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Free Weekly 22-23 February 2014
Tom Price childcare centre up for award By Ben Leahy Little Geckos Childcare Centre in Tom Price has been recognised for its service to the community after it was nominated for an Early Childhood Service of the Year award. The centre will now be judged against other childcare operators from around the state in the Australian Family Early Education & Care Awards. Australian Family managing director Paul Clancy praised Little Geckos for its nomination and said childcare workers deserved more recognition. “Early and middle childhood professionals and services right across Australia go above and beyond just minding our young Australians,” Mr Clancy said. “These awards are one way that working parents, professionals, families and communities can thank and acknowledge the fundamental role early years professionals perform in the social, educational
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Early and middle childhood professionals and services right across Australia go above and beyond just minding our young Australians
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and emotional well-being of young children.” Little Geckos will find out if they have won the award on May 20 with the potential to then progress into the national finals and share in a prize pool of $75,000. The national awards will be held on June 21. For more information, visit www. earlyeducationandcareawards.com. au. Professor Joe Sparling with Justin and Ailiayah Smith.
Paraburdoo learning centre gets expert’s tick of approval By Ben Leahy
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A renowned expert in early childhood learning visited the Pilbara earlier this month to see how a system he helped pioneer is helping to boost indigenous education. Emeritus Professor Joe Sparling from the University of North Carolina pioneered an early childhood system called the Abecedarian Approach that is being used at Gumala Aboriginal Corporation’s 3A Paraburdoo and Wakuthuni Early Childhood Centres. The 3A learning system is based on the Abecedarian Approach that Professor Sparling developed from a 30year research study conducted with “at-risk children”. The research found that simple tools could help double a child’s learning capacity and improve their health and well-being and life prospects and now forms the basis for the 3A learning system used at Gumala’s Paraburdoo and Wakuthuni centres. “I visited the two centres (on February 12) and was happy to see parents who are engaged with their children,” Prof Sparling said. “(I also) heard that the primary school is noticing a difference (between) the children who have attended 3A opposed to the children who haven’t, so the early signs are very promising.”
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It will break down perceived barriers and encourage students to engage in and attend school
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The basic principle behind the 3A program is to interact intensively with children from a young age. This is done by using learning games daily, reading stories in an interactive way and improving language skills through intensive and enjoyable conversations. “There is clear evidence that the 3A students are much more likely to go to university, more likely to succeed and even (the) parents feel benefits, particularly single mothers, who see their child … want to do better,” Prof Sparling said. “Some unexpected benefits that we have found in the past 30 years include health benefits such as lower rates of high cholesterol, hypertension and obesity compared to children who have not been exposed to the program.” Gumala’s general manager of education Lynne Beckingham said the program was the first of its kind in WA and helped fill
a void in local early childhood education. “GAC identified that communities in the Pilbara had no access to early childhood programs … for children (aged up to five years),” Ms Beckingham said. She said Gumala selected the Abecedarian Approach because there are large amounts of evidence showing that it works. Local principal from Paraburdoo Primary Troy Withers said the 3A program helped indigenous kids arrive at school better prepared to learn. “3A creates a positive relationship with the Aboriginal community … and the school,” he said. “It will break down perceived barriers and encourage students to engage in and attend school.” Gumala began its 3A program after forming a partnership with the University of Melbourne’s School of Education in 2011. The university helped create a custom-made program for Gumala and the remote communities it serves. Since then, the WA state government has also signed an agreement with Gumala to link the program to the local primary schools. Today Gumala runs three 3A centres and will be opening two more in the Pilbara soon.