Transcription
The younger age group is often not valued because they're not learning to count or learning their ABC's, 123s as such. But they're under two age group, their learning is lifelong. It's learning that's so valuable for their whole life long. They're learning their social skills, they're learning how to be, how to interact with people, how to negotiate. They're learning how to move their bodies. So it provides the core and the base for all their future development.
The care and education of children under two is the fastest growing part of New Zealand's education sector. More than half the children enrolled in early childhood education are in the first two years of their lives. Yet, according to the report from the children's commissioner, the sector is under-regulated, under-monitored, and too often staffed by undertrained personnel who fail to provide quality care and education.
This morning, we're at Omarurangi Centre in central Auckland, a place grounded in the belief that the earliest years are critical to the development of strong, socially adjusted, lifelong learners. Okay, science has proved that it is the most important time and it's providing the foundations for for the rest of their life. Critical to that foundation is an acceptance that each young child is like any other human, with a right to be recognized as a unique individual and be treated with respect.
To foster this relationship, teachers at Omarurangi have highly attuned skills of observation, reading the clues that even very small children send out constantly to those around them. They search out social interactions with teachers and with other children. Lucky, because we have all qualified staff. All our teachers are qualified and it's a real commitment by management. And then we place such a huge role in these children's lives that we need to have that knowledge as well as the heart for children. That the heart by itself doesn't provide full quality here.
It's taking time, taking that little bit of a step back to watch a child just be available to them so that you can see that cue, see them glance at you and you can acknowledge them, or see that they're getting a little bit sleepy and their sleep cues are coming through and you can take them to bed before they get overtired. The cues are essentially, if you miss a cue, it can throw your whole day out. Spend time here, and the quality of relationships becomes apparent, as does the level of two-way trust. Really important to be in relationship with them and to trust children, into trust their judgments and their decisions as well.
We are hugely influenced by Emmi Pikler, Magda Gerber, their beliefs around freedom of movement and allowing children to be free within an environment and with their own movement and allowing to develop naturally and follow their leads, take cues from them. Our youngest infants will spend a lot of the time on the floor. So we'll always pop them down on their back, and from there, they can actually choose whether they want to roll over or sit up or stand up as per their development, rather than propping them to sit when they're not ready. It just, it provides this real connection within them to be able to climb and you just have that connection, know where there's feet are, know to be grounded, and it's much, much safer.
We find today is with, um, mum and dad. A child builds that trust and they learn to rely on the parents and know that their parents will come when they cry, or they'll be there, you know, when they're hungry and they'll provide for them in that way. We take on that role when the children are with us. So the children need to, over a period of time, learn that we're going to respond.
Yeah, I'm with the older children, just knowing that what we say is what we mean. So when we say that mum's coming back, knowing that mum does come back. And once they've got that trust, then you, you see that there, they actually explore much more freely. They'll, they'll check in with you, but then they'll go and explore again.
Key to quality relationships is time, and this is available only when teacher-child ratios are low. We're running a one to three ratio, which is fantastic, so much better than the legal requirement of one to five. One to three, you, you're able to be responsive to children and give them one-to-one quality time. So during all our care routines, try and do those one-to-one to give that full attention to that child. For the one to five, you just could not do that. You would be putting a mouthful of food in and talking to other children all at the same time, and your focus would not be with this child here. In adult life, if I'm having a conversation with someone, I want them to be focused on me. I don't want them to be continually turning to somebody else and talking and then coming back to me. It's the same with children, and they deserve to have that, that focused time. And then once they're, they're full with that attention, they're often happy then to go and do things, and you can then help another child.
Part of the one-to-one commitment involves turning care routines into quality interactions. With nappy changes, we want it to be, we want the children to be involved with that. We don't change the nappy, the teachers and the children change it together. So they're doing it with us, and we're not doing it to them. Through doing that, we find that the children actually, they will come. So often you'll, you'll say, you know, "I need to have a nappy change." Sometimes they'll go, "No." So, "Okay, that's fine. I'll come back after I've changed such and such," or after, you know, "You're obviously really busy at the moment, don't want to come," which is acceptable. "I'll come back soon." And then often when you go back, they're ready and they will come. They'll happily out. You know, our one-year-olds are walking into the bathroom. So from lying down or at all, the children stand up for a nappy change. They're fully participating in that. So they're lifting the bottoms, they're taking their trousers off, they're getting the nappy ready, they're choosing the nappy off the shelf. Um, yeah, the active participants in it. And for us, that's really, really important. It's full, full attention again on this child because it's a key moment. It's important that I'm attentive to the inquiries during that time, I'm attentive to what they're looking at, to them focusing on me and me focusing on them. What a great, how all of our key moments are like that. Some days we're busier than other days, but we still try and try to keep those moments precious.
Special moments also occur when teachers recognize and respond to individual children's developing interests. If you're not recognizing the interests, the children are going to be bored and there will be more conflicts because they're not engaged. Whereas if you're recognizing their interests, you can put out appropriate resources and they go to them straight away. You know, you know, you know that this child's working on posting, so you put some posting things out and straight away, often it's the first thing that they'll go for because that's what they're trying to figure out and suss out in their brain.
That exploration occurs best when the environment is calm and where there's space to move about. We need enough space on top of each other so that they can find a quiet time if they need a quiet time, and that freedom to flow inside and outside if they want, and have the connections to nature. I think it's really, really important in this age group.
Key to the well-being of all children here is the partnership between parents and staff. Parents spend time here at drop-off and pick-up times. It's a really great time because you can see them interacting with the children, they can see us interacting with their children, and you can swap information. So we can find out how the children's night went, if there's anything that we need to look out for, what they've been struggling with overnight. And likewise, when they pick them up, they can find out how their day's gone, what's been the highlights of their day, what's been the lowlights. Yeah, information that's going to be important to them for the evening to get the child through the evening. It's a reciprocal process.
This exchange is also fostered by the daily diaries that go home with children and are filled with information, little notes about the day. So their routine, their routine times, their their nappies, their food, the food they've eaten, what they didn't like, what they liked, what they've been up to. I guess this moment always wrote us little funny notes and gave us information about at home, and then we could pick up on those things and do similar things here, or, you know, talk to the child about what they've been doing over the weekend, which is really awesome.
Every weekday, thousands of parents deliver our youngest children over to the care of early childhood facilities. The best of these will be places driven by an understanding of what infants and toddlers need to thrive and a commitment to meet those needs. It's those first three years that provide the foundation for the later years. So if we're not providing the children in this age with the top quality, we're going to have more problems down the track. We need to be, yeah, treating these children as the most precious beings, I think, and giving them what they deserve. They deserve the very, very best.