Professional Development

Handprints ELC believes in the ability to inspire others through our practices. We have begun to offer professional development workshops for other Education and Care Services based on the following areas…

Infants and Toddlers Conference 2019:

In 2019, Julia, Nikki, Alicia, Cass and Alex attended the Macquarie University Infants and Toddlers conference. We gave 3 presentations across the 2-day schedule to share ideas based on elements of our programs that promote 0-3-year-old children as competent, capable and able to make meaningful decisions within their school environment. We find such value in sharing our ideas with the wider early childhood community, and also soaking up all the research that is presented by other early childhood professionals, that we can adapt to our environment.

Early Childhood Australia Conferences 2018 & 2019:

Handprints is very well connected to the ECA yearly conferences. Each year we submit posters and presentations to be shared at the conference and in 2018 and 2019 we were successful!

In 2018, Dee, Denise and Shevawn presented a poster based on a project that they undertook in the Preschool room at Handprints Killara relating to an investigation with birds. The poster was a visual representation on how an interest-based project on birds led into research by teachers, into genetics and empathy, and a thorough understanding of birds was built by the children. The children and the birds built a relationship that was independent from that with the teachers.

To see the abstract of this presentation, Click Here!

In 2019, Shevawn, Dee, Denise and Nikki presented some more Handprints ideas in the form of two posters.

Nikki presented ‘A Calendar for Success’, which detailed how our company calendar created more effective leadership across multiple services. This simple idea of a poster has allowed all educators at the services to be their own leader and be independent in meeting the requirements of our sector.

To see the abstract of this presentation, Click Here!

Shevawn, Dee and Denise presented ‘A Suitcase of Memories’. This poster showed how children could extend their own learning by engaging with their memories as a provocation. It focused on the idea that the children could engage in an exploration within the concepts of memory and time and how this may influence their individual developmental milestones of transitioning to school.

To see the abstract of this presentation, Click Here!

How High is Too High? Risk taking in early education and care settings:

Our Managing Director Julia had an article published by Early Childhood Australia’s national publication “Every Child”. This publication is delivered to Early Education and Care settings all over Australia. Julia wrote an informative article on educating and challenging children to consider and take risks. At Handprints, educators are encouraged to question ideas, research and contribute to our wider sector, and this is a wonderful example of where this thinking stemmed from.

Below is a short excerpt from the article-

“It is an exciting time in Early Childhood Education, where our minds are opened up to the learning possibilities for young children. Some of this learning involves taking risks, it involves stepping outside of the ordinary and taking managed risks with children to extend on their learning experiences. But can risk taking be safe?”