The roles and responsibilities of the educators at Punchbowl Public School preschool are many and varied. An educator can directly work with the children, plan the educational curriculum, observe and document children's learning and work with families. At Punchbowl Public School preschool we refer to all of our staff, teachers and school learning support officers (SLSOs) as educators.
Observing and documenting the children's learning
Through information gathering, educators use their knowledge of the EYLF and their in-depth knowledge and understanding of each child to analyse the learning and inform curriculum decision making in their planning that contributes to developing each child. Educators make a pedagogical decision based on this.
Educators make conscious choices about documenting and when to document to capitalise on children's interest and intentional teaching opportunities. Information is documented anecdotally and then reflected upon by educators, and plans or adjustments to existing programs are made. Future learning plans are discussed and developed, bringing prior learning and experience into the next planning cycle. This shows children that we respect their contributions to their learning and promotes a sense of agency.
Educators understand that EYLF learning outcomes are broad and observable, they use numerous ways to gather information on children, for example, jottings, annotated photos, short videos, learning stories, documenting children's dialogue. These are found either on the printed program, displayed in our learning environment and on our online digital communication platform Seesaw.
Our learning displays both indoors and outdoors link to the EYLF outcomes; for example, educators make connections to the learning that is taking place. They also create links to encourage the learning that could be fostered in the learning space so that all educators can contribute to all children's learning journeys.
