In this Week's Newsletter:

• Key Dates for Your Diary
• Pets - is there a place for animals in preschools and ECE services?
• Focus on Parents and Early Childhood Education

At 3pm today School Holidays start across NZ.   Happy and safe holidays if you are getting a break over this time.  Have fun, stay warm, and enjoy the time for doing more things with your children if you have children home.  

Key Dates

Early Childhood Management National Forum, 1st September.  Go to the EVENTS page for details and to register.

The 13th NZ Early Childhood Research Conference, 26 - 28th January 2012.  The single largest gathering of early childhood researchers - a fabulous networking and educational event not to be missed!  The call for papers closes on 1st Sept.  Read more ...  

Pets

Is there a place for animals in early childhood services?  Or for health, safety or other reasons should gold-fish, budgies, rabbits or other domestic animals not be allowed to be kept in ECE services?   Vote in our poll on the homepage of our website - click here:  http://www.childforum.com  

Parenting and ECE Use

In this week's newsletter we want to draw your attention to a brand new section on parenting and ECE use on the ChildForum website (click here to view and read articles from different perspectives and add your opinion).   Thank you so much from ChildForum and all our members to the article writers for supporting discussion and encouraging our thinking on this important topic!. 

Ideas and concerns explored in the articles include the qualification of parents to 'teach' their children, the devaluing of parenting, how parenting and ECE can work together, and whether ECE has a bigger or more significant role to play for some children more than others.

Over recent years, the NZ government has had a big policy focus on increasing participation in early childhood education (both the number of children and the hours spent in ECE). 

More and more public investment has gone into spending on ECE and  children  are spending more hours in ECE than ever before while the numbers of babies in ECE has increased most dramatically.

There hasn't yet been a public debate about early childhood education taking on more of the parenting role.  This was a point made by Hon. Paula Bennett when first taking on the job of Social Development Minister.  She called for a debate on solo mothers feeling pressured to return to work too early (go to our website for a link to this interview).    

Would it be better to focus on supporting parents to care for and educate their children rather than relying almost solely on ECE to do this, or perhaps there needs to be a balance of both, and if so how can this be achieved? 

The recent Children's Commissioner report advocated for more flexibility in ECE and a need to work closely with parents to support them and their children. 

What do you think?  Your contributions are invited - click here to go to the Parenting and ECE article section on the ChildForum.com website. 

ChildForum Early Childcare and Education Networks
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