Foreword

Foreword - Kupu Whakatau

The early years of a child’s life are a critical influence on the child’s lifelong learning and development. Quality in Action recognises that influence, and it acknowledges the importance of early childhood services working alongside family and whànau to provide a rich environment for a child’s well-being and learning. It supports the Government’s revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practices (DOPs) for early childhood services in New Zealand.

It is essential that early childhood education providers strive for high quality. High-quality learning experiences lay the foundation for all later learning. It is also important that there is a diversity of services responding to community needs, so that parents/whànau have access to a wide variety of quality early childhood services. Quality in Action therefore aims to provide guidance that is helpful and practical and that at the same time enables services to determine their individual emphases and philosophies.

Quality in Action supports the requirement for services to meet agreed national objectives for the provision of early childhood education and care. It is designed to be relevant to all early childhood services in New Zealand. It knowledges the diversity of the early childhood sector and the place of Màori as tangata whenua and as partners in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is inclusive of all people in Aotearoa/New Zealand, regardless of their ethnic origins.

The 1996 revised statement of the DOPs is the only mandatory requirement in this document. Quality in Action describes and gives examples of good practice. It presents the key components of a high-quality, interactive, and dynamic learning environment. It makes clear many features of quality early childhood education that are often taken for granted or that are invisible to the untrained eye. Some services will already be meeting most of the requirements of the DOPs; for other services, changes will be required. An internal review based on Quality in Action can help services to make these changes and to develop a plan for the implementation of the revised DOPs.

There was no precedent to guide the writers of this document. Throughout the consultation process, the co-operation and goodwill of all early childhood education sectors was encouraging and greatly appreciated. In particular, I wish to thank all members of the Early Childhood Advisory Committee for their assistance and co-operation during the development of the document. I am grateful to Di Davies, the co-ordinator of the project, and the team of dedicated writers working alongside her: Lyn Foote, Rita Walker, Arapera Royal-Tangaere, Edna Faleto‘ese, Bernadette Ah-Vao Eteuati, Barbara Mabbett, and Sophie Bringzen. I also wish to thank the Early Childhood Development Unit for its co-operation throughout this project.

I commend this publication to early childhood education managers and educators. I am confident that you will find it supportive, practical, and, at times, inspirational and that it will assist you and the Ministry of Education to work together to enhance the quality of early childhood education for children in New Zealand.

Howard Fancy

Secretary for Education