2024 Our Culturally Responsive Year Wall Calendar

• All Educators

“It can be difficult with so much happening in your day to ensure you are effectively including cultural diversity into your everyday practice. It can sometimes feel like a checkbox thing rather than a part of a holistic program. This is the perfect prompt to keep us strengthening our focus on embedding cultural diversity into our room. The Cultural Calendar is a visual prompt of our reflections and responsiveness to ensure it is embedded into our programs and practices as an ongoing cycle without over complicating the documentation. It is perfect to capture photos, reflections, and the children even contribute to it. In a few minutes you can record how you have embedded cultural responsiveness into your programming and practice and have it openly displayed for families and children to continue reflective conversations and contribute to the program. It also made it easy to show evidence for Assessment and Rating by having key focus areas for our room displayed.” – Christine M., Early Childhood Teacher

The Culturally Responsive Calendar is a visual reminder to reflect on how you are embedding cultural responsiveness as a practice in your room and service while simply capturing your planning and reflections to share with families, update your Quality Improvement Plan, and show evidence for Assessment and Rating. It promotes a continuous cycle of planning and reflection for the year ahead. 

Quality area 1 of the Australian National Quality Standard (NQS) focuses on educational program and practice. Standard 1.1 ensures your program is guided by an Approved Learning Framework (ALF) to promote learning in relation to children’s identity and connection with community. Programs should be child-centred and include children’s culture as the foundation.

Quality areas 5 and 6 promote responsive and respectful relationships with children, families, and the community, that can only be achieved when your relationships are built through meaningful interactions and active involvement that includes celebrating expertise, culture, values, and beliefs.

A recent review of Approved Learning Frameworks has highlighted changes to strengthen the connection between Learning Frameworks and the National Quality Standard in Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing. The review aims to increase the recognition of the role of early learning services including OSHC in advancing reconciliation. These changes include, strengthening Indigenous “perspectives throughout the frameworks including the vision, principles, practices, and outcomes” and moving from cultural competence to cultural responsiveness.

Combing cultural responsiveness with effective pedagogies requires considering;

• Language acquisition
• Continuity of learning
• Relationships and partnerships with professionals, and
• Family and community learning environments

* considerations and terms of reference included in Discussion Paper: 2021 National Quality Framework Approved Learning Frameworks Update, August 2021

• LO1: Children have a strong sense of identity
  • 1.1 Children feel safe, secure, and supported
  • 1.2 Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and agency
  • 1.3 Children develop knowledgeable, confident self identities and a positive sense of self-worth
• LO2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
  • 2.1 Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens
  • 2.2 Children respond to diversity with respect
  • 2.3 Children become aware of fairness
  • 2.4 Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment
• LO3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
  • 3.1 Children become strong in their social, emotional and mental wellbeing
  • 3.2 Children become strong in their physical learning and wellbeing
  • 3.3 Children are aware of and develop strategies to support their own mental and physical health and personal safety
• LO4: Children are confident and involved learners
  • 4.1 Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity
  • 4.2 Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching, and investigating
  • 4.3 Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another
• LO5: Children are effective communicators
  • 5.1 Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes
  • 5.2 Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from those texts
  • 5.3 Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media
  • 5.4 Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work

Download our Compliance Information Factsheet (next tab) designed to support you in identifying, reflecting on, and documenting how your service operations and practices are linked to frameworks, NQS, theorists, developmental milestones, and exceeding themes.

• We ship via courier and Australia Post and we have used our shipping discounted rate to be able to offer you a flat rate of only $13.99 Australia Wide (International freight is by weight) for your parcel size and shipping address.
  
• We generally process in-stock orders the same or next day and they should be shipped to you within 1-4 days depending on your location. Our current year products have a week lead time.
  
• Our other Soon to be In-Stock products mean that we are expecting stock, we can have preorders to you in 4-12 days depending on the item.
  
  
• The default instruction is "Authority to Leave". If they are unable to leave the parcel, the item may be left at the nearest post office or returned back to base.
  
  
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• If you require a signature upon delivery please let us know in the notes. This is not possible with all types of deliveries but we will let you know if not, and you may have to pay extra for this feature.
  
  
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We will accept returns for any reason as long as the merchandise is in perfect resalable condition in its original protective packaging and the goods are returned within 90 days after your delivery.

If you would like a replacement sent, please make a new order and then proceed to your account page to request the refund. Then we will give you your refund when we receive the returned goods. 

• We will pay for return postage within Australia as long as you return the parcel in its original or similar packaging using the label we will supply to you after you fill out the form. Please note, orders outside Australia are not eligible for paid return postage and will be at your cost.
  
  
• If you have the original packing slip, highlight your returned item/s and include it in your return. Otherwise, just a note with your order number, name and centre will be fine.
• Once we receive the returned item/s we will issue the refund. We do not refund the original postage cost, only the price of the goods paid including any discounts.
  
  
• All refunds will be provided as a credit to the credit card, PayPal account or other payment method (eg AfterPay) used at the time of purchase within ten (10) business days upon receipt of the returned merchandise. Alternatively, you can opt to choose store credit or direct deposit into your bank.
  
  
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REQUEST THE REFUND IN YOUR ACCOUNT AREA