Narrator

Welcome to planning and assessing learning remotely. Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this presentation is being viewed and pay respect to the Elders past, present, and emerging.

These are the teaching standards which will be addressed during this professional learning session.

[Slide content:

• 2.3.2 Design and implement learning and teaching programs using knowledge of curriculum, assessment and reporting requirements.
• 3.7.2 Plan for appropriate and contextually relevant opportunities for parents/carers to be involved in their children’s learning and summative assessment strategies to assess student learning.
• 4.2.2 Establish and maintain orderly and workable routines to create an environment where student time is spent on learning tasks.
• 5.1.2 Develop, select and use informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative assessment strategies to assess student learning.]

Participating in this session will support early childhood educators to plan for and assess children's learning remotely by knowing and understanding the planning cycle and the implications for remote delivery. Exploring and analysing similarities and differences between face to face and online teaching and reflecting on what intentional teaching and assessment of learning may look like in this remote space.

This is one piece of online learning available, and it is important to have participated in the workshop titled ‘Making the most of the early childhood learning from home resource’. Just to recap on that workshop, the department site ‘Learning from home’ unpacks the way schools will maintain teaching and learning in the event of a prolonged school closure for child absence, this site provides links to support teachers in the use of technology, advice to parents and carers and access to teaching and learning materials for teachers and for parents.

Now let's dive into planning and assessing learning remotely. It is important to plan for teaching wherever possible to ensure children's learning is not compromised. This will look different to face to face teaching and will include ideas for families to support learning in the home environment.

Our audience during this session, may be preschool or early intervention teachers and the planning cycle would have similarities across both settings. Preschool educators would be familiar with the requirements of the education and care services national regulation which relate to program and practice in their setting. Consider how you might meet these requirements in a remote learning environment.

The education and care services national law refer to the program being delivered in a manner that accords with the approved learning framework. The Early Years Learning Framework. This is where you may consider how the principles and practices of the Early Years Learning Framework can help unpack what planning and assessing learning remotely might look like for you.

The principles reflect ideas such as equity, diversity, partnerships, relationships, and reflection. What you understand and believe about the principles of the Early Years Learning Framework may impact your professional practice and how you teach remotely.

Secure, respectful and reciprocal relationships, this is about being available to children and families in any capacity possible. Planning for challenging times together and being responsive to the varying needs of children and their families, it's about helping children and their families feel a sense of connectedness and belonging while learning remotely.

Partnerships we know that the best outcomes for children occur when we work in partnerships with families. Families should be encouraged to participate in their child's learning and contribute to the program now more than ever, we need them to know that we recognise them as their child's first and lifelong teachers.

High expectations in equity, how can you demonstrate your commitment to equity and inclusion and find equitable ways for children to achieve learning outcomes regardless of the barriers which remote learning may pose?

Let's think about respect for diversity and how you can communicate in effective and respectful ways with families from diverse cultural backgrounds, respecting and valuing different ways of knowing, seeing, and living. How can you work with families in a remote environment honouring their cultures, language, tradition, child rearing practices and lifestyle choices? Some families will engage with online learning more than others. How will you respect this without judgment?

Ongoing learning and reflective practice, as educators, we strive to continually improve professional knowledge and teaching practice. Remote learning will have you thinking deeply about your knowledge of families and your community and engage in ongoing critical reflection and cycles of review on what you were doing and how your practice can be adapted to support outcomes for children's learning remotely.

We've touched on the principles of the Early Years Learning Framework. Now, let's unpack the pedagogical practice with which you engage in daily.

Holistic learning, in a remote learning environment, holistic learning is the same as face to face teaching. This is about recognising that learning is connected between children, families and communities and valuing and building upon the prior knowledge you have of each child in partnerships with families.

Being responsive to children's strengths, abilities and interests when implementing plans is important. Working remotely this will require strong partnerships in ongoing communication with families.

Valuing play is the means by which children discover, create, imagine, test out ideas and expand their thinking is another key here. Talking families about the power of play and the importance of agency and child-initiated play experiences is really going to be valuable.

Intentional teaching is about connecting remotely with children and their families for a feedback session of some sort. This will help you to respond to children in a deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful manner.

How we’re going to control learning environments? How can we help families to think about learning holistically in all areas of their home?

What about cultural competence and thinking about how to be responsive to the needs and interests of children and their families? Understanding respecting differences and varying cultural ways of knowing and being. Remote learning may provide the perfect opportunity to build your knowledge of different cultural practice, values and beliefs as you attempt to connect individually with families and children.

Continuity of learning and transitions. Think about how you can build on children's prior experiences and support learning during this time of rapid change and transitions in everybody's life.

And finally, assessment for learning. Gathering, and analysing information about children and their learning in order to inform planning and assessment. This will certainly require feedback from families.

You know that your teacher involves all of this pedagogical practices. The trick is now implementing them remotely.

I thought this quote sums up our responsibility as teachers both face to face and in this remote learning space beautifully.

“Our responsibility as early childhood educators working with and for Australia's children is to understand our own principles and practices, understand the principles and practices of the framework, and work hard to make sure our work practices and principles are consistent with the framework.”

This is where some of the overarching questions to guide reflection from the Early Years Learning Framework might be useful.

What are your understandings of each child? What do you know and how will you be building on this remotely?

What are you challenged by? Perhaps technology changes in the way that you deliver a program and connect with children. Fear of the unknown. Balancing face to face and remote learning.

Who is advantage or disadvantage in this changing landscape? What can you do to try and connect with all children and their families to minimise disadvantage? We know they were going to be limits and this will look different for all schools.

For many children learning from locations other than preschool can create a range of challenges. It is important to consider these challenges, particularly for children who are learning English as an additional language or dialect, and for children with a disability or additional learning needs. Also consider how you might incorporate average perspectives in learning plans. How will you design your learning programs with the principles in mind?

Visuals support children and their families in many ways, including helping them to link keywords or concepts with an image and providing additional support for understanding, instruction or learning requirements. Visual timetables are useful for supporting children to have a sense of routine during the day or some ownership of the experiences they would like to engage in.

Take some time to think about what assessment and planning looks like for you at the moment. Remote learning will require you to adapt your current practice to ensure continuity of learning for children. You will still need to draw on the Early Years Learning Framework to guide daily decision-making. Your decisions will be made in collaboration with families and children. Learning at home can happen indoors and outdoors than it is important to talk to parents about how learning can happen anywhere and at any time.

You'll find yourself planning more group experiences which you can share with families, and you will need to work out a way to see can provide individualised feedback for children. It will be important to maintain some records of this feedback as analysis of learning. Communicating with children and families regularly using methods best suited to your school and children’s circumstances is important. Draft a schedule to connect with families regularly and consider putting this in a documentation procedure.

Possible methods include telephone call, SMS and email, a preschool closed Facebook page or third-party applications such as Kinderloop or Seesaw, if that is something you're currently using. A school Twitter account or regularly scheduled live lessons can be delivered using platforms such as Microsoft Teams or Adobe Connect. Each school will have different methods for delivering and receiving learning plans. This should be determined by your school, but we recommend that you draw on the strength of any online platform that you currently use with your families.

Ensure that parents and caregivers are advised of which communication method you will use and try to keep communication short and meaningful and specific to the needs of families and their children.

Communicating regularly with families to discuss learning and development goals will ensure families have input into and sharing decisions about the learning and wellbeing of their children. Strategies to help maintain communication during a child's absence or closure include sharing current information about each child's learning and development with the family, using recent observations and learning records.

Carefully considering the learning goals for each child in partnerships with their families. Suggesting learning experiences that could support continuity of learning in the home environment and keeping in regular contact with the family about the child's learning and wellbeing during their time away from preschool.

Families may consider establishing a flexible routine for remote learning and should be encouraged to take an active role in play experiences with children.

Now let's listen to part of a podcast by Jan and Bree who are the preschool teachers at School of the Air. They are the experts in teaching remotely.

Narrator 2

OK, I'm just chatting with Bree Staker, she is the School of the Air (SOTA) teacher out in Broken Hill and an expert on teaching children at home. We're just going to talk to – give some advice to preschool teachers across the state. OK, so Bree how do SOTA teachers stay connected to their children without seeing them face to face?

Bree

We connect with our children and our families in a number of ways. The first thing, video recordings using Screencast-O-Matic. This is where we provide feedback to the children on what they've done for the week, phone call and by going live on our closed SOTA preschool page, Facebook page. By using the live Facebook option, we are able to read to our children and create small group learning opportunities where the children can ask and answer questions, just like if they were face to face.

Narrator 2

OK, I'm here with Jan Schorn. She's also a SOTA teacher at Broken Hill. So how do you build and maintain relationships with children and families, Jan?

Jan

Well as Bree said, we use Facebook, Screencast-O-Matic and recordings to the kids, Edmodo and a lot of platforms like that and then maybe with the families we are continually emailing each other if they've got questions, if we want to send them something and occasional phone calls as well.

Narrator 2

Fantastic, thanks Jan. OK, I'm back with Bree we really love to hear about some of the strengths that the model of School of the Air offers. Can you elaborate?

Bree

So first of all, one of the biggest strengths is that each of the children get one on one learning, in some cases they’ve got siblings, it may be a little more, but the other strength is that the families, we found we get a lot of family engagement in the children's learning and the most important part is that their children get to spend more quality time with their families and be more involved in activities around the house, such as playing board games, helping out with the chores to get some life skills and plenty of playing, lots of games with their families.

Narrator 1

So here are some great ideas there about how to maintain relationships with children and their families in remote locations, and I particularly love the strengths of this model, which Bree spoke about how children get lots of family engagement in their learning. We spoke about this when we unpacked the principles of the Early Years Learning Framework. She mentioned the fact that children spend more quality time with their families, playing things like board games or helping out with chores and developing life skills with their families. You can see the connection with the practices of the Early Years Learning Framework, particularly holistic learning, responsive teaching with families, and learning through play in their home environment.

Our next session will focus on the assessment and planning cycle.

As we have acknowledged, the planning cycle would be similar regardless of what setting you were in. Documentation can and should occur at all stages of the cycle. How this happens remotely rely on how you work in partnerships with families.

[Slide content: A circle diagram communicating the assessment and planning cycle.

1. Planning
2. Implementing
3. Reflecting/evaluating
4. Observing/collecting information
5. Analysing learning.

This then reconnects to number 1 in the circle, Planning.]

Let's look at the assessment and planning cycle, starting with planning, and consider some of the things that you are currently doing, which may be the same for planning for remote learning. In making curriculum decisions, educators are guided by the principles, practices, and learning outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework. They are guided by knowledge about what children know and can do and what interests they bring to their learning. And engage in consultation with families about the aspirations and the priorities that they have for their children and incorporate these into planning.

I'm sure many of you would be thinking about how you would plan for remote learning. No doubt this will be a challenging time for all.

Here are some of the things that you might consider. In order to support continuity of learning, think about how the information you already have on children can be used to develop learning plans which you can share with families. Reflect on what you are currently doing for whole group planning and for small group planning and consider writing that into a learning plan to share with families. Draw on a wide range of digital resources which are currently available for use by educators and families.

There are many free and useful digital resources available for use by educators and families. Some of these include ‘Raising children network: Pre-schoolers, play and learning’. This provides simple, easy play-based activities which can be done in the home and include some short videos.

‘Literacy and numeracy’, which is an Australian government, sought offering some fantastic resources to support literacy and numeracy development.

‘Starting blocks’ is a web site specifically for families to support their understanding of early childhood education and development.

‘Foundations for success’ offers resources to help you deliver a quality Early Learning Program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Foundations for success provides additional guidance to the Early Years Learning Framework and is packed with information, inspiration and good practical advice.

‘Let's read’ is a national evidence based early literacy initiative that promotes reading with children from birth to five years.

And finally, ‘Cool Australia’ provides learning activities and resources for educators and children from preschool through the to 12 aligned to the curriculum. You will find a list of these in the early learning virtual staff room, which is in a channel in the Early Learning in schools team. I'll provide additional information on that later.

If you were writing lesson plans to share with families, you will also need to consider helpful advice which you may provide them with to support continuity of learning remotely. Talk to them about establishing a flexible timetable or schedule for engaging in experiences at home and ensure you are responsive to the unique needs of families. You know your families well and you will be able to differentiate advice based on your knowledge. Establishing routines as soon as remote learning is implemented can help provide direction and predictability for all. It is important to highlight the importance of play for learning and talk to parents about how children learn through play.

Let's hear from the SOTA school teachers as they unpack how they communicate with parents about setting up provocations and recognising that learning for young children is everywhere.

Narrator 2

What are the most important aspects you teach to families when they begin working with School of the Air and their learning journey?

Jan

The biggest thing we try to tell ours is that their whole environment is the preschool. It may be all on the back veranda, the cubby houses the play area, the sandpit, well, our kids use the creek as the sandpit. You may do your songs and rhymes and things while you're in the car traveling or outside playing, but mainly don't think you have to have a classroom. Use your whole environment and the more kids are outside the better. And so, what activities you can do outside the better.

We also have said that not to panic because a lot of the activities like I said songs and rhymes can be done in the car or when you’re just out having a cup of tea. And a lot of the activities you could be doing, you’re hanging clothes on the line, so your 4-year-old is playing with the peg basket, there you can do colours, fine motor so a lot of the activities that you can do even pegging the clothes on the line with you is fine motor. Cooking, all the activities you do at home, making beds lots of them all have already, you could actually do the activities in the booklet with.

We do have a booklet that I think may be provided to the people called ‘Everyday learning’ and it just shows you how you can put it into your own environment so it doesn't always have to be a separate activity and if you've got lots of kids in the classroom, sometimes you could do the same activity at all different levels and they can get something out of it.

Yeah, and mainly that you have to remember that its child led, so we don't want to see worksheets or go and buy booklets and have them just tracing booklets.

Narrator 2

Thank you and it's really interesting, isn't it? Because in a classroom environment we're always trying to make it home-like so, now these children are going to be home.

Jan

And another thing we do always tell our parents is that remember your attitude. We know as teachers that if we walk in the classroom and go, [Tone unenthusiastic] “Let's do some play dough”, with that attitude, the kids aren't going to want to do it, so we do tell her parents that some of them don't like getting messy and getting the paints out and whatever, put it outside on the grass so you can hose it.

Narrator 2

Yeah, that's a great point. Thanks Jan. What do you teach the families about setting up their environment?

Jan

We firstly, we do actually have a booklet that goes out, and it's the first week of school in the year and they it teaches them how to set the environment up. But the main thing is we get them to make provocations so we just say. It means provoke it. All of this is an area to provoke learning so, but we also stress that preschool is provocations set up everywhere.

But if you don't have the room, because you may not have a good yard that you can leave stuff out, or you might have a dog that will chew it, or you might not have a big house. We turn the provocations into tubs instead of tables, so you'll have a construction tub, a reading tub, a maths tub or literacy tub, science tub, art tub, and then what we do is like we will do a timetable, suggested timetable and they'll say it'll be like get your maths provocation out so they'll get their maths tub out, and that's what they're doing in their learning space, and they may decide that learning space is in a room or is on the lawn, or is on the mat.

But that's how we try to get it so they set their environment up so that they don't go, ‘I’ve got to quickly find the maths things’, they set it up so their tubs are already done, and then it's all there.

Narrator 2

So, as you were saying Jan, there's different times in the day where they might get their numeracy kit out or literacy. How? What do you teach families about a timetable for the day?

Jan

But we do have a suggested timetable, but it is actually up to the individual family. We try and do at least an hour, hour and a half a day. As I said, that could be all 30 minutes or it may not be, and that's including hanging the washing out so that activity with the pegs is that half an hour of colour coding, grouping, fine motor.

So, we do say first Term we’re a bit lenient because they're just getting used to it, an hour and a half and then after first Term it leads to, as again depending on the child and the day, 2 to 3 hours. So yeah, each day we also do suggests that if they are like doing say 3 activities in the morning after one activity to do a few brain breaks.

So, you can do yoga, rhymes, actually some of ours just say go outside and jump on the trampoline and give – and they use a timer a lot so you know they give them a timer and go when that goes off you can come back in – they’re on the trampoline, run around the house block, just little brain breaks.

If you do Google or Pinterest brain breaks for preschool you'll come up with lots of ideas which we do a lot, do suggest to our parents a lot, to use Google and Pinterest if they want ideas for provocations and little ideas, but brain breaks we do heaps of, and also don't – if you've got the space for the day you can leave that up so if you’re, playing with your farm table or farm provocation and you’re finished with it, if you've got the space, leave it there for the day because they can come back and forth and play with them. You know, don't pack it up unless you have to, because if you have a look at children in a preschool, they go back and forth to the activities 100 times.

Narrator 1

Some fantastic advice that Jan has offered there. Consider some of the ideas and how you may draw on these ideas to communicate learning with families. Think about creating resource packs for children much like the tubs Jan was talking about to facilitate the implementation of learning plans. I know that some of you have already created these and sent them home with families.

They spoke about a booklet called everyday learning in this podcast, which the teachers from SOTA school have generously provided as a resource to share in the Early Learning virtual staffroom mentioned earlier.

Here is an example of a simple learning plan which can be developed and shared with parents, via your agreed method of communication. You will notice that there is a brief explanation about the experience followed by the materials needed, and the ideas to implement the plan in the ‘What to do’ section. Included in this plan are ideas for parents to consider during the play experience, and ideas to extend learning. The last two sections of this sample learning plan help parents think about the learning happening and are very useful for you as educators for the purpose of seeking feedback from families. This is one example, and I've recently seen many educators who have been generously sharing their plans in the virtual classroom.

Let's look a little deeper at learning plans.

Write learning plans in a matter which prompts families to consider structured feedback. Just like in the example we just saw where some questions to prompt feedback were, did your child enjoy this experience? Did they have any other ideas about what may be reused in your home? How did your child manage with the use of scissors and sticky tape, and were they able to manage independently?

These questions will vary based on the experience provided. The feedback from families will inform the reflection and evaluation component of the planning cycle. You should be able to use the information which parents share with you about what their child is doing and how they participate in learning experiences to update your records about the child.

Including prompts for families to think about the learning, like in the example provided, will help inform the observing and collecting information component of the planning cycle. For example, the prompts on the slide can help you gather information about what children know about reducing, reusing, and recycling materials, and can help you and families explore with children about what being environmentally responsible means. These are just simple ideas to extend learning which were provided in the sample learning plan which we just saw.

Each of you will have different methods for delivering learning plans and seeking feedback. Ensure that parents and caregivers are advised of which communication method you will use and try to provide a variety of options. Try to keep communication short and meaningful and specific to the needs of families and their children. You may not receive feedback from more families but don't be disheartened by this. Families will be juggling different complexities during this period of remote learning.

Let's listen to Jan and Bree offer some practical advice in relation to gathering information feedback, assessing learning and documenting learning. Note that the SOTA teachers referred to family members as supervisors during the conversation.

Narrator 2

How do SOTA teachers gather feedback in assessment from families to extend children's individual learning?

Jan

Well, first to start with what we do is we send out our booklets, which is like a preschool classes weekly program and in that booklet we have learning intentions and suggestions for the feedback from the supervisor. So that would be like how did your child react when challenged? Could they use scissors? That sort of feedback and then the supervisor will document all that for the activities and also send photos or videos of the children.

So, once we get that feedback, we go through it and then if we feel they need an individual challenge, for example the supervisor may have said they can't use scissors, we then send an individual, we call them ‘challenges’ and that can either be by email or a recording or sometimes we even send like, they may not be good at taking turns so we will send the game out for the family to play games, and we give them on a, just a document of challenges to do.

We also do class challenges for individual learning, so recently we had a classroom and we've seen the children, so through observations and OT screening, we found out the kids weren't good at scissors. So, on our Facebook page we then, one week we sent a scissor challenge, the next week we sent, they had to dress themselves, because they weren't good at buttons. So, each week we give them a challenge. So, that's how we try and do the individual learning by individual challenges. But the booklets for the week are more the same.

Narrator 2

That's really interesting Jan. Thank you to extend on that. How do you assess children using this feedback that you gather?

We record on a document that Bree and I have made, and it reflects all the outcomes. So, we get the feedback sheet back from the supervisor. We allow them to design that in any way they like. Some are on PowerPoint some on Word because we don't know their computer skills. Then what we do is we open up their document and our document, and if they're good at wording, sometimes we only have to cut and paste over to what outcome it was.

So, for example, it might have been the child can use scissors easily, so we would then put that into the document under fine motor, and we’d put Term 1 Week 5, Tom showed us how Tom could use scissors, and then later the document that we've made up that we're cutting and pasting into becomes our learning statement for the end of the year.

Narrator 2

Great, so that informs your reporting on the child's progress through the year.

Jan

And we don't have to double up and rewrite a whole program, you’re actually putting pictures and their outcomes their meeting into that document straight away.

Narrator 2

Great, so it is an excellent bank of evidence that you have by the end of this year.

Jan

We also keep our records, so every child has an individual folder and in that whenever we get a feedback, a photo, report, anything to do with that child, we keep it in there. So just the digital folder which can be, we keep them on Google Drive at the moment, because they end up quite big because you've got videos and photos, but that can be kept on whatever the school chooses to keep it on.

So, every child has a photo of everything they've sent in.

Narrator 2

Fantastic, Bree what do you do if families don't send you any feedback?

Bree

Ok this actually does occur. So, what we've done in the past is that we ring families or we’ll email them, or just check in with them to make sure that everything is OK. And if they do need support we provide them with support in a method that suits them. So, for instance, if they have several children it is difficult for them to be sending in large amounts of feedback, will offer them advice that perhaps just sending some quick videos or even just some photos.

Narrator 2

Fantastic Thanks Bree.

Jan

Also, we have found that since we've been telling the supervisors what feedback we would like, we actually get a lot more feedback, so instead of getting they were at finger painting today and they liked it, which tells us absolutely nothing because under the activity we put what did they use? Did they mix colours and all the things we want, we found that we do get feedback more regularly. It could be an idea that you do, do a feedback sheet with your activities just on the, up the top saying what feedback you want and then they can just literally answer the questions underneath.

Narrator 2

Fantastic, so if you’re specific to the individual learning goals of the children you're much more likely to get responses from families.

Jan

Yes, and don't let them have to think about it because we have to remember, they're not the teachers, so we take that away from them. So, this is what we want you to answer after this activity and if you're very specific, they seem to do it, and it's easier for them.

Narrator 2

Great, thanks Jan.

Bree

And I guess also just try not to overwhelm the families with too much information as well is a good way to support them.

Jan

And every week will be different because every home is different, so you've got to just take that off of them, and one week you might get 4 photos, and the next week you might get a novel [laughter]. So, we just go with the flow and don't pressure, don’t put pressure on them.

Narrator 2

That’s great advice. Thanks Jan.

Narrator 1

So, Jan spoke about cutting and pasting because they receive feedback from families via email. But some great advice offered there by the ladies, firstly to structure questions for feedback based on learning experiences offered and on the individual goals for children, to think about offering whole group an individual challenges to extend learning and to use feedback from families to analyse information about how children engage in learning experiences.

Bree mentioned to work smart and streamline the documentation methods you were using and spoke about how not all families will provide feedback, but it's a great idea to try to follow up with families who don't connect with you.

This brings us to analysing learning and we have just heard some great ideas from the SOTA teachers about this. Analysing feedback from families is the last component of the planning cycle to address. This is an important stage of the cycle in that it helps us to interpret what the information is telling us about the child and their learning.

What could this look like remotely? Could be collecting information from families via email or video recordings via phone call or online platforms, using existing tracking sheets to document that information, using that information to inform formative and summative assessment, and you might consider using publications such as the developmental milestones and the Early Years Learning Framework in the national quality standard pictured here on the screen as a simple way of tracking the information you have on children. [URL: https://tinyurl.com/vtvd697]

Analysing collected information from families helps to make sense of what children know and can do. Think of analysis as an interpretation of information collected from families. It will help you understand and document the distance that each child has travelled in relation to the 5 learning outcomes and developmental milestones.

The methods and techniques used to plan an assist learning are a local decision. I'm sure you have thought deeply about how you will plan and assess learning remotely. You are now required to draft a preschool programming procedure to guide planning and assessing learning remotely and share this with your preschool supervisor. You'll be provided with a copy of this scaffold to support you writing your procedure.

Let's hear one last time from the SOTA teachers as they offer advice to all of us who are new to remote learning.

Narrator 2

Jan and Bree are going to give us some advice on how to work with 40 children across the week with remote learning.

Jan

Wow. [Laughter] The best advice we can do is what we've done, is you have to decide what order you put things into, which is most important. So, you have feedback that needs to be given and recorded and you have programming to do. So, each school or each group will make up their own order of what's most important, but firstly sit down as a group and decide what comes first, second and third.

And then we have said, what we have found works, we divide the class and I know some other centres do have focus children for the day. We actually don't, hone in on a child, but we will say we will do a reflection of 2 children a day. So, you might have to do whatever, and then what you do then too is you divide the roles so you’re not doubling up, so you might give each child, each teacher 5 kids to do, or a week, divide the roles what you're doing. Someone might be programming, someone might be doing the feedback, feedback and videos go together. But yes, divide the teacher’s roles so you not all burning out.

And then the biggest thing for distance learning is time management and we usually have a timeline an achievable timeline which is important because don't make yourself think you’re going to actually get stuff back to 40 kids in a week, you’re not. I can guarantee you.

So, get an achievable timeline and when you want to have so every child by four weeks has had some contact maybe or something for that example, but make sure your timelines are achievable. Yes, and that's mainly what we've done that has helped nip it, not doubling up and helps make it a little bit better.

Narrator 2

Great thanks Jan and Bree, do you want to add any advice to that? And I said I would have is just, keep calm, don't freak out because at the end of the day, you are all professional educators, and you know what you're doing. It's just about delivering it in a different way.

Narrator 1

So, some key points consider having a flexible focus child system and split children in groups between teachers and SLSOs devise systems, which you believe will be manageable. Keep calm and remember that you are professionals, this is your core business being delivered in a different manner.

Let's have a quick look at some resources which are online, they will be able to help you with the remote learning. You can go to the department's Learning from home site. Click on teaching and learning resources, then click on the resources you would like based on Stage level. This also includes early childhood resources, and the site is constantly being updated.

The Early Childhood Education Directorate have published a resource for parents about the benefits of play-based learning and child development. It also includes examples of play-based activities which children can engage in at home along with an example of a play-based learning schedule for families. Much like the routine that the ladies from SOTA were talking about.

Statewide staff rooms have been set up in Microsoft Teams as you prepare to teach remotely access, support and resources to help students learn from home at these sites.

Follow the links provided to join the K-6 New South Wales Staffroom or to join the early learning staffroom after you select a team, request will be sent in. Your approval will be granted within 24 hours.

We would love to hear your feedback about this professional learning and provide suggestions for future development of PL. Please use the QR code or link below to access the evaluation in Microsoft forms.

[https://tinyurl.com/tjcusrd]

We would like to extend our thanks to Jan Marie and to Bree Staker preschool teachers from SOTA Broken Hill campus and to Jessica Townsing the P-2 Initiatives Officer. Thank you so much for helping us put this professional learning session together. And to our participants, feel free to contact us at earlylearning@det.nsw.edu.au.

Thank you.

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