Find answers to common questions about this project.
Providers of Education and Care Services National Law approved education and care services must offer programs to children based on government Approved Learning Frameworks (ALF). These documents are used by educators in approved education and care, and other similar settings to guide programs of learning and development for children and young people. Australia has two Frameworks and these are:
- Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) guides educators who work with children in birth to five settings, for example long day care, preschool, kindergarten, family day care and in some states and territories the early years of school (three to eight years).
- My Time, Our Place Framework for School Age Care in Australia (MTOP) guides educators who work with children and young people in outside school hours care services, for example before or after school care, vacation care and family day care.
The Education Council has commissioned an update of the two national Approved Learning Frameworks (ALFs). As they have now been in use for close to a decade, the purpose of this update is to ensure they continue to reflect contemporary developments in practice and knowledge, while supporting all educators to best meet the learning and development needs of each child.
See here for the 2021 NQF ALFs Update Terms of Reference.
The Approved Learning Frameworks are not being rewritten. The aim of the updates is to ensure they are current. As the Frameworks were developed in 2009 (EYLF) and 2011 (MTOP) it is timely for them to refreshed. While governments consider both Frameworks to be effective, an update of the ALFs will strengthen their contribution to the objectives of the National Law and their value to stakeholders through ensuring the Frameworks are in line with the current education and care environment, improving national consistency and, where appropriate, aligning with Australian curriculum requirements.
Anyone who has involvement with early childhood and /or outside school hours education and care. For example, parents, guardians, teachers, educators.
Once for each survey that relates to you. For example, you may work in an early childhood education centre (ECEC) setting but be a parent of a child who attends out of school hours centre (OHSC) setting. You would comment on both the educator survey for the EYLF and the family survey for MTOP.
This is not part of the scope project.
We have ethical approval from the four universities that the Chief Investigators are part of (Macquarie University, Queensland University of Technology, Edith Cowan University and Griffith University).
On the 15 December 2020, Education Ministers commissioned an update of the two national approved learning frameworks under the National Quality Framework (NQF) – the EYLF and MTOP. The terms of reference can be found here. Work on the project has commenced, with a stakeholder feedback and engagement process starting from June 2021. The project has three stages, and the timeline has been agreed with ACECQA on behalf of states and territories. Ethical permission for each stage has been sought from the Universities (MQ, QUT, ECU and Griffith) and as this work has been commissioned by Education Ministers through the Education Ministers Meeting it is supposed that ethical permissions are inherently given for those who work in the state or territory education system.
All answers are confidential. There is no identifying information collected on the surveys.
Children and young people’s voices were included in Stage 1 – 11 sites across Australia collecte this data. These sites were chosen as the 11 Lead practitioners of these sites are a part of the consortium and six of them are working closely with the Chief Investigators as part of the core writing group. Stage 2 includes talking circles to gather children and young people’s voices. Any ECEC or OSHC service can participate in this activity.
Stage 2 surveys open 24 August 2021. The surveys close 17 September 2021.
Yes, you can but you may notice that the formatting of the text is irregular (ie. some words may be hyphenated across two lines).
A written submission can be from an individual, a group of people and/or an organisation or peak. You can download the Submission template from this website in the Discussion Paper (Stage 2) section, and you can choose to address all or some of the questions raised in the Discussion Paper.
There are three stages. These include:
Stage 1: Gathering rich evidence to inform the stakeholder discussion paper (April to mid-July 2021).
This included:
- a literature review
- an online survey 1 for educators and providers, families and communities and other key stakeholders for the EYLF and MTOP across Australia
- children and young people’s voices gathered through drawing, writing or talking circles in 11 sites across Australia
- focus groups with State and Territory Department Authorised Officers
Stage 2: Gathering rich evidence to inform the recommendations for updates to the EYLF and MTOP (August to mid-November 2021)
This includes:
- an online survey 2 for educators and providers, families and communities and other key stakeholders for the EYLF and MTOP across Australia
- children and young people’s voices gathered through talking circles across Australia – all services will be invited to participate and will be guided on how to collect the children and young people’s voices
- Delphi discussion panels - which will bring together groups of people with experience, expertise and leadership in ECEC and OHSC curriculum, pedagogy and practice.
Stage 3: Sector piloting/testing of draft Updates to EYLF and MTOP (mid-November 2021 to mid-April 2022)
- 15 sites (including the 11 sites from Stage 1) and their leading practitioners will pilot/test the draft updated ALFs' in a purposefully varied mix of ECEC/OSHC settings across all states and territories to elicit grassroots feedback on the efficacy of the changes and improvements including the implementation challenges and insights.
Our Consortium structure comprises a Core Writing Group of six researchers each of whom is paired with a leading practitioner - referred to as a 'practice buddy' - to ensure that contextual practice is at the fore.
All updates on activity related to the ALFs Update will be released on this website. You can also join our mailing list to receive notifications.
