Children miss out on play

JUST one per cent of Australian children receive top-quality learning in childcare and kindergarten, a new report has revealed.

Children are well cared for emotionally, but miss out on vital play-based learning, a landmark national University of Melbourne study shows.

Even tertiary-educated teachers spend more time making sure children are behaving well and are properly socialised rather than more important language concepts and higher-order thinking, the results suggest.

Under the Effective Early Education Experiences for Kids project, researchers from the Graduate School of Education tracked almost 2500 three and four-year-olds from Victoria and Queensland over five years. They found 87 per cent of early learning services had low-quality teaching geared at turning play into learning.

They found only one per cent had high-quality learning, eight per cent had high-quality personal care and hygiene, and only six per cent had highquality activities.

Lead researcher Professor Collette Tayler said children were not in danger, but were missing out.

“A lot of the time educators are making sure children are behaving and communicating and supported emotionally but it’s not good enough without picking up the learning,” she said, adding much more should be expected of teachers and childcare workers.

“Educators should be discussing their play with children, making sure they understand and help them explore what is going on and why.”