early childhood education conference Archives - Early Learning Childhood Education

27/10/201628/10/2016

Four Reasons Why Professional Development is a Must

When it comes to professional development, we are huge advocates of ongoing professional development training that involves the whole team.

Of course, it’s not always possible to send the whole team along to conferences. However, we still believe that by sending along one or a couple of members of your staff you can reap the benefits and continue the professional development for educators and your centre.

So why do we think professional development conferences are so valuable? Here’s just four of the many reasons why it just might be worthwhile sending some members of your staff along to an upcoming Educational Leaders and Early Childhood Managers conference:

LEARN

It’s an obvious one, but there is absolutely no doubt that any member of your team who attends a conference is going to learn something. And what they learn will only be maximised by making sure you offer the right conference opportunities to the right people. There has to be a willingness to learn, and as we discuss later, the ability to share what you learn.

NETWORK

Who knows when a fantastic opportunity will pop up? What we can say with a degree of confidence is that fantastic opportunities are likely to pop up at places like conferences – large gatherings of like-minded professionals coming together to learn and share. What better place for your team to network and find new opportunities for your centre to explore.

GET INSPIRED

No matter how much anyone loves his or her job, there are times when we all need a boost to motivate us. Conferences can offer a huge amount of inspiration, especially if the right people attend the right conference at the right time. Empowering the leaders in your centre by sending them along is a really effective approach. Speakers often come from all corners of the globe with insights to share about approaches to early childhood education.

SHARE AND MOTIVATE

We’ve mentioned it a couple of times already – send the right people who are willing to learn and willing to share. This is crucial to maximise the return on investment. Through effective note-taking and resource gathering, hopefully, the team member/s who do attend will be able to convey what they learn to your team, making it all the more worthwhile.

So there you have it. Four reasons why you should consider professional development for your team, even if you don’t send the entire team along every time.

The results speak for themselves:

“It was fantastic & a pleasure to have attended! Thank you, Galina & also Alina for sharing your
knowledge & passion. You are both extremely inspirational people.” – Victoria Petka

“What an informative conference. Certainly, each single attendee walked out with many strategies to improve not only children’s wellness but also their own. Looking forward to more and more of these conferences by the Duolinas. “ – Bama Ganesan

“Thank you to Galina and Alina, your names together are a mouthful but you are
an inspiration team to listen too.” – Georgie Kincaid

“Wonderful day Alina Dan and Galina thank you! Plenty of
energy in the room from fellow leaders!” – Tracey Yeomans

If you’re in the vicinity of Newcastle, you’re in luck. Internationally renowned early childhood presenter and business developer Alina Dan has teamed up with multi-award winning educator Galina Zenin again for Wellness Works! The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference.

Because we know it’s a big commitment to send a whole team to a conference, this event is specifically designed for leaders and managers from centres to attend. Wellness Works is a professional development opportunity that has delivered real results for educators, children and for centres.

Details:

Date: Monday 14 November, 2016

Time: 9.30am – 3.30pm

Price: From $167.45

Tickets: Wellness-Works-Newcastle-Tickets

Hopefully we will see your leaders and managers at this upcoming event and you too can enjoy the excellent outcomes delivered by Wellness Works.

29/09/201629/09/2016

Amazing results in centres – and an exciting announcement

early childhood professional development

There are many centres across Australia running our Bonkers Beat Music and Wellbeing programs. And the management and educators at each and every one of those centres get the opportunity to attend two Wellness Summits each year. These Wellness Summits are early childhood professional development days exclusively open to centres who are Bonkers Beat members.

Taking place in summer and winter, the Wellness Summits head to each state so teams don’t need to worry about traveling – or missing out.

Our Winter Wellness Summits 2016 have just finished up, so this is the time to reflect, summarise and share feedback from our participants. Now is also the time to get ready for a BIG announcement about our keynote speaker for Summer 2017.

More Children, Motivated Educators, Engaged Parents

Reflecting on the success of the recent Bonkers Beat Wellness Summits and Bonkers Beat Program progress over the last seven months, many centres who implemented Bonkers Beat programs have noticed that:

Their occupancy increased by 18% (some centres reached full capacity!)
The attitude of their educators has improved, leading to a more positive culture
Educators became more confident and competent using music and wellbeing experiences with children
Parents became more engaged, leading to an increase in participation
Children have improved a vast range of skills and can’t stop singing and dancing at home
Parents are raving about centre programs and are spreading the good word to other parents!

Improved NQS Rating, Saved Thousands on Professional Development

We also found that most centres have improved all seven areas of the National Quality Standard and some centres have even achieved a higher rating.

Last, but not least, the owners and management have provided their entire team the most comprehensive and practical training, which has saved them over $23,000 within one year!

Another Successful Early Childhood Conference

We were thrilled with all our speakers this year. At the Wellness Summits we had the honour of providing three of Australia’s leading parenting and education experts, public speakers and authors Kathy Walker, Shona Bass and Kerrie O’Neill, who is also a founding committee member of the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange.

We were also delighted to bring to the Summits some of the best wellbeing experts who gave us inspirational and practical strategies to enhance children’s and our personal wellness.

In summary, we were overwhelmed with the results and are proud of the practical and inspiring professional development training that we have provided to these incredible teams.

Benefits to Educators

In summary, the benefits to educators included:

Gaining a vast range of practical skills
Learning new songs and games
Learning new wellbeing strategies
Discovering new ways of documentation
Bonding as a team
Meeting many other likeminded, passionate educators

“The Bonkers Beat Winter Summit is so different… hands-on, engaging, participations that can be implemented into the service and into the program, real topics that are relevant to educators in centre, broken up with activities. One of the best things was to learn and incorporate Bonkers Beat into the program, the explorations, Kerrie O’Neill was engaging, fantastic, provocative and inspiring!” – Troy Murphy, Room Leader – Billy Bear Preschool and Long Day Care Centre

Benefits to Management

The benefits to management included:

Connecting with management from other centres
Discussing ideas for effective marketing, meaningful documentation, motivation and strategies for retaining quality staff

“Practical…Meaningful…Engaging! Kerrie O’Neill’s presentation on documentation and of course Galina’s presentation of the songs were fabulous – just not long enough!” – Kay Doyle, Approved Provider, Bachelor ECE – The Forest Childcare Centre

To find out more about what management and educators thought of the Wellness Summits, click here.

Currently we’re working on many projects that will enrich centres and will be announced before the end of 2016. We look forward to continuing this exciting journey together.

If you’d like to learn how your centre can join us, simply email info@bonkersbeat.com. While we only offer a limited number of spots across the country within our Bonkers Beat Programs, we do have some availability.

Here’s the BIG news!

Our next speaker for Summer Wellness Summits 2017 will be National and International Early Childhood presenter and renowned Early Childhood Business Developer, Alina Dan.

Alina will give a very clear, concise and empowering presentation about documentation, the role, responsibilities and goals every Educational Leader and Manager should know about.

Summer Wellness Summit Dates 2017

Melbourne: February 11 2017

Sydney: February 25 2017

Brisbane: March 4 2017

Mark these dates in your calendar now and get ready for a big adventure in 2017. Don’t miss out!

If you’re centre is not currently a Bonkers Beat member, you can find out how to join us by emailing info@bonkersbeat.com – there’s still time to sign up and have your entire team attend our Summer Wellness Summit in 2017.

Not to be confused with the recent (and fantastic!) Wellness Works! Early Childhood Leaders Conference, which was a ticketed event, the Wellness Summits are early childhood professional development sessions only open to centres with membership to the Bonkers Beat Music and Wellbeing program.

For all centres running Bonkers Beat within their curriculum, please remember that the Wellness Summit is a 1-day event for your entire team to attend together with NO additional costs, fees, tickets – it’s all included in your Bonkers Beat membership!

Can’t wait to see you all again soon!

21/07/201622/07/2016

Revealed: The Top 3 Challenges Faced by Early Childhood Educators

On July 12 the very first Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference took place in Melbourne… And what a fantastic success it was!

In the lead up to the Melbourne event, we did some research to find out exactly what challenges in early childhood education were coming up for educators, leaders, managers and owners working in the field. The reason for this was to ensure that the conference addresses what you really want and need from your early childhood professional development. We asked many centres to share their top three challenges, and it’s safe to say there was a theme in the responses!

Top 3 Challenges in Centres

Here are the top 3 challenges in early childhood education that we identified after reviewing responses from a range of centres. These are challenges that are faced on a daily or regular basis by educators, room leaders, management and owners.

Motivation

Many centres find they have difficulties with motivating their teams – from getting them motivated initially, to keeping them motivated. This is a priority at Wellness Works and is addressed thoroughly. Our approach is through empowering and motivating the leaders in the centre as the basis of improving motivation levels across the team. Our tactics and tips are foolproof…

Transitions

If you’re like the vast majority of the educators we heard from, transitions continue to cause stress and are a great source of frustration in centres. We’ve been careful to focus on this area and deliver practical ways for your centre to tackle transitions. You will even find them enjoyable…!

Documentation

How do we document a child’s learning, how do we maintain adequate – even excellent – standards for our centre’s documentation without it being a job too big to handle? Documentation is a hot topic for early childhood and we set out to improve your understanding of documentation and make sure it is no longer a huge challenge for you and your centre.

Do these challenges sound all too familiar? Not to worry –Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference comes to Sydney on July 26 and Brisbane on July 28. Both Galina and Alina (or the Duolinas as they’ve been dubbed!) are really excited. If you’re coming along to Wellness Works, you should be excited too! (And if you haven’t got your seats organised yet, you’re in luck as there are still a couple of places available for Sydney and Brisbane – be quick and get them here!)

What Early Childhood Professionals are Saying

Here’s what just a few of the Melbourne Wellness Works attendees had to say about the event:

“Thank you today was very enjoyable. I have RSI I took so many notes!”
– Mandy, Joseph Avenue ELC

“Great opportunity. I feel empowered to take back to a team. Loved the songs and games”
– Rebecca

“This PD was fantastic, all the info was great, very engaging and fun”
– Jessica, Aberdeen Street ELC

Join us at Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference and let’s break down your challenges in early childhood education and address them together.

Featuring the engaging and experienced early childhood experts, Galina and Alina, this just might be the best professional development session you attend this year!

23/06/201624/06/2016

Don’t Wait For Change – CREATE Change

Too often we spend time waiting and hoping for change. This applies to life in general, but today we are specifically referring to early childhood education providers.

You might have recently read our blog about leadership and how important it is to have leaders who are inspiring. With this in mind, many managers, owners, directors and educational leaders have asked – how do we use our leadership positions to make positive change?

You can be a leader, you can inspire those around you, but how do you create real change that will benefit your team, your families, your centre and most importantly the quality of care and education you provide to children?

When it comes to professional development, we are huge advocates of ongoing training and training that involves your whole team. However, for true change to take place, the leaders in your centre need to take charge and lead the way. This is why it is crucial to have professional development that focuses solely on management and educational leaders.

This is why Galina Zenin and Alina Dan have joined forces to deliver just that. Introducing, the upcoming event ‘Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference’.

Galina recently attended a conference in Chicago in the USA that was dedicated to leadership and was tailored to specifically address the issues and challenges that are unique to management and to educational leaders. Inspired, she has teamed up with early childhood business development expert Alina Dan to deliver an event that is tailored to the leaders – to inspire them to inspire their teams.

The simple fact is, change won’t happen unless the leaders – the management – make it happen. And to make it happen, you need the right tools. Wellness Works provides practical tools that WILL equip management and educational leaders to bring about positive change in early childhood education and real results.

If an Early Childhood Education Revolution sounds like a breath of fresh air, take a look at the flier for Galina and Alina’s July conference below. You can even reserve your spot right now by emailing info@bonkersbeat.com.