This page provides advice to early childhood education and care services about how they can support learning continuity for children during disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19).
Learning from home
We know that at this time, some families are choosing to support their children to learn from home. For those families, there are many simple actions services can take to help them provide continuity of learning for their children.
Where possible and in line with your service’s individual circumstances, services should make reasonable efforts to keep engaging with families and supporting learning in the home for enrolled children not attending the service.
As skilled professionals, you will know how to do this in a way that best meets your families’ needs.
The type and frequency of contact with families will depend on each service’s individual circumstances and resources. It is acknowledged that educators who are delivering the program on-site will have limited capacity to engage with other families.
When planning for children’s learning continuity through a learning from home model, early childhood education and care services may consider:
Making contact with families
If you haven’t already, contact families to find out what their plans are for the coming weeks and work out the best way to communicate with them. This might be over the phone, via email or text, or through an app.
Services will know the most suitable communication methods for their community. Find out the range of resources families have available to them and their comfort level in using certain technologies, especially apps or programs they haven’t used before. Some families may need to be offered support or other tailored solutions.
Forming a partnership
It will be important to have a shared understanding between services and families about what learning from home means.
This will depend on a number of factors, including the time and resources that both services and families have available. Families may need support building their confidence in making the most of learning opportunities at home.
Planning your approach
It will be up to each service to decide what is best for their children, families and staff.
This is a new situation for everyone, so you might have to try a few options before you work out what is best for you.
Adapting your existing program
You will already have planned a program and/or focus areas for Term 2 in line with the Victorian Early Learning and Development Framework.
Think about what you can easily adapt for use by families with their children at home. You will be drawing from your existing skills and expertise and applying these in new ways.
Coronavirus (Covid-19): Learning from home in early childhood education (docx - 129 (docx - 129.58kb) - Factsheet for Victorian early childhood education and care service providers
For further information, please contact the Department’s dedicated coronavirus (COVID-19) phone advice line on 1800 338 663 or email
ec.home.learning@edumail.vic.gov.au
Support through School Readiness Funding
Temporary Learning from Home item
To support services to make reasonable efforts to keep engaging with families and support learning from home for families choosing to keep their children at home, we have made available a new temporary
Learning from Home item on the School Readiness Funding menu.
The
Learning from Home menu item provides kindergarten services funding to help pay for targeted learning from home resources, professional development and additional staffing. You can find more information about this item on the
School Readiness Funding menu.
Services currently in receipt of School Readiness Funding are able to spend a portion of their funding on
learning from home, including as reimbursement for money you have already spent on resources listed under this menu item.
The Government is also making an additional $900,000 in grants available to services not currently receiving School Readiness Funding. These services will receive a one-off payment of $500 to help pay for learning from home in ways that are consistent with the Learning from Home menu item.
Eligible service providers will receive a letter with advice about the process to access this new item.
Online resources
The Department has developed a range of resources that services can use to support families to engage in learning activities with their children at home:
Further high quality learning activities suitable for early learners. Explore
FUSE: Learning from home in an early childhood setting.
Webinar series
We're offering free webinars for early childhood teachers and educators. These will help increase their knowledge and understanding of best practice teaching and learning approaches for children taking part in learning from home.
The webinars aim to make sure educators and teachers have the skills, knowledge and educational resources to support learning from home. They'll focus on four key topics, and will be delivered by Anthony Semann from
Semann & Slattery.
If you have any questions about the webinars, email
ec.home.learning@edumail.vic.gov.au
For questions about registrations, contact Semann & Slattery at
learningfromhome@semannslattery.com
Register for upcoming webinars
Webinar 4 – Supporting children and families experiencing vulnerability
3.30pm – 4.15pm on Thursday 21 May 2020Webinar 5 – Supporting children returning to your service after a period of learning from home
3.30pm – 4.15pm on Wednesday 27 May 2020
Watch past webinars
Getting started with remote learning
Maintaining relationships with families and children
Adapting programs and learning plans to be delivered remotely
Talking to children about coronavirus (COVID-19)
Services may also want to give parents information about
talking to their children about coronavirus (COVID-19).