| This committee is a self-nominated group who have previous connections and affiliations with Lil Gwyther and her Early Education Reform Group. Their current role is to ensure that Lil's legacy (see Background) lives on because of its relevance within current early school years curricilum. |
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Ross Gwyther has recently retired after working for 10 years as an organiser with the National Tertiary Education Union. Prior to that he spent many years as a research geophysicist at the University of Qld and at CSIRO studying earthquake processes. He has had a long involvement in educational issues, through the World Education Fellowship, the Public Education Coalition which was active in the 1990s, and the Early Education Reform Group, which his mother Lil Gwyther helped to establish in 1980. He is passionate about the importance of education, particularly early years education, as one of the most powerful ways of enabling all of us to develop our own unique capabilities to the fullest – a public good in the best sense. |
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Janny Boersma spent her working life as an early childhood teacher and was active in EERG from its inception. The EERG group was instrumental in two major developments in Qld education, the growth of multi-age education in early years teaching in many State and private schools, and in the establishment of the Prep year in Qld State Schooling. |
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Felicity McArdle is Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, NSW and A/Professor at QUT, School of Early Childhood (Adjunct). Before working in Teacher Education at universities, she taught for over 14 years, in urban, rural, and remote districts, in before school settings, and in Primary schools. She was a member of the consortium that wrote the first national framework for the early years in Australia, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). She is co-author of the book “The Trouble with Play” (Grieshaber & McArdle, 2010), and more recently has co-authored “Being an early childhood educator: bringing theory and practice together” (McArdle, Gibson, & Zollo. 2015). |
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Lyn Winch was Principal for 30 years at Chevallum State School on the Sunshine Coast. Lyn remains committed to learning and futures orientated curriculum reform not only at the local but also at the State and National levels. This is reflected in her participation in many professional organisations such as QSA, ACSA and ANSN. She believes that to be a good professional, one must be actively engaged in the union. She has held many positions in the QTU and AEU including QTU Hon Vice President (6 years), QTU State Executive of the Queensland Teachers’ Union, Chair of the Education Administrators Committee and Curriculum Committees of the QTU, and many Education Department Curriculum Reference Groups. Lyn was chair of the AEU National Principals Committee and on AEU executive. |
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Noelene McBride has been involved in many aspects of Early Chilhood Education over a period of 40 years as a teacher, teacher educator, parent and more recently a grandparent. She is passionate about providing the best educational experiences and opportunities for young children and has been actively involved in groups who advocate for the rights of young children. |
This section is designed to share information from organizations and groups who are actively involved in and advocates for protecting the rights of children.
- Protecting Childhood - "Our website is where you can find our Goals and general information about us and our Facebook Page is where you can interact with us directly. We currently have over 2300 “likers” and our numbers grow daily. We are looking for Area Representatives or representatives of Early Childhood oriented groups to collaborate and share our message. We also have flyers that can be distributed at events."
- Early Childhood Australia (ECA)
- Early Childhood Teachers Association (ECTA)
The ECTA conference is on the last Saturday of June (25/6/2016) http://www.ecta.org.au
Megan wrote:
Hello friends/colleagues
Felicity and I are presenting a session, aimed at having a rich conversation about contemporary practices and pedagogies in early childhood education (see abstract below). Ideally we would like 3-4 people to join us in this session to be part of a panel. Felicity will Chair, using a lovely Quaker style strategy where each panel member prepares a response to a key question, and then has the opportunity to speak to this question (first uninterrupted and then building up to a cross panel conversation).
At this stage Michelle, Marie and Irene have indicated their willingness to join us on the day… This will be a terrific professional growth opportunity and as well will be fun! We are conscious of this being a 'safe space' without things turning into a whinge - rather constructive critiques…
So, for now play around and explore the website and let me know if you can come along to join us in the to ECTA presentation.
Regards and thanks (the abstract is below)
Megan
Just because they can, doesn't mean that's best: Stop, Look, Listen, Think.
Presenters: Felicity McArdle, Megan Gibson.
This will be a conversation conducted using a Quaker Strategy designed to enable frank and fearless exchanges of views. The conversation is a call to action, for those who share concerns over current approaches to teaching and learning in the early years, including primary schooling and the before-school sector, and responds to Maggie Dent’s call to 'Stop Stealing Childhood' – in the name of education. It is over forty years now since Lil Gwyther began to speak up for young children, their rights and their capacities. We take up Lil's commitment to 'flexible, child- Return to contents centred and ungraded teaching practices' aimed at enabling children in their 'belonging, being and becoming', without judgements that put their development and therefore their growth in constraining boxes. Lil was particularly interested in pedagogical approaches, and challenged schools to engage with child-centred curriculum: 'Primary schools have the greatest responsibility because you cannot undo what is done in the early education stage'. Early childhood educators are required to be skilled readers of curriculum, designing, creating and reflecting on the learning experiences they provide for young children. This is a story that can sit alongside stories of NAPLAN, reading levels, learning outcomes and curriculum directives which originate elsewhere.