Identity: The Early Childhood Profession
Assessment Context
Reports are useful forms of assessment in pre-service teacher education programs as they assess what you have learned from your readings, research and class discussions. They also enable you to develop report writing skills and undertake the type of research task that is widely used in the education work place.
Related Unit Learning Outcomes
This task is assessing your ability to demonstrate that you meet the criteria for the following unit learning outcomes. Students will be able to:
- Identify and analyse the complexities and characteristics of the early childhood profession.
- Discuss and critique contemporary trends, policies and movements in the profession within Australia and internationally.
- Investigate and describe the key legal obligations that impact the early childhood profession and their implications for teaching.
Scenario
You are a Director of a local government early childhood education setting and the council has asked you to write a report to inform them about the current state of the Australian early childhood profession as they are considering developing, funding, building and operating a new community-based early childhood service in the municipality. Your aim is to inform the council of the benefits and challenges of funding and supporting new education settings.
You are being asked to make choices about what would be included in such a report as you research and report on the state of the early childhood profession in Australia today. A typical report investigates, describes, and analyses information in a thorough and logical manner. This information is then presented in a clear report format. Some features which typify a report format include numbered sections and/or with headings, a contents page, information presented with images, tables, or diagrams, short paragraphs, and illustrations and examples to guide the reader.
Your report should include the following components:
Table of contents (Not included in word count)
- Create a table of contents in Word or similar processing program you are using. The latest version of Microsoft Office is free for students to download and the library offers courses about Word and education writing. Please refer to links in Canvas.
- The contents page should list the different sections and/or headings together with the page numbers.
- The table of contents lists the main sections (headings) of the report, and the page on which each begins. If your report includes tables, diagrams or illustrations, these are listed after the table of contents.
- Your contents page should be presented in such a way that the reader can quickly scan the list of headings and locate a particular part of the report through the page number.
- Whatever heading and/or numbering system you use make sure that the relationship with headings and sub-headings are clear and consistent.
Executive summary (Approximately 200 words)
- This is a short, clear summary of the vision of the whole report outlining who the report is for and what you are hoping to achieve with its creation (the purpose) and the summary of recommendations.
- Write a short draft outline of this when planning your report and then rewrite when you have completed the report, making sure you include any changes you made during the process.
Introduction and terms of reference: (Approximately 300 words)
- The introduction sets the scene for the main body of the report and described the content.
- Introduce the early childhood profession and provide a rationale explaining the relevance of teachers having an understanding of current trends, policies and movements impacting on the early childhood profession.
- Introduce and outline the key aspects of your report and any new terms with brief descriptions of each term in a ‘terms of reference’ section. You can also include explanations of the acronyms or abbreviations used in your report by creation a short glossary.
Main body of the report must include the following features (Approximately 2200 words)
- The main body of the report is where you discuss your key ideas, with supporting literature that describes the profession. Think carefully about what is relevant for your council audience.
- Use section headings and sub-headings where points are grouped and arranged in an order that is logical and easy to follow. You are able to use some bullet points to present a series of ideas in an easy-to-follow list, however this section should be mostly discussion. Remember this is not an essay.
- You can use images, photographs and diagrams to present your ideas and these must be labelled, and the headings included in your table of contents. They must also include clear descriptions of what they are and referenced with APA with in-text citations and in your reference list
- Use can use examples, illustrations, vignettes, quotes or case studies to guide the readers understandings of the report content. You do not have to include all of these in each section but make choices about how to report clear and engaging information.
Essential discussion points.
You may choose to extend with other ideas but these four points must be included:
- Discuss the characteristics and complexities of the early childhood profession including current strengths and challenges in Australia today.
- Identify trends and movements influencing ECE. Include at least one movement and one trend, however, you may choose to include more. Make sure to discuss and critique the trends, movements and policies in the Australian context and international contexts. For example, compare Australia with one or two other countries.
- Describe the key legal obligations and policies that impact the early childhood profession and their implications for teaching and service provision.
- Include a SWOT analysis that outlines why council should support and fund community based ECE services with 6-8 discussion points for each section (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).
Conclusion and recommendations (Approximately 300 words)
Recommendations are often included with a report’s conclusion, although they serve different purposes.
- A conclusion summarises or reviews your report’s main ideas
- Recommendations suggest actions to be taken in response to the findings of a report so your ideas to open a new centre
Effective recommendations could include
- Outline why the council should invest in quality early childhood services for the community.
- Describe a suggested course of action to be taken to solve a particular problem
- Are written as action statements without justification
- Are stated in clear, specific language in dot or numbered points
Reference list (Not included in word count)
- All sources used must be acknowledged with APA referencing throughout the report with in-text citations and the creation of a comprehensive reference list.
- A report often contains many references as you are reporting information. You will need to include a minimum of 15 references, but it is highly likely that you will include many more.
Appendices: (Not included in word count)
- This section is additional and not compulsory it can include supporting information that you cannot fit in the report.
Essential reading
- It is essential that you keep up to date with the readings and learning materials as the report structure is based on the weekly content throughout the unit.
- It would be wise to write detailed class notes of the class discussions and group activities, in addition to the readings as these have been designed to scaffold your learning for writing this report.
Assessment criteria
Your submission will be assessed against the following criteria:
- Descriptions of the characteristics of the early childhood profession
- Analysis of the complexities of the early childhood profession
- Knowledge and understanding of trends and movements
- Implications of legal obligations and policies
- Academic and English expression through professional report writing