Aligning practices

ERO’s report Priorities for Children’s Learning in Early Childhood Services (May 2013) shows that in services where the curriculum was highly reflective of their priorities for children’s learning, the processes associated with curriculum design, teaching and assessment practices, and self review were well aligned.

Although many services in the 2012 evaluation were implementing the various processes associated with curriculum, assessment and self review, the alignment between these was often lacking. Some services had the processes in place, but had not identified their priorities for learning.

Figure 1 shows the alignment between the processes and suggests some questions that services can consider when determining and responding to priorities for children’s learning.

Figure 1: Priorities for children’s learning

figure 1 is a circular graph with one circle in the centre and for circles surround it. The centre circle reads priorities for childrens learning developed from Te Whariki parents aspirations childrens strengths and interersts and other influences on the services currriculum. Anchors all practice. The outer circles read from top going right. Curriculum design-guiding practice, Teaching practice- guided by identified priorities for childrens learning- what do we want to achieve. Assessment- notice regcognise and respond the learning highlighted used in review and curriculum design. Self review -focus on identified priorities for childrens learning and outcomes for children. Surrounding the graph are five questions which read from top to right - How will we design our curriculum to promote learning and success for all children, What practices will help us achieve our priorities for childrens learning, What influences the decisions we make about priorities for childrens learning, How well are our children learning and progressing and How well are we achieving our priorities and where can we improve.