Regulatory Authority Priority Series – And Young People: Supporting Older Children to Engage in OSHC

The Queensland Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (ECRA) is responsible for regulating the early childhood education and care sector including outside school hours care. They have a vital role in making sure children are safe and receive high-quality education and care. This series spotlights the new priority areas they announced in late 2023.

This session will focus on Adequate supervision, more specifically quality programming which keeps children engaged, particularly for older children in the outside school hours care setting.

MTOP V2.0 has seen the powerful addition of ‘young people’ to the Australian Framework for School Aged Care V2.0 – hundreds of times in fact! This is an important reflection of how older children in OSHC see themselves, distinct in identity from the younger children cohort.

Older children have long been considered challenging for many educators in OSHC. But what do we really know about this phase of middle childhood development more recently categorised as Tween? How do their support needs differ from their younger and older counterparts? How do children of this age view OSHC? What opportunities does this offer for our OSHC programs? How do we shape OSHC to be places of joy for this underrepresented and often misunderstood age group?

This sessions will explore:

• Why children AND young people
• A variety of theories to better understand this cohort,      including

                     - Socio-cultural

                     - Developmental

                     - Neuroscience

                     - Post Structural (informed by the work Dr Bruce Hurst)

• Being critically reflective ourselves and withthis cohort
• Different ways to increase young people’s engagement in the program

Join us for this session as we reconsider what we know about this age group, explore various theories, and reflect how this impacts their relationships, engagement and leisure time in OSHC. These young people have so much to offer our multiage communities. Let's invest in some critical reflection and make their final years in OSHC - the best yet!

This session is suited to OSHC professionals at all career stages.

NQS: QA1, QA2, QA3, QA5