will be coming tomorrow for you so that you can register for that. If you aren't a VIP member from the summit or part of the membership hub. Uh, when you're part of the membership hub, you get part of you get access to all of these online planning sessions, um, as a member there.
So how do you, like, do you engage in reflective practice with other educators? Do you have a little cohort that you talk with and discuss ideas with? So what are the tools and techniques that you use for self reflection and peer feedback? Do you get grumpy when people give you feedback or do you take that on and really look at how that is applicable within your service? So do you shed your regular reflection sections and use a reflective journal?
How do you do that? Talk about those sorts of things, because that's what. The submission is asking you for. So let's look at the differentiation and strengths that you have. So highlight the importance of recognizing and building on children's strengths. So provide examples of strengths-based approach in your practice. So, how do you engage with families to understand each child's unique strengths and incorporate them into learning activities? That's an example.
How do you look at. Each individual child and plan for each individual child. Do you plan for each individual child? If you come on the planning sessions with me, you definitely know how to do that. You should absolutely be able to talk about how you take each individual. Child's. Um, learning and, and their ability.
And you look for those areas of strength. And stretch. So where a child can have more practice at things and how you design programs that are specifically for each individual child in your care whilst maintaining that you touch on all of the intentional teaching requirements. As well as having plenty of child led, uh, space within your program.
So they are some very quick and simple ways that you can meet that submission requirements. So it's only asking for. Uh, about 400 words per, um, per question. So those questions again, um, wherever I can pull them up from how do you empower the children, your care to be active participants in their own learning and development?
So how do you get the children's voices? How are you engaging with the children or observing the children and providing. Uh, things that are going to meet their needs. How do you plan and implement, uh, educational programs that are relevant, engaging, and intentional, but flexible enough to meet the needs of individual children. Those of you have done that seasonal planning know exactly how you do that.
So you can talk about how you engage in additional professional development. Every 12 weeks. You're checking in with a cohort of educators. You've made friends. Uh, with some of these educators, you enjoy planning together. You've crossed a lot of, um, when you have difficulties, you've brainstormed with educators, maybe you're in the membership hub or you're part of the essential elements and you jump on the monthly Q and a sessions like last. Last week. We had a full series of talking about. Observations.
And then we deep dived into how to observe what to observe. What's important to observe. What you shouldn't be observing what not to bother observing. We then, uh, troubleshoot, uh, did some troubleshooting with another educator around a child. That's got a new sibling and he's now just randomly not sleeping and causing a lot of disruption within the day. I just spoke to her today.
And this week has been a bit of a turnaround for that little one. And that educator. So when you're part of these professional groups that. Up levels, your business. It up levels, the, the, the work that you do and your professionalism. So talk about that stuff. And in fact, next week's, um, uh, Master class, even though the submission is doing. Um, this Sunday, next week's masterclass.
We're going to be talking about that and how you can put yourself out there for families. And talking about first impressions and the importance of how you put yourself out there in the world. So all of my members will be able to go back next this time next year, and have a look at that masterclass and refresh and get some ideas on how to, uh, respond to the submission when they're all. Um, Put up for the award. So, how do you learn from, and build on the strengths of children, families, and the wider community?
So this is how you, how you include the community in your program. How do you utilize the strengths of the community that you have access to? So if you've joined in on the summits, you have access to a great range of. Outside of early childhood education professionals. In other professions to reach out and engage in conversation. Um, there's Dave Jareb there's Emily Mackey there.
Aries Lizzie Dawson. And, uh, I've just seen her face today. Sally Galloway. Um, there's other people outside. Merico Patrick, uh, AGA Davis, like all of these people, Lillian reheat, uh, from the nurtured heart approach, all of these people don't operate in early childhood education, but they work with children and families and educators, and you have access to them through the summits. Because you can message them and say, Hey. I watched you on the Bihar and education summit. I have some questions.
Where's the best place for me to ask those. So this is how you can talk about how you're engaging the wider community. And then what sets your family daycare apart from others? Like you, obviously, because you are the only one in there. And as in providing that, that level of care for the children that straight away is what sets you apart.
But then let's go a little bit further and talk about exactly what it is that you do and bring. To your service that not everybody else does. So for me, I always ran a paddock to plate program. I infused my day with a lot of singing and beautiful old school craft activities. Like I taught the children's sewing and finger knitting, and we use bees wax, um, model modeling, wax, and watercolor painting. And we went on beautiful nature walks and I was a Steiner inspired educator.
So a lot of that comes through. That's what sets me apart as an educator. And so these are the things that I would highlight within my submission. So I hope that helps educators. Now, we're going to talk about what coordinators can talk about because the questions that the coordinators have. Is how do you empower educators to ensure that they feel valued? And supported in their roles provide specific examples of strategies or initiatives that you've used in your role.
How do you support educators to critically reflect on their practice with a focus ongoing on ongoing learning and quality improvement? And how do you, uh, How do you, and how do you support educators to meaningfully engage with educators in the wider community community to improve practice? So for me, I would be responding to say that I emphasize. Um, the importance of empowering and supporting educators and the initiatives that I've done while his podcast, online planning sessions, uh, the Q and a sessions, the master classes, all of these things that I provide for my team.
So anyone in rainbow bridge family daycare gets access to everything that I do in big-hearted education. As a bonus for being an educator within our team. And then I make that available to other educators outside of my own service, because there's no way I'm going to gatekeep this information. I feel like there is a lack of professional development. Opportunities specifically for family daycare. And I'm providing that.
So that is what I will be putting in my submission, how I'm doing that for educators, why I'm doing that. Um, we also have recognition within our team every season when we have, um, gathering sessions. There's always educators recognized who have really stood out as having been exceptional in their role. Uh, we also do Christmas in July, so we've taken out educators out and done. Um, something special and then a meal with them as well. Um, I'm very much looking forward to my Mount ISER visit when we go to the Mount ISER a day. I am excited.
I've never been to a Rhoda rodeo rodeo. However you say it, I've never been to one before. I'm very much looking forward to that in August. So. That would be how I would be responding to that. Now, other coordinators obviously are doing different things to what I'm doing. Some might be really instigating a play group, or, um, there was another service up in north Queensland that created books. Uh, and all that kind of stuff.
I know inspired family daycare, do wonderful things with their planners and guides and things like that as well as professional development. So there's a whole. Host of ways that coordinators can support their team to be the best educator that they can be. Um, so educational planning. So the role of coordinators is to ensure that relevant and flexible educational programs are happening within the educators program.
So providing examples on how feedback from educators was used to adapt the program. So how have you changed things? Based on what your team have told you has been feedback. Um, this is very much how family daycare services. I can tailor their business to meet the needs of the current cohort of educators that they have that can only be filtered back to the service via the coordinators.
So how do you facilitate regular planning meetings or provide resources? Um, for differentiated instruction. So how are you explaining your policies and procedures? How do you coach educators in looking at programming and reflective practices? What does that look like? What do you do as a coordinator? When you are doing your visits with your team. This is what this question is asking you to look at. How do you build the relationships? Have you done team building exercises or have you done any family engagement?
How have you included families from a coordinator perspective? How, how are you facilitating families to be involved? I know sometimes it's really challenging to get families to engage in things because they're just so busy in all of their lives. That once I come and pick their children up from kindie. But that's it.
They just want to go home and do their thing. So what have you done that has been a standout and had wonderful. Uh, been receptive how the family's been receptive to the things that you've done. So it's wanting you to talk about that. How do you maintain those open communication challenge, channels and encourage collaboration?
So there are some good points that you can potentially, uh, look at, uh, when it comes to being a coordinator and responding to the submission. Uh, for coordinator of the year. Um, and then, then the last one that I want to touch on is services. So the questions that services need to be asking is what has been the vision of your service over the last 12 months?
And what values do you prioritize in your organization? How is this reflected in all aspects of your service operations? What steps do you take to continuously improve the quality of your family daycare service, and how might you incorporate feedback from children? Uh, families and educators to inform your practices and initiatives.
How do you service? Sorry. How does your service foster supportive relationships with service staff, educators and families, and meaningfully engage with the wider community? So there are some pretty big questions there. And I think services can really take this opportunity to reflect on what they do within their service and what makes their service set apart from every, every other service. Now, this is what all cohorts, um, educators, coordinators, and services made to do in family daycare. A, because we aren't big chains.
We don't have marketing professionals marketing us for us. We don't have. Bucket loads of dollars to pour into social media, um, ad campaigns and things like that. That's not really a reality for family daycare. We are loan small businesses. Uh, sometimes we might have the backing of a council, but even then to get things through that, you've got to meet all the legal requirements and the red tape and the yada yada, yada. It can be really challenging.
So it's, sometimes it feels like we are potentially a bit hamstrung within a family daycare and the realms of the requirements that we have to meet in terms of legalities and things like that. When you're operating through a council or a board or something like that. So if you're a private enterprise, it could be a little bit different and you may be. Like quite innovative in how you're doing that for your team. So it would be really a great opportunity to highlight that here for you. So, how do you articulate your services, vision, and core values explaining how they guide, uh, the daily operations.
So share a significant program, a project or initiative driven by your vision. So I touched on a service. I think it was MCI. I have family daycare. Fraser coast. Somewhere up that way, there was a service that created a book. Uh, and they did, I think they did that in conjunction with the high school. Like it was this incredible project that they did, and it was really well worth having a look at, um, and like shouting that out from the rooftops, because that is a hundred percent. Thinking outside of the box.
Um, there was also another service that recently came out that they're working in conjunction with the school in Victoria and have provided a family daycare educational space. So it would be a venue. Within a school so that teachers can bring their children to family daycare work, pick them up at the end of the day and go home.
So that service I think, was open from eight till five 15. Uh, Monday to Friday, what a fantastic service for families. Uh, and teachers, when that's meeting in need. That is huge because there's such shortages of childcare available. Imagine being able to just bring your child to school with you in the morning and work and complete your work, and then pick your child up from school and go home. Like that is a fabulous initiative.
And I know they're looking at that in Tasmania as well, and potentially other states as well. So we would be talking about that. Um, you would be encouraging. Um, defining clear values that reflect in all aspects of your service delivery. So how do you meet those values and how do you share those with your team? So we would be looking at the continuous improvement and feedback as well.
So describe changes made based on feedback from children, families, and educators. So what means do or have you set up that families and educators and children can give feedback? How do they do that? What's available to them. Are there opportunities given to them? Do you meet them? Do your coordinators meet with your families?
Do you send them emails? Do you ring them every pardon me every now and then, and check in and how are you traveling? How's everything going? Maybe you're a new family. And within the first month there's a personalized text message that gets sent to families to say, Hey, it's Victoria from rainbow bridge.
You recently started your child in care with blah, blah, blah, educator. We're just checking how everything's going. How do you, what special things do you do to reach out to your families and create that connection? Um, then we're looking at community engagement too. So highlighting the role that you play within the various communities that you belong in. Uh, and how that enhances service quality.
So can you share a story about a successful community partnership that you've created? I know all areas, family daycare is very involved with paint, the town red, which is all about. Uh, early literacy and they do special things around towns. Uh, and, and certain service, um, Uh, certain locations where they have these wonderful experiences happening all around early literacy, in conjunction and collaboration with paint, the town red.
So how do you foster those connections with local organizations and involve the community in your service? I know there's some services that really have a connection with the local old folks home, and they do excursions. There there's other services that are very involved in local community gardens. They may host playgroups.
They may be part of Bush kinders and things like that. So how are you creating those connections between your local communities and how are you supporting your educators to do that? So I hope that gives you some ideas as to how you can best. Uh, look at filling in that submission. I would really encourage as many of you as possible instead of going, ah, I can't talk about myself, like, make it more about your business and what you as an individual are doing within your business to get the word out there, because remember. The more people we get doing these, um, awards and things like that.
Spreads positive benefits within the, uh, community that you belong in. Because you'll be sharing on your social media. And people who didn't know you were doing family daycare. May reach out and say, actually, what is family daycare? I that's great. You're up for an award, you know, local, small radio stations or newspapers and whatnot.
We'll often do articles on you and share that good news with our local communities. And this is really fabulous. Uh, family daycare Australia does a really great job in getting this information out to the broader public as well. So the more people we get engaging in things like these awards, the better it is for our profession, because we get to really, uh, honor and acknowledge each other.
And the bigger this gets. The more government gets to see us and the greater that is for family daycare in Australia in general. So if you have any questions, shoot me a message. Send me an email. Uh, please share this with anybody that you think might be benefiting from this information. And if you know your FTC bestie was nominated. Please tell her to feel her submission in.
She really needs to all him. And there's a few. Few male family daycare, educators. Hello to you out there. Um, please, if you're a coordinator, please do your submission and get the scene. Uh, and if you're a service as well, please make sure you jump on and fill in your submission. It's not scary.
And if you get to the top four in either category, uh, do you get a great trip somewhere? And a great party is hard. Um, trust me. I'm at Sanford Bolin. And last year and she bullied the town red and it was so much fun too. Uh, be involved with last year celebrations over in Adelaide. So, um, they do a wonderful job on making you feel very, very special and you get beautiful awards and it's just a really fun networking night.
So I highly recommend that you get your pen to paper or your fingers to keyboard. And you get something happening to really talk about how wonderful you are as a family daycare educator. Well, I will see you all next week. Much. Love. Bye.
