Intro screen: Sleep: Sleep Learning for Early Education Professionals
Screen: How do you rest and relax?
Children talking:
You relax like this (hand motion behind head).
You do this (lying back motion).
Can we stop resting now?
You lay down and have a rest.
Doing calm things.
Lay still.
Rest your bodies.
Be quiet.
And close your eyes.
Have a little sleep.
Yoga is actually a thing where you just do this (hand motion).
You cross your legs and do this (hand motion) and flap your bunny ears.
When I read the story it always makes me sleep.
Screen: Developing a QIP for sleep, rest and relaxation
Associate Professor Susan Irvine, QUT Faculty of Education:
This video provides practical advice to support you to reflect on your sleep, rest and relaxation practices. It’s designed to support your service to develop a Quality Improvement Plan to enhance practice in this area. Critical reflection involves considering multiple perspectives, so in this video we’re going to reflect on a range of views including those of National Education Leader, Rhonda Livingstone.
Rhonda Livingstone, National Education Leader, ACECQA:
Underpinning the National Quality Framework is that notion of continual quality improvement and so the Quality Improvement Plan is a great way for services to undertake a self-assessment and identify their strengths, what they’re doing really well, but also areas for improvement.
Associate Professor Susan Irvine, QUT Faculty of Education:
The release of new guidelines on sleep and rest present an opportunity to review and refine your service’s quality improvement plan for sleep and rest. As you watch this video consider your current practices and the implication of the new guidelines. These resources may influence the decisions you make in regard to sleep and rest practices. For example, how you organise the program, communicate with families, build relationships with children as well as staffing and service procedures.
Julia Burke, Support Services Officer, Centacare:
We launched our new policy and procedures and I am now commencing training at the long day care services and what we’re aiming to do is increase the working knowledge of our staff in sleep, rest and relaxation.
Screen: NCC Early Learners Kallangur
Martin Bennett, Educational Leader, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
We wanted to change our view on children’s sleep and rest time. We felt that during those times it was too rushed and we needed to calm it down and make it more child focused.
Cassandra Dinte, Director, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
We looked at our practices and how we were implementing them and then we began a transitional change through our Quality Improvement Plan in that space.
Martin Bennett, Educational Leader, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
Our sleep and rest approach is more child focused and child-orientated. The children signalling to us when they are ready for their sleep or they’re ready for their rest and parents are also contributing to these ideas as well during the day.
Cassandra Dinte, Director, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
Our biggest challenge as a service was getting everyone on board, knowing the individual child’s routine and stepping away from the traditional routines that were used in a toddler age group and not getting back into those routines as the children aged as they went through their development. So we focused on what was their routine at home and what would we do at the centre. We also found a lot of the infant children, families don’t have routine so we had to work with the families in close connection to get those routines into place.
Martin Bennett, Educational Leader, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
The challenge of staffing was quite interesting ‘cause within our room we have four staff, so it was bringing four people together under one umbrella to think in a similar way and to act in a similar way for the children’s sake.
Cassandra Dinte, Director, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
As part of the room we now have three areas in a studio: a playroom, a quiet room which is adjoined to our sleep room and our outdoor area. The children can free flow through those areas.
Martin Bennett, Educational Leader, NCC Early Learners Kallangur:
I have learnt that from six weeks to two years, children are more competent and capable than I’ve given them credit for.
Rhonda Livingstone, National Education Leader, ACECQA:
The best Quality Improvement Plans are developed collaboratively: educators, educational leaders, service leaders but importantly with children and families and the community as well.
Screen: Wynnum Family Day Care
Lisa Meyer, Coordinator, Wynnum Family Day Care:
We invited the whole team: the educators in the field, and the staff, the team in the office to come together and start investigating the new requirement for our sleep policy. We work as a team. Educators are in the field doing the day to day work and they’re the ones implementing the policy on the ground level so it’s really important for them to have a say and to feel like they can continue to give feedback and that our policies are a living document.
Nicole Kenny, Educational Leader, Wynnum Family Day Care:
Family day care has a mixed age group from babies up to children who (are) attending school so it’s really important to allow those children to follow their own sleep and rest routines throughout the day, whether that be at different times of day or whether they’re needing to use different places in the home.
Lisa Meyer, Coordinator, Wynnum Family Day Care:
We have given families the opportunity to make comment on the policy and we’re sharing, with each parent newsletter, some more information so that they can be well informed in time for the introduction of the new policy.
Lady Talking to Nicole Kenny, Educational Leader at Wynnum Family Day Care:
Nikki, I have a parent in my service that really insists on her little one wearing the ‘Amber’ necklace to bed. I know it’s in our policy to remove it during rest time. How can I take this up with the parent?
Nicole Kenny, Educational Leader, Wynnum Family Day Care:
Yeah, look have a chat to mum and be honest with her that is policy… (Inaudible background talking)
It’s very important for educators and families to have a discussion from the very beginning before care even starts about children’s individual routines and sleeping practices so that they’re on the same page and also importantly, children need to have some agency in their sleep and rest routines.
Lisa Meyer, Coordinator, Wynnum Family Day Care:
We really enjoyed being able to share the new resources from the Department of Education and Training around sleep practices and education and also the ACECQA guidelines into formulating a new policy and we have used the ‘Red Nose’ material as one of our key documents to share.
I think the new policy gives us an opportunity to expand our discussion and as much as the safety angle has been always present, it’s allowed us to move on and also talk about the quality of sleep being important in children’s everyday care.
Screen: C&K Bribie Island Community Kindergarten
Narelle Dawson, Director/Teacher, Bribie Island Community Kindergarten:
The one thing that inspired us to want to change, was just more research, learning more about children and their needs and especially children of kindergarten age. You know, putting that autonomy back onto the children for them to be able to make the decisions of what they feel their bodies need rather than educators deciding for them.
The children are exercising agency because they have choice. We speak with the children at the beginning of the year, we get to know them, we build relationships with the children. They get to decide what rest and relaxation needs to look like and we work around that. You will see children just relaxing and listening to music and maybe looking at something mesmerising up on a screen like fish. You will see some children having a quiet activity because that’s what they need at that particular time as well. You will see children on a mat outside with cushions. You will see children in a hammock if that’s what they would like to do. Or you might see someone sleeping, if that’s what they actually need as well.
If we have a child that’s not coping on the day, we may have a discussion with that child and it may be obvious that that child is tired and they are offered, you know, quiet, calm space to rest but that may not be at a designated rest time, that could be when they arrive in the morning if that’s what they need.
Traditionally, the old rest time was quite stressful and so now we’re actually doing what children want and what children are comfortable with. So it has freed us, really, from the stresses that came with doing the old way of doing rest time.
Rhonda Livingstone, National Education Leader, ACECQA:
My QIP tips would be to ensure that the goals and strategies implemented are meaningful, relevant, but most importantly achievable. It’s important not to have too many goals because you’re more likely to achieve success if you prioritise those goals.
Julia Burke, Support Services Officer, Centacare:
We’re very fortunate because there is now a lot of information regarding sleep, rest and relaxation available. My advice would be to look at that research, look at what your service is doing and then engage the stakeholders in your organisation, the parents, the children and the staff, so that you can develop a policy and procedure that works for you and your organisation.
Rhonda Livingstone, National Education Leader, ACECQA:
I think we’re good at acknowledging children’s successes and their achievements, and the Quality Improvement Plan is a really great way of documenting services’ achievements and I think it’s really important that we take time to celebrate those achievements.
Dr Sally Staton, NHMRC Research Fellow, UQ:
Developing a QIP in this area is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how we meet individual children’s needs for sleep, rest and relaxation. But of course this isn’t just about quality area 2, but indeed all areas of the National Quality Standard are relevant when we think about sleep, rest and relaxation.
A range of resources on sleep, rest and relaxation are now available on the Department of Education and Training website to support this process.
Screen: Resources are available from: https://det.qld.gov.au/earlychildhood. The University of Queensland Australia, Sleep: Sleep Learning for Early Education Professionals, QUT. @Copyright The University of Queensland 2017.
Screen: Many thanks to: NCC Early Learners Kallangur, Wynnum Family Day Care, C&K Bribie Island Community Kindergarten, Centacare, ACECQA, Produced by eMedia Production Services, LETS, TILS, QUT. Sleep: Sleep Learning for Early Education Professionals.
Concluding Screen: Queensland Government. The SLEEP Program is funded by the Queensland Government. Authorised by the Queensland Government, Brisbane. @ State of Queensland (Department of Education) 2018. Licenced under CC BY 4.0, with exception of the government coat of arms, graphics, images and sound (http://education.qld.gov.au/home/copyr.html).