Woodlands - Celebrations Policy
About this policy
Rituals or traditions contribute to a sense of community and belonging, as do celebrations that are handled sensitively. These can be valuable for children, families, and educators. Both the planning and preparation and the events themselves can be a satisfying and pleasurable experience.
National Quality Standard (NQS)
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Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice |
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1.1.1 |
Approved learning framework |
Curriculum decision making contributes to each child’s learning and development outcomes in relation to their identity, connection with community, wellbeing, confidence as learners, and effectiveness as communicators. |
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Quality Area 2: Children’s Health and Safety |
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2.1 |
Health |
Each child’s health and physical activity is supported and promoted. |
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2.1.3 |
Healthy Lifestyles |
Healthy eating and physical activity are promoted and appropriate for each child. |
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Quality Area 6: Collaborative partnerships |
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6.1.2 |
Parent views are respected |
The expertise, culture, values, and beliefs of families are respected and families share in decision-making about their child’s learning and wellbeing |
Related Policies
Scope
This policy applies to children, families, staff, management, and visitors of the Service.
Purpose
It is important when incorporating celebrations into a children’s services program to develop a plan about how these will occur. This will ensure that all celebrations are presented in a way that is responsive, organized, and relevant to families and children.
Celebrations can be as diverse as each of the children in a child care service. When incorporated into children’s services appropriately, celebrations can be used to bring people together, to create a feeling of belonging and to develop a sense of community amongst families, educators, and children. The incorporation of celebrations into children’s services programs can be an enriching experience for children, educators, and families.
If incorporated in a sensitive and respectful manner, celebrations can provide an opportunity for children to develop respect for diverse values and beliefs as they learn about practices that are different from their own.
It is important to develop strategies to enable you to gain information from families to be able to develop a picture of their culture. This information will support the development of appropriate and respectful celebrations. We gather this information through our:
- Enrolment forms
- Informal conversations
- Surveys
- Formal meetings with family members
Implementation
Nominated supervisor and Leader of Teaching and Learning will ensure:
- Celebrations are developed with a plan about how these will occur. They will ensure that all celebrations are presented in a way that is responsive, organized, and relevant to families and children.
- Self Reflection ‘Reflective practice’: Before implementing any plan it is important to spend time reflecting on your own values and beliefs. This will ensure that you are equipped to respond to any questions which may arise. Questions to prompt reflection include:
- What do you believe about celebrations for children? (How will you communicate this to those at your service?)
- How will you determine what celebrations are important to the children, Educators and families at your service? (Who and what are you going to ask?)
- What would you like celebrations to look like/feel like? What will you consider celebrating that you have not celebrated before?
- How can you make celebrations appropriate for children?
- Information Gathering and Consultation: There are many, varied ways to incorporate celebrations. If celebrations are inclusive of all children and families then it is only reasonable to expect that the way that they are implemented will vary from year to year as the profile of the families using the service changes. Celebration plans will therefore also be different every year. For a celebrations’ plan to be truly inclusive it must be reflective of the needs of children, families, Educators, and the wider community in which the service exists. The key to developing an inclusive celebration plan is ensuring that it is based on a sound knowledge of family, children, Educators’ and community needs. Information and consultation should occur with:
- Families
- Children
- Educators
- Local community members and organizations
- Other stakeholders within your service
- Implementation: Once you have gathered the information required to ensure that the plan will be responsive and inclusive of family, child, Educator, and community needs, a plan will need to be developed. All the information which you have gathered can then be transferred into this plan. When developing the plan, it is important to consider the logistics of actually implementing the celebrations. There are several things that may need to be incorporated. These include:
- Accessing resources (where will you go to get what you need)
- Promotion of the celebration (how will you promote the celebration)
- Flexibility to incorporate child-centered and child-initiated celebrations
- Time allocated (how long will the celebration go for)
- Flexibility ( how will ensure that children and families have a choice about how/ if they participate in the celebration)
- Holistic approach (how will you ensure that the celebration is reflected throughout the program in a developmentally appropriate manner)
- Commitment to creativity (how will you ensure that the celebration activities are not product-oriented)
- Ensuring the relevance of celebrations (how will you ensure that celebrations challenge stereotypes and assumptions).
- Critical Reflection: Careful, honest, and reflective evaluation of the celebrations plan is crucial in ensuring that the plan continues to develop and evolve. When evaluating a plan it is important to seek feedback from children, Educators, and families. It is also important to engage in self-reflection to ascertain if you were able to achieve your aims and aspirations. When evaluating the plan it is important to consider:
- Were the celebrations reflective of all families and children?
- Did families feel welcome to participate in celebrations?
- Was the time allocated to celebrations sufficient?
- Were experiences developmentally appropriate?
- Were appropriate alternatives offered for families who chose not to participate in celebrations?
- Did the children demonstrate increased awareness and respect for diverse values and beliefs?
- Was the program able to incorporate child-initiated celebrations?
- Were the resources needed for the celebrations adequate and appropriate?
- If you could do it all again what would you do differently? What have you learned about celebrations?
Educators will:
- Ensure children have the agency to make choices about the celebrations they would like to participate in
- Engage families to give advice on customs encouraging and supporting family members to be involved in sharing their customs and celebrations with your service
- Ensure that children have the resources and time necessary to be able to celebrate effectively
- Create an awareness of the celebration amongst the rest of the group
- Notify the wider child care community about the celebration e.g. taking photos to display on the service notice board, or displaying children’s artwork and drawings about the celebration
- Provide young children and toddlers with materials that reflect a significant event or celebration which they have recently participated in.
- provide opportunities for children to participate in ‘open-ended‘ celebration activities, for example, items can be added to a collage table to enable children who participate in Easter to create Easter baskets (if they choose to do so). For those children who do not celebrate Easter the same materials could be used as part of a general construction experience
- provide a flexible program which enables children to have agency about the activities which they participate in
- minimize tokenism
- celebrate traditions and customs which are relevant to your children and community
- ensure that the same amount of time and energy is dedicated to ALL celebrations
- inviting Educators and families to share their own personal experiences of celebrations
Source
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Review
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Date Reviewed |
Modifications |
Next Policy Review Date |
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January 2020 |
Branding and formatting changed to match others Persons Responsible amended to reflect service practices Related policy links added |
August 2020 |