16.6: A Closer Look at the Outcomes

The five outcomes are designed to capture the integrated and complex well-being, development and learning of all children. They:

  • Are broad and observable
  • Acknowledge children in care have choices and opportunities to collaborate with other children and educators
  • Recognize that children lean in a variety of ways and vary in their capabilities and pace of learning
  • Respect that children engage with increasingly complex ideas and learning experiences, which are transferable to other situations
  • Are influenced by
    • Each child
    • Educators’ practices
    • The environment
    • Engagement with the family and community (including the school)
  • Are achieved in different and equally meaningful ways
  • Provide for collaboration between children educators

Let’s look more closely at each outcome and ways that educators may support this outcome through their curriculum planning.

Table 16.1: Outcome 1 - Children Have a Strong Sense of Identity. Belonging, being and becoming are integral parts of identity.

Points Educators facilitate this in their curriculum when they
Children feel safe, secure, and supported
  • spend time interacting and conversing with children, listening and responding sensitively as they express their ideas and needs
  • acknowledge the importance of opportunities for children to relax through play and recreational
  • Children develop their autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and sense of agency
  • encourage children to make choices and decisions
  • maintain high expectations of each child’s capabilities
    motivate and encourage children to succeed when they are faced with challenges
  • provide time and environment for children to engage in both individual and collaborative pursuits
  • Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities
  • acknowledge and understand that children construct meaning in many different ways
  • maintain and build on the knowledge, languages and understandings that children bring
  • share children’s successes with families
  • Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect
  • organize environments and spaces in ways that promote small and large group interactions and meaningful play and recreational
  • Table 16.2: Outcome 2 - Children Are Connected with and Contribute To Their World

    Points Educators facilitate this in their curriculum when they
    Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation
  • provide opportunities for children to investigate ideas, complex concepts and ethical issues that are relevant to their lives and their local communities
  • scaffold children’s opportunities to participate and contribute to group activities
  • plan opportunities for children to participate in significant ways in group discussions and shared decision-making about rules and expectations and activities
  • Children respond to diversity with respect
  • plan experiences and provide resources that broaden children’s perspectives and encourage appreciation of diversity
  • explore the culture, heritage, backgrounds and traditions of children within the context of their community
  • Children become aware of fairness
  • Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment
  • analyse and discuss with children ways in which stereotypes are portrayed
  • provide children with access to a range of natural materials in their environment
    embed sustainability in daily routines and practices
  • discuss the ways the life and health of living things are interconnected
  • Table 16.3: Outcome 3 - Children Have A Strong Sense of Well-Being

    Points Educators facilitate this in their curriculum when they
    Children become strong in their social and emotional well-being
  • provide time and space for children to challenge and practice physical prowess
  • collaborate with children to plan and document their achievements and share their successes with their families
  • Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical well-being
  • collaborate to plan energetic physical activities, including dance, drama, movement, sports and games
  • provide a range of active and relaxing experiences throughout the day
  • adjust transition and routines to take into account children’s needs and interests
  • Table 16.4: Outcome 4 - Children Are Confident and Involved Learners

    Points Educators facilitate this in their curriculum when they
    Children develop dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity
  • provide environments that are flexible and open-ended
  • encourage children to engage in both individual and collaborative explorative and reflective processes
  • model inquiry processes, including observation, curiosity and imagination, try new ideas and take on challenges
  • Children use a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, enquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating
  • plan environments with appropriate levels of challenge where children are encouraged to explore, experiment and take appropriate risks
  • provide experiences that encourage children to investigate ideas, solve problems and use complex concepts and thinking, reasoning and hypothesizing
  • encourage children to communicate and make visible their own ideas and theories
  • collaborate with children and model reasoning, predicting and reflecting processes and language
  • provide opportunities for children to initiate and lead activities and experiences
  • Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another
  • support children applying their learning in new ways and talk about this with them in ways that grow their understanding
  • support children to construct multiple solutions to problems and use different ways of thinking
  • plan for time and space where children discuss and reflect to see similarities and connections between existing and new ideas
  • Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials
  • provide opportunities for choice and collaboration
  • create possibilities for peer scaffolding
  • introduce appropriate tools, technologies and media and provide the skills, knowledge and techniques
  • provide resources that encourage children to represent their thinking
  • Table 16.5: Outcome 5 - Children Are Effective Communicators

    Points

    Educators facilitate this in their curriculum when they

    Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes

  • include real-life experiences and resources to promote children’s use of literacy and numeracy
  • allow children to direct their own play experiences with their peers
  • Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts
  • provide opportunities for children to follow directions from everyday texts such as recipe books, instructions for craft, rules for sports or games.
  • read and share a range of books, magazines and newspapers with children
  • provide a literacy-enriched environment including display print in home languages and English
  • Children collaborate with others, express ideas and make meaning using a range of media and communication technologies
  • build on children’s family and community experiences with creative and expressive arts
  • provide a range of resources that enable children to express meaning using photography, visual arts, dance, drama and music
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    Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education Copyright © 2022 by Jennifer Paris; Kristin Beeve; and Clint Springer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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