The philosophy prioritises the promotion of each child's personal abilities, fostering autonomy, confidence, and respect for differences.

 Educators are encouraged to undergo training to understand and support children's unique communication needs, while external professional services are accessed when necessary. Transition support is provided to achieve smooth transitions.

 Overall, it reflects a comprehensive approach to inclusion with thought to physical accessibility, curriculum adaptation, cultural sensitivity, sensory considerations, and collaboration with external professionals.

The child is portrayed as an individual with different levels of skill and abilities.

This is evident in the section outlined Positively Promoting Each Child’s Personal Ability where the services commitment to promoting each child's participation in their own learning is encouraged, promoting respect for diversity, enablement of autonomy and independence and encouraging friendships between all children and their peers.

Teacher:

The document states that the service is inclusive of everyone, this outlines that teachers and educators that are at the service are also accepting and inclusive of all children. Educators and teachers would receive training and professional development to meet the needs of all children. The centres policy highlights their commitment to equity and fairness for all children.

These groups are very glossed over and not all are mentioned again throughout the rest of the document, the rest of the document is very focused on children who may have physical or mental disabilities and not really on the other groups.

The service views educators as ‘positive, open-minded, and honest’ (Melton Montessori 2019). Additional support services and professional development opportunities are made available to educators to ensure they are equipped with the knowledge and support required to develop and implement an inclusive learning program that meets the needs of children with additional needs. The service views all children’s health, safety, and wellbeing as central to all that they do, and identifies strategies utilised to support this value.  

The document is intended for management, employees, families and other interested parties.

It is interesting to note that while the policy mentions "the child”, there is no input from children, nor are children listed as parties that may be consulted in the review. This excludes the people it seeks to represent and contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) which states under Article 12: You have the right to give your opinion, and for adults to take it seriously.

According to unicef united nations convention on the rights of the child article 29 Education should develop each child’s personality and talents to the full. It should encourage children to respect their parents, their cultures and other cultures. This is relevant in our service as its highly regarded from us to respect each child's development individually and work with families in the child's learning journey.

 
The 2021 Early Childhood Education and Care National Workforce Census identified that 19.1 percent of “children attending child care services ... had parents or guardians who spoke a language other than English at home” (The Social Research Centre 2022, pg. 39). With this in mind, we decided it was important to make the poster available in additional languages.  Our poster includes a QR code that allows the information to be viewed in a person’s preferred language on smart devices. This can be made possible through the use of technology software such as Uniqode’s Multi-lingual QR Code (Uniqode Phygital 2024). 

Upon reflecting on the original document we noted that the layout of it was very un appealing. There was no introduction which isn't inviting to parents, educators, children or community members.

Including a small blurb or heading to introduce the reader would make it more enticing to read, we agreed the sections on the original document were realistic and justified.

We also agreed that adding in the children's voice would be an important aspect of this document.

The addition of a child's voice featuring child friendly language may enable this policy to represent all parties involved, this aligns with a principle listed in the Statement on the Inclusion of every child: Each child has unique interests and strengths and the capacity to contribute to their communities (ECA, 2012).

Australian Government Department of Education 2022, 2021 Early Childhood Education and Care National Workforce Census, Social Research Centre, pdf