[On-screen text: Best Start, Best Life Evening Leadership Series. Thursday 1 May 2024. 6.00pm to 7.15pm. Melbourne Museum, Carlton.]
[A man with a suit and pink shirt stands behind a lectern at the front left of a room. To his left there is a projector screen. Behind him are two light blue banners. In front of him a small crown are sitting on chairs.]
Man Okay. Good evening, everybody. If everyone wants to grab a seat, if you're here with us in person tonight, we will make a start.
[shot moves to the man at the lectern with banners behind him]
Man My name's Luke Bo'sher and I am the Assistant Deputy Secretary, Kindergarten Expansion and Pre‑Prep Reform in Early Childhood Education. It is my real pleasure to be here with you tonight as your MC for our Evening Leadership Series event. This evening we were looking forward to Uncle Colin Hunter Jr to provide a Welcome to Country. Unfortunately Uncle Colin has come down unwell this afternoon and isn't able to be with us tonight. We would like to pass on our best wishes to Uncle Colin Hunter Jr for his recovery and hope he is feeling better soon. I would like to start by acknowledging we're meeting on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation here at the Melbourne Museum and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I would also like to acknowledge all of the First Nations educators, teachers and other professionals that are joining us here for the Evening Leadership Series today. I pay my respects to them. I want to particularly acknowledge the work that our First Nations educators and teachers do in teaching our youngest Victorians and acknowledge that traditional owners and First Nations people have been teaching children on these lands for 60,000 years, passing down knowledge and culture and teaching children about the lands that they live on. In this role I've been really fortunate to visit some of our Aboriginal community‑controlled services run by ACCOs across the State and have always been blown away by their generosity in sharing culture both with Aboriginal children in their services but also with non‑Aboriginal children. Really want to acknowledge the fantastic work of our First Nations educators that are joining us here tonight. So for tonight's event we have a very star‑studded line‑up of people talking to us about making change through the Best Start, Best Life reform journey that we are all on here in Victoria. This is the third of the events that we've been running since 2004 and today is certainly the largest of our events with many people joining us today online as well as a group here at the Melbourne Museum. Thanks for all of you taking time out of your day to be with us and to hear more from experts, from practitioners about making change in services. Let's talk a little bit about what we've got in store for tonight. Our theme for today is Leading Change Together. We all know that we're in a period of significant change here in Victoria in the way that we deliver kindergarten services to children, and the purpose of today is really to hear from experts and also from practitioners about their experience in leading change in organisations, and helping you, whatever your role might be, in the early childhood system, to support change to deliver better outcomes for children. To officially open our event tonight I'm really pleased that The Hon. Nathan Lambert is here with us to provide some opening comments for our day today. We will then hear from the Department of Education's Deputy Secretary, Bronwen FitzGerald, who is going to talk to us about the reforms that are being rolled out and some of the resources that we can support you with as you go through your change journey. We're also very fortunate to have Joce Nuttall, Executive Dean Education, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, who has joined us all the way from New Zealand to share some of her expertise with us here today. And then we will finish today's session with a panel of practitioners from across different types of services around the State, who have all been making change in their services, and are here to share with us how they've gone about their change journey. So without further ado I will hand over to Nathan Lambert, the Parliamentary Secretary for Children, to provide an opening for us today.
[Applause]
[Shot moves to Luke Bo’sher leaving the lectern and Nathan Lambert approaches the lectern. He is earing a suit, white shirt and tie.]
Nathan Lambert Thank you, Luke. And it's an absolute pleasure to be here this evening for the Best Start, Best Life at the Melbourne Museum, I think about 50 or so of us here. It feels like a relatively small intimate crowd. Then in your mind when you say that you envision 500 people listening to you. I'm very glad we've got a fantastic turnout both online and here. As Luke has said, unfortunately always great to catch up with Uncle Colin Hunter Jr, unable to join us here this evening but I would like to echo Luke's remarks about First Nations educators and the vital role they have played and continue to play and also to acknowledge that I'm lucky, as the Member for Preston and Reservoir to meet on Wurundjeri land and I extend my respects to Elders past and present and of course to all First Nations people who are with us this evening and I might take the opportunity to just plug, if you like, something we've been discussing in our part of the world because some of you might know that Travis Lovett, one of the Royal Commissions, Deputy Commissioner, is organising a walk for truth. He came up our way on the weekend to do a training session. What he and his team are doing are walking from Portland, where colonisation began in Victoria, all the way to Parliament where they intend to take the stories and some of the truth‑telling work they've done and advocate, of course, for the important positive change for our society that their work is doing, and that walk will take them from Portland through Warrnambool, of course, Colac, Geelong and up to the steps and into the Parliament and I just ‑ I know perhaps some of the people online may be in those towns, some of you may have come up here tonight from some of them, I grew up in Geelong myself and hoping to join Travis for the Geelong leg. I thought I would plug that initiative, not an initiative of the Victorian Government but how the justice commission does independently and something they have chosen to do their work. My role is to open the conference as the Parliamentary Secretary for children. In that role I work very closely with Minister Blandthorn, the Minister for Children. We of course get to work with the fantastic team in the Department of Education, all working for Acting Secretary Tony Bates but we're always grateful for the work they've done but I think this particular work that they have done bringing people together to hear from experts but also have the opportunity to talk to each other about how things might be happening in your centres and in your early childhood facilities, I think you can't underestimate the value of that and there's sometimes a tendency in government to think, "We'll just tell people things" without remembering the great value of letting people talk to each other. I want to thank Bronwen, Luke, Eugenia, all the team who have organised tonight's event. I know there's some wonderful speakers on the speaking list and panellists but I will leave them to be thanked later on. But the second thing I wanted to do was just touch on the Victorian Government's priorities in the early childhood or in the children's portfolio. And I think in the time I've been involved and really since Premier Allan took over 18 months or so ago now, in September ‑ yeah, September of 2023, we've had I think very positively a sort of very stable and clear vision for what it is we're trying to do in the children's portfolio. I will speak through that. I do apologise that one effect of having a very stable thing is those of you who have perhaps been at other events I've been at or the Minister's been at will hear exactly the same things but we think it's very important to keep telling it is the things we are doing to enable us to have the dialogue with all of you about how it's working and where we go to from here. There's sort of been two key parts to it. One is that Premier Allan when she first took on the role created the children's portfolio in its current arrangement. That was very much with the view of bringing together that part of our work with children that sat within the Health Department and MCH, bringing together that part which was early childhood and early childhood education that sat with the Department of Education, and finally the component that it sat within Family Services and child protection, ensuring that the good work that had been done over many years to make sure those parts talked to each other and worked well with each other was continued and that we kept looking at ways we could further make them work well together. And that was very much part of the Premier's priorities because she had heard it from people like you who are working and we understand that it is not always the case but perhaps particularly the case sometimes with some children who are in more vulnerable and more complex circumstances that it is particularly important those bits work together. The Premier heard that and that was very much part of the conversation she had with me that we must think about how we make sure we're doing that best. The second big sort of component of the reforms is the Best Start, Best Life reforms to kindergarten in particular, fundamentally ensuring and ensuring that more children in Victoria go to kinder for more often and we do that primarily, of course, because that is beneficial for the child and we know that that structured kindergarten is good for them and it is a source, I think, of tremendous pride and excitement to us that there are more children doing kindergarten, many more children doing three‑year kindergarten and doing it more often now. It also does reflect the broader economic environment we're in whereas a government we're very proud of having record levels of women's participation in the workforce and of course those reforms allow women and families to have additional choice in terms of how they structure care and kindergarten. I won't sort of tick through all the stats on it but I suppose many of you will be very familiar with how it's rolling out. But just looking forward to what we've got coming next year and Bronwen I hope I've got this right, pre‑pep will expand to 12 more councils, some of the growth areas where it will be rolled out, and also in particular certain cohorts I think First Nations children, those who have had contact with child protection system and I think refugee children, yeah, will also have it rolled out to them next year. That will be kind of the reasons for the two key reforms I've just explained to you. That will be a very important period to ensure these reforms are doing what we hope they will do. That brings me to two final points this evening. The first of those is we can't do this without your feedback. I know the Premier is very committed to listening to people on these reforms. So we certainly are in centres talking to committees and management, talking to centre directors, talking to educators and staff, probably every second day, if not every day this week, every week we're doing that in order to get the feedback because we're very conscious that it is always the case when you have a large reform that there is a lot to think about, and there are always a lot of different consequences, a lot of different aspects you have to make work to get the entire thing to work. If I can leave you with an ask tonight, the ask is just if there is anything in the body of reforms you think we need to be thinking about more let us know. We're certainly having those conversations. Every day that feedback is helping us make sure the reforms achieve what we would like them to do. The final thing I will say is thank you. All of us I think who have young children, you know, it is for everyone, I think, quite a moment when you first take your child and hand them over to someone else and know you are not going to see them for hours, and you are always so grateful for all of the amazing stuff that we have in our early childhood sector but I think we're all particularly grateful ‑ I certainly say this personally for those incredible staff members who are not only doing their job in a great way all day but are thinking about the bigger system, thinking about where the sector is going, thinking about how they can improve their practice, like what is best, and I know that everyone here tonight is exactly one of those people and we are on behalf of all Victorians who have children in your care and children who are learning from you, we are very grateful. Thank you.
[Applause]
Luke Bo’sher ‑ Great. Thank you very much for those opening comments, Nathan. I really want to take a moment to reiterate what you were saying about the importance of the work about early childhood workforce and you also touched on those three priority cohort groups who will also be getting access to pre‑prep in 2026 and what a fantastic part of the reform that children who are likely to benefit most from more hours of kindergarten will get that access from next year. I know many people on tonight's call and on our session tonight have been thinking carefully about how do we make sure that in 2026 in our service where we have children who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders that have been in contact with the child protection system, or are refugee and asylum seekers how to make sure our program offering to them in 2026 is the most high quality impactful experience they can have with these additional hours of pre‑prep. So thanks for highlighting that, Nathan. To talk more about our reform journey and some of the supports that are available to help you I'm really pleased to welcome Bronwen FitzGerald, Deputy Secretary, Early Childhood Education in the department.
[Applause]
Bronwen Fitzgerald - Thanks, Luke. Thank you, Nathan, for your comments too. And good evening, everyone. I would also like to respectfully acknowledge traditional owners of this land, Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay my respects to Elders past and present, extend that respect to Aboriginal colleagues in the room and online, and, yeah, echo the points that both Luke and Nathan have made about Aboriginal people on this land being first educators and first nurturers of children for a very, very long time. So I'm quite conscious that I am standing between the main act of the night, but I wanted to start by sharing three reflections about change. I mean, because change management and change journeys are the topic of the evening. And the three I will run through those three reflections quickly and then hand over to the magnificent Joce and our fabulous panel, Michelle, Tiffany and Lisa. Before I do that, though, I do want to say thank you for making the time to be here for those here inperson to be here inperson but also dialling in online. We run these sessions in the evening very deliberately. We know what your days are like. We know that running something at a time when you're not on the floor makes it more possible for you to engage. But we also want to acknowledge that everyone at this time of night has other things they could be doing. And the fact that you're here and that you're dialling in shows that you're brought in and you're committed and you're curious. So thank you for that, too, for your commitment as well as for your time. So I will run through the three things I wanted to say quickly. The first one, I will be blunt about it, change is hard. It feels difficult. It can sometimes feel overwhelming. It is not always clear where to start or what the path will be. And I guess I wanted to offer two reassurances to you about that hardness. The first thing is that you're not wrong to feel that it's hard. It is hard. It is objectively difficult. But you're not alone. Everyone across our sector is on a change journey at the moment. The pace and intensity of that journey for different services is different because the roll out has different impacts at different times. People's starting points and communities are different as well. But everyone is navigating change in some way at the moment. So there's solidarity in that and there's real opportunity to hear from one another and learn from the collective wisdom, you know, the hive mind of this beautiful sector. Secondly, on that you have already shown you can do it. You've embraced change many times before and you've got to a changed skill set already. You might not have called it that but there is a change skill set that you're holding. Just by way of example, just think about the roll out of threeyearold kindergarten. That's a change journey that's about five years old now. I can't believe it's five years. It feels like a second. But it's five years now. And now across Victoria, most providers are already offering 15 hours of their services and the ones that aren't are getting close. I think five years ago that felt enormous. So I would encourage you all to kind of stop and take a moment and celebrate how far look behind you and celebrate how far you and your service have travelled. And look further back to introduction of the NQF, universal access, child safe standards. This sector is good at change. Can do it. Has great skill set. Don't forget that when you are embarking on your change journey. And, you know, although the changes feel like a big leap at the beginning, what we've observed is that services across Victoria, professionals across Victoria, have taken those change steps with integrity, with professionalism and always with the most important thing which is that clear focus on outcomes for children. Second thing I wanted to say is that change is worth it. Yes, it's hard but it's worth it. You know, as Nathan said, you know, these reforms matter. They will transform things for children and also for their families. The move to preprep means giving children that gift of time, more time with educators and with teachers. It means more time to deepen the learning, to tailor your teaching to where children are at, to elevate and extend your intentional teaching practice, and this is so relevant to next year, for children in priority cohorts who will receive between 16 and 25 hours of preprep next year, this is a huge opportunity to work more deeply with those children and with their families to get them to know both the children and their families better. And I think sitting behind all of that, these changes are a sign of the increased respect and value that our community have for this sector. So while it's hard, it is also a recognition that the community's perspectives about our sector is changing too and that's special. The third thing is the nice thing, I suppose, that we do change together. Change doesn't come in a sort of onesizefitsall model. It is not how the sector works. The way that your service changes to deliver reforms will depend on where you're starting, what your community is, what's right for your team. You have choices and options to weigh up, and work through with your team, and with your wider family community. But even though change might look different at each service and different for different professionals, you're not doing this alone. You're doing it with each other but you're also doing it with as much support as we can provide you. There are many resources and supports available and people to kind of step through the journey with you and this is where I do my little spruik section. The change management toolkit which has been developed with Joce is available. There is a QR code on screen there.
[On-screen text: Change Management Toolkit. Expanding your early childhood education programs. QR code to: https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-01/change-management-toolkit.pdf]
Please make use of it. It is a really, really helpful and accessible resource. Also online as well if you fail to get the code, but please, please take a look at it and please share with your colleagues as well. It's designed for everyone. We've also released a program modelling guide, which is a bit technical and nerdy but extremely helpful, that helps services begin planning for delivery of pre‑prep over time. We've also published a new multi‑lingual guide and Hello Kinder resource which complement the new engaging with multi‑lingual families with kindergarten interactive modules available through FK children services on their website. If you are an educational leader or aspiring to be an ed leader I would encourage you to register for the Victorian educational leadership program. It is a 10 week microcredential and registrations for term 3 are now open. I don't think you will find that through that QR code but if you Google that you will find the details you need. So they're the specific kind of resources and materials, but there's also something broader I want to say. Our early childhood improvement branches ‑ and there are some folks here who are representing ‑ they offer you tailored support. They can help you with whatever it is you're handling at the moment. Please don't hesitate to reach out. They can also help you connect with other services who might be like you, and who might be at a different stage in their change journey and might have wisdom to offer you that's unique to your circumstances. They can also connect you to the area leadership forums and the learning networks. And another plug ‑ I don't know if this is going to go up on the screen ‑ Luke, magic fingers changing the slides there ‑ I encourage you just to subscribe to our early childhood update newsletter.
[On-screen text: EC Update – Subscribe to the Early Childhood Update e-newsletter. QR code to: https://www.vic.gov.au/early-childhood-update]
That's where you can hear first about the release of new resources, supports, current information. Follow that link on the screen and subscribe and you'll get those monthly updates. And, of course, the thing ‑ as Nathan says, the thing that honestly is most useful, there's no real substitute for professionals talking to professionals. So that's what this is all about, bringing people together so you can hear from people who have, in one way or another, been there, done that, and who have collected wisdom along the way and who are generously sharing that with you tonight. So one final thought before I go is just that we talk. We use change as a term and change management quite a lot. I encourage you to think about change as an evolution where you have agency. You have options and choices about what will work best for your team, for your service, for your community. And you've got the ability to plan with time. So keep those things in mind as you contemplate your path ahead. I hope we can leave you with some new ideas and maybe some new links and resources and new connections as you go back and reflect on how you will build your change journey in your service. But for now, I'd like to introduce our keynote speaker, Joce Nuttall ‑ sorry, Professor Joce Nuttall. I didn't give you the appropriate respect. Joce Nuttall, Executive Dean Education, University of Canterbury, New Zealand in Christchurch which I have to say is an excellent title, Executive Dean, and is well known to many of you, I'm sure. She has more than 40 years of experience as a teacher, leader, researcher in early childhood and primary education and this topic is her wheelhouse. She's a stone cold legend and an absolute delight. Please join me in welcoming Joce to speak. Thank you.
[Applause]
[Woman with glasses, short hair and a brown dress approaches lectern]
Joce Nuttall‑ Hello to everyone in the room and gidday to everyone who is online. I too would like to extend my respects to Elders past and present and to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the first nation and first people of the land where we work and a big... to the Kiwis in the room and online. I can't resist. Thank you for that lovely introduction, Bron. Not feeling any pressure. But I do want to thank you, Bron as Deputy Secretary and to thank the department for the invitation to be here and speak with you this evening. It's been a huge privilege and a pleasure to collaborate with colleagues in the kindergarten expansion and pre‑prep reform division on the change management toolkit.
[On-Screen Text: Implementing the BSBL reforms: the role of centre leaders. Presentation to the Best Start Best Life Evening Leadership Series. 1 May 2025.
Professor Joce Nuttall. joce.nuttall@canterbury.ac.nz]
If you didn't get the QR code this is what it looks like. It is now available to you all. Thinking about the key messages from my research into leadership and early childhood education, and how to translate those messages for use in centres, honestly, it's been one of the most satisfying experiences of my career and I thank the department for the opportunity to do this work and I really look forward to your feedback on the toolkit and how you're using it and how the toolkit is supporting you to lead change in your services in the midst of the reforms.
[On-Screen Text: Our research into how leaders develop centre practices. 1.How to think about change in early childhood centre practices. 2. What leaders do to foster effective change]
So this evening I've been asked to share my thinking about how you can proactively engage with your teams, your colleagues and the wider sector, and the department to implement change that benefits children, families and the Victorian community. This is the core work of leaders at every level during the Best Start, Best Life reforms. I want to do this by sharing with you two sets of key messages from my 15 years of research into the work of effective leaders and early childhood education. As I go, I'll touch on how these key messages have been woven into the fabric of the change management toolkit. The first set of messages relates to how to think about practices in early childhood services so that the quality of provision can improve. Leaders have a powerful role in shaping teaching practice but this is difficult to do unless you know how to pay attention to what educators are already doing. The second set of messages follows from the first. These messages are about what effective leaders do in early childhood education to foster the development of practice.
[On-Screen Text: How to think about practice change. 1.What are these people working on? What are they trying to achieve? 2.What materials and concepts are informing their work? How are these changing and developing? 3.What rules are guiding their work? Which rules need to be broken? 4.What are they doing that stops them from succeeding? Where are the tensions in everyday practice?]
So here are four questions to help you think about practice change. First of all, you need to be clear about what everyone's trying to achieve. You might think everyone is united around delivering high quality curriculum. But what are educators actually working on? Are they working on the same things? Often, educators are focused on supporting children's positive behaviours, keeping the centre routines moving and, of course, these are core aspects of the early childhood curriculum. But what else are your educators doing? For example, educators can spend a lot of time and energy managing their relationships with each other. That's also important work. But not as important as focusing on the learning and development of the children. Secondly, do you know how key materials such as the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework are influencing your educators? We expect educators to be qualified because during their studies they learn a host of new concepts that are important for making sense of their work. But are these materials and concepts moving with the times? What does the curriculum framework actually mean to your team? Do key concepts from the framework have an agreed meaning in your service? Have you explored these meanings together? Third, all workplaces are guided by rules. Are the rules of your workplace clear to everyone? Often these rules are unspoken, and have a really long history. You might not even notice you have them until a new educator joins the team and you start explaining how we do things around here. But are the rules in place that are limiting the potential of your team? Are there some rules that can be broken? Or re‑examined? Finally, many workplaces have tried to make change in the past and not always successfully. What has been tried in the past in your service? Why did or didn't past change efforts stick? Leaders and teams often launch into attempts at change without pausing and analysing how did things get this way? This can lead to repeated failed attempts at change because unhelpful practices that have built up over time aren't identified. So I've laid out the challenge of paying attention to what's already going on. So how can you respond to these observations of centre practice?
[On-Screen Text: What leaders do to foster effective change. 1.Focus on what needs to be done, not on the people 2.Draw on the collective creativity and expertise of the team 3.Maintain a narrative about the change process 4.Understand that teams form through collaboration, not before 5.Look for changes in professional participation]
I want to go to five key ideas that underpin the advice in the change management toolkit. The first three of these are really fundamental to the toolkit and then I've got two more that are bonus messages for everyone who is attending this evening. The first idea probably seems really counterintuitive to people in early childhood education. We're people people and relationships are at the heart of our work. But if you want to change practice, you have to focus on the practice, not the people. Specifically, I'm referring to shared practices where everyone has negotiated and agreed, "Okay, this is how we're going to do things around here." Perhaps your centre wants to develop a new approach to assessment. Make that the focus. Perhaps the lunch routine isn't working quite as well as it should. Make that the focus, not the people, the work. Second, we found that leaders who were able to think of their team as a collective rather than a group of individuals could tap into the team as a whole. All ideas were treated as good ideas and the good ideas were gathered up in a heap, rather than it being evaluated one by one as the ideas came up. Once all the good ideas were gathered together, one would be chosen as a focus. We found that the reason this works is because most of the answers to problems of practice that you're grappling with, those answers are mostly already somewhere in the team, somewhere in the service. So effective leaders know how to ask and listen and draw out the creative ideas of their team members. This third message is one that is built strongly into the toolkit. And Bronwen has given us a really lovely example tonight of thinking about what went before, what's happening now, and where we're trying to get to. As Bron said, change can be overwhelming. Particularly when it has ambitious goals and a really long timeframe, like the BSBL reforms. It's a long timeframe. We found that the most effective leaders were able to keep their teams on track because they could remind them where they'd been, what they were focusing on now, and where they were trying to get to and we think that that was important because what we saw was that it kept teams oriented and it kept them heading in the same direction. So as I said, these first three messages are fundamental to the toolkit but we also identified two further key messages in our research that I'd like to share this evening. I think they have particular relevance for this audience of leaders. One of the earliest and strongest messages from our research was that centre leaders who tried to reshape the practices of staff one by one were constantly frustrated. They felt as if they could never create a coherent team. People would leave, people would take time off to do qualifications, have babies. The answer to this challenge is in this fourth key message, which is to focus on what needs to be done and not on building the team. Again, this probably feels really counterintuitive. Don't you have to build the team before you can get anything done? But by having everyone focus on what needs to be done, maintaining a clear direction and tapping into everyone's expertise, teams were formed and strengthened. The answer from our research was exactly opposite to the idea that first you do the team building and then you do the work. The answer from our research was that working together on a shared focus builds the team. And finally, how do you know that change is happening? This is such an obvious question but it's one that's almost never asked when leaders set out to foster changes in practice. And the answer from our research is in this fifth message. To look for changes in the way educators participate in the life of the centre. It seems kind of simple and obvious but, actually, it's quite profound. Do your team members contribute more? Do they bring more ideas to meetings? Are they more focused on priority activities? Are they more proactive in their relationships with others? Of course, individuals are going to differ in how their practices change, but effective leaders pay attention both to how individuals and the team continues to develop. It's two years almost since I returned to Aotearoa New Zealand after 20 years in Victoria and every time I come to Melbourne I get really homesick for Melbourne. Even though I'm now watching from a distance in New Zealand, I'm still intensely interested in the success of Victoria's early childhood reforms, particularly as it relates to the development of centre and service leaders. I really hope you use the toolkit regularly. I hope you find it helpful and I hope you find it encouraging in your important work. Thank you.
[Applause]
[On-Screen Text: Panel discussion: Leading Change Together. Luke Bo’sher, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Kindergarten Expansion and Pre-Prep Reform. Michelle Gujer, Early Learning Manager, Gowrie Victoria Broadmeadows Valley.
Lisa Worland, Teacher and Educational Leader, Mentone Preschool. Tiffany Stute, Lead Teacher, Seymour Family and Children's Centre Kindergarten.
Three women are sitting on stools with microphones to the right of Luke Bo’sher who is behind the lecturn]
Luke Bo’sher‑ Thank you so much, Joce, for sharing your words of wisdom, the research and evidence that sits behind the change that we're all trying to make. It was great to hear your extra reflections on the change management toolkit. I know many people on this call would have had a look at the change management toolkit and I think your comments today and reflections have helped to bring that to life and help them think in a different way what they can get out of the toolkit. As someone who has looked at the toolkit many times every time I look at the toolkit I see something different. For those of you who might be less familiar with it, it is jam packed with so many different things. It is one of those documents that every time you pick it up you kind of see something extra and see something different. So I'm very pleased for us to kind of move the conversation from looking at the evidence base, thinking about the kind of narrative, thinking about the frameworks, to really kind of hearing from people in services who have made some of these changes in the services that they're working in. And that's really especially important for all of us here tonight as we think about the rollout of pre‑prep, whether you're in a service that might have already transitioned to pre‑prep in 2025, in one of those six areas, whether you're thinking about 2026 because you're in a rollout area, or because you're thinking about how to support priority cohort children. So really all of our services across the State, no matter where you are, will need to be thinking about how you change, what needs to look different in your services in the year ahead. So I'm very pleased to welcome up to our panel discussion over here ‑ make your way up while I'm doing some introductions. Very pleased to welcome up Michelle Gujer who is the early learning Manager at Gowrie Victoria Broadmeadows. Michelle has spent a long time in the sector in leadership and management roles. You know, you can tell us more about the service than I can, Michelle, but Gowrie Broadmeadows, 194 place service and supporting children from birth through to 6 and offering integrated and sessional long daycare options. So what we've tried to do in tonight's panel is bring together people who have different experiences, different perspectives, different types of services, different contexts to kind of speak to the huge diversity and wonderful diversity that we've got in the sector. We've also got Lisa Worland, Teacher and Educational Leader at Mentone Preschool which is a sessional preschool kindergarten in Metropolitan Melbourne. Lisa has been in the sector for 20 years and has been an educational leader for the last five years and has a real passion around play‑based learning that's high quality, engaging with the community and really thinking positively about the opportunities for change. And then last but not least on our panel Tiffany Stute, Lead Teacher at Seymour Family and Children's Centre. Tiffany is newer to the sector having joined four years ago, and has played a really big role in the Seymour Family and Children's Centre thinking about the changes that they are going to make as they rollout three‑year‑old kinder in their service and Seymour Family and Children's Centre is operated by kids first and its partnership with the Coleman foundation and Seymour college. An excellent panel. I'm looking forward to the discussion. We were talking before, I've got a couple of questions to prompt us but keen to see where the conversation goes on the panel tonight. So we will start with you, Michelle. So thinking from your kind of context at Gowrie Broadmeadows, Joce talked a lot about bringing people along in change, different models of thinking about how to make change happen. How in your service think about bringing people along and involving the whole team in change?
Michelle Gujer- Thank you. Yeah, it was really interesting listening to the previous speakers, and it really even took me back to my days at Gowrie and Docklands. I remember when I started there was the introduction of the National Quality Standards and people said to me, "Oh, how are you going to do that? Like you're 9 rooms, 150‑place centre. Yeah, you won't make it. You are not going to make it to exceeding, are you?" And I was lost. "No, we're going to do this and prove to people that we can do this. It doesn't matter whether you're a 22‑place centre or 200‑place centre, we can do this but we need to do it together." So there is lots of work to do in that. And listening to you before, Bron, about the rollout of the three‑year‑old, it's just so humbling to see just how people have embraced that. And recently I had someone ask me about, you know, how do you go about reflecting, you know, on the National Quality Standards and how do you go about change. I had someone ask me this a couple of months ago. And I said, "Well, it's really just about reflection. That's what it's about. It's about bringing people together, listening to people's voices, but coming with that shared understanding in the end." Like having that shared ‑ you know, as you said, Joce, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're a team of five or a team of 85. It's about having that shared vision about where you're heading and all those little pieces that contribute to that. So I think, you know, one of the main things is change is many little things. It's not one big thing. And these reforms are something that I never thought I'd see in my career. And instead of us, you know, wasting time talking about how it's not going to work, let's come together ‑ we're smart people ‑ and think about how we can do that. But it just needs to be sometimes small incremental things that you do and the stopping and the celebrating. So in a big centre there's lots of moving parts. So it's about bringing people together in different situations, so community of practice groups, ped focused groups, leadership focused groups, whole team meeting focus groups and having less, working on less things and celebrating them as you go, rather than 20 things. It is like the Quality Improvement Plan. You put 20 things in there, you are probably going to achieve four. So why don't you focus on four, get that ticked off, move on to the next four. So, yeah, it's sort of like lots of little things and connecting with people. So lots of opportunities. I suppose at Gowrie we really value coaching and we have a very embedded process around coaching. So we have formal coaching but we also have in the moment coaching. So this is also lots of opportunities for people to feel heard. I think sometimes as leaders we think, "Oh, what are we going to do if they bring up something that we can't do? Or it's going to cost too much, or, you know, a range of things?" But really all people want to be is heard. When we hear people, we can see where they're coming from and we can understand where they're coming from and we can help support them then to move forward.
Luke Bo’sher - Great. Thank you very much, Michelle. And you have kind of talked about choosing some of those priorities, you know, really focusing on them, ticking them off, moving on to the next ones. Lisa, in your service at Mentone you've made a couple of those big changes, you've looked at integrated age groups, you've looked at rotational models or teaching approaches, sorry. Can you tell us about how you kind of supported those changes which are really big changes for staff, big changes for family? Can you talk us through what your change management approach has been?
Lisa Worland - Sure, thank you. Well at Mentone preschool we are a single room communityowned and communityrun kindergarten. We offer 70 places, so we have 70 children and families. In the past and at the beginning of our preprep rollout journey we did look at the options that we had for upgrading our building and facilities to include a second room but unfortunately we haven't been able to achieve that for a lot of reasons. So it was decided by our subcommittee which was made up of staff, our committee of management, as well as interested parents at our kinder to explore options for timetabling as a singleroom kinder and that has been our biggest challenge, has been the fact that we are a single room with not a lot of option for renovating or expanding. Luckily we did have quite a few options to consider which was nice, working very closely with our early childhood improvement branch adviser. And after careful consideration it was decided to move to and implement a rotational session model for our fouryearold program. What that looks like in practice is all 42 fouryearold children are allocated into three smaller groups of 14. So we have 14 children in the sea stars, 14 in the penguins and 14 in the turtles. And those groups were combined. On a Monday we have the 14 sea stars with the 14 turtles, on a Wednesday the 14 sea stars with the 14 penguins and on Thursday we have 14 penguins with the turtles. I'm pretty sure I've got that right. We've seen lovely things through the rotational model. It's been really well received by all in the community. It enabled us to achieve maximum enrolments, 28 maximum enrolments up to our approved number of places, which is 28, as well as to offer long days and to retain all staff which was really important to us. As well as the rotational model, we, as I just mentioned it was really important to retain all staff without a reduction in their hours. That was very high priority. We are a very strong cohesive small team and we value everybody greatly. So it was decided to introduce team teaching which is definitely a different way of working, a different way of doing. What that actually means at our kinder is when we look at the rotational model I am the teacher of penguins and I am in session when they are at kinder. My coworker fouryearold teacher is the teacher of sea stars and she is in session when the sea stars are at kinder and then we teach the rotational group which are the turtles. How lovely for the turtles to benefit from complementary styles and personalities. Certainly what we've learnt is it hasn't meant losing our identity as a teacher but rather we're able to bring our unique strengths and areas of passion to our work and the children benefit from that. As well as team teaching on a Wednesday we have slightly different staffing arrangement in place, again to be able to retain all staff particularly in this case our teachers offering exactly the same hours that they had previously. And that is that on a Wednesday when the penguins and the sea stars are at kinder we're both there that day and we work with one teacher. That is a move from the traditional model. On a Wednesday it's two teachers with one educator and it actually works really well. So of course with the rotational model and the team teaching or collaborative teaching as we call it there were some challenges along the way but they were really small challenges and through reflection and open and honest regular communication, we were very easily able to work through those and I guess the committee made sure that we had a big block of planning time every week for our whole fouryearold team to get together so we could plan together, we could engage in reflective practice together, and really talk about what was working, the challenges that we were facing and then to work through those. But I think the main thing was getting time to be able to show care and concern for those that you work with, and support one another really closely because we know everybody's journey to that of change is different. While some of us were really excited and embraced it wholeheartedly there were a few others that just needed time and space to be able to get there. But we've all got there and we got there really quickly so we are very lucky. But, yeah, it really was that ensuring that we had the time to be able to get together and to be able to communicate, and, yeah, it is actually working really well. So if anybody is in a small, beautiful community kinder like I am and you might be thinking of rotational model for a timetable, please embrace it. The same with team teaching. I think it is the way of the future anyway so we feel we might be a small kinder but we're mighty in the way that we're quite progressive in the way we are thinking and embracing change. As a single room we have embraced all the change we possibly can up to this point so our journey continues and it's ongoing. We are well placed for the priority cohorts that might want to access increased hours at our kinder next year so that's really pleasing and we will continue to work really closely with our ECIB along our journey.
Luke Bo’sher- Great. Thank you, Lisa. I think you've given us a real insight into some of those dynamics within centres, within the staffing group, and Tiffany I know as you have made your change and moved towards mixed age groups you have also had to think a lot about how to engage community and families in that change journey, in switching a bit thinking about the dynamics within staff and how to move towards team teaching and collaborative teaching model to thinking about how to engage outwardly and really work with families in that change. Can you share with us a bit about your journey?
Tiffany Stute - Yeah, so we're quite lucky at Seymour with the partnership we have. We're closely linked with the school and the council and our place. So they give us a lot of support in that as well. But ‑ and part of our Kids First early years education program, having lots of opportunities to meet with families before they even start. So we quite often will do an open day information sessions and then orientation sessions before the year has even started. And that has allowed us to sort of talk to families about what the program might look like, even if we don't have a full understanding, just even giving them a brief idea of, you know, it's going to include 15 hours, it might be two or three groups, and then having the opportunity to hear their concerns, just to be able to listen to what they're worried about, and then speak ‑ like I feel like just confidently speaking about the frameworks and the basis of what we do, they're quite easily I suppose dissuaded of their concerns and happy to sort of go, "Let's give it a try" and, yeah, they sort of ‑ I think even the staff have found the rollout of the three‑year‑olds, I know I was quite new so the only way I knew at that stage but I was working with seasoned staff who were very hesitant or had some concerns it wasn't working. But I think even like in the last year being able to see the difference in the children has helped that and even for the parents to be able to say, "Well, look, we've got a three‑year‑old that's helping build social skills for a neurodivergent child." And that differentiating their learning has left the parents feeling confident that, you know, they're getting the support they need before they go to school.
Luke Bo’sher - Great. Great. Thank you. I really found one of the great provocations from Joce was around the evidence of do you build a team culture first and then try and tackle the change or do you use the work together as a team to generate that change and the evidence supporting the latter. Interesting in your kind of reflections you have all talked about different ways of engaging within your service and outside. Do you have any reflections on your experiences and that idea of, you know, pursuing the change together as the way to build the team rather than kind of doing the team building before in the abstractive of making the change?
Tiffany Stute - I think for us ‑ probably speaking for myself ‑ I think almost having that go with the flow, this is just what we have to deal with this year has sort of helped. We have been able to be flexible and adapt to those changes as they've arisen. And, you know, just have a bit ‑ I suppose a creative mind set of what might work better, or might work differently. And I think, yeah, having that has allowed us to walk away from even just one year cohort to be like actually that worked, these are the things that worked really nicely this year and have set us up for next year as well.
Luke Bo’sher- Lisa and Michelle, anything else either of you want to add to that?
Lisa Worland - I suppose we were really lucky as a team. We all love our community kinder. And really wanted to see it viable and have a real presence in our local community for a long time to come. So from our leadership, you know, to our teachers and educators in our staffing team we approached change with real positivity and we learnt very quickly that change or different doesn't actually mean bad or worse or something to avoid. It just means different. It is a different way of doing. It is a different way of working and change can actually be exciting particularly when you start seeing some really great benefits to the kinder and, you know, to the children particularly but also to the families and the teaching team. So I think that's been really lovely for our kinder.
Michelle Guyer - And it gives a shared language. I think I just had a conversation with an educator this morning and we've been doing some work around environments, looking at environments, understanding those more deeply other than the, "Hey, this is the environment, let's make sure we reset", we've been doing some work around understanding the deeper why behind. And I had this young educator who's been I think in the sector a couple of years. I said to her, you know, "What have been some small changes that you have implemented here as a team? And what have you noticed? She's like, "Well, you know, we've been doing all the resetting, and now we're resetting with children. And also the resetting I said what have you noticed there? She said I've just noticed how much more children are engaged in their learning. We talked before about high quality, you know, with the reforms and the quality. It's everything. It is even those small pieces. It is people understanding the why, the deeper why behind their practice. And, you know, as Joce highlighted, it's the shared language. It's the shared language and it's moving away from what is not working and what is working and really focusing on the moving forward and the things that we're achieving together.
Luke Bo’sher - Maybe to stick with that theme of focusing on what we're achieving together. Sometimes change can feel daunting because it feels like there's such a long journey, there's so many things that people are trying to do. Are there ways within your services and within your practice you've been able to celebrate those milestones along the way so people can have that sense that we really have achieved something significant here even if there is a long way we want to go? Practices or ways you have done well?
Michelle Guyer - Yeah, obvious celebrations, morning teas and awards and things like that but I think as leaders, it's us being present every day. You know, it's about seeing what's going on in the program, acknowledging that, whether it's a small incremental change, something big ‑ it is just about connecting with people and understanding where they are. And I suppose what I've learnt in big teams ‑ and I think this would be for small teams as well but it just really stands out in big teams ‑ some people with change, they just love it. They're on it. They want to change. Always moving forward. There are others who think more deeply about it and there are others that take a longer time, you know, and all of those things are okay if we're still moving forward. And sometimes we just have to help people to make that final change. Like, we do need to do that. And I think that's also about, you know, sitting down, listening and working out what those barriers might be for people. And, you know, I think the other thing is, too, when I was thinking about tonight is I feel privileged to work in an organisation that support that. So it is about that organisational culture where you are supported to change and do things differently. Where if you make a mistake, that is a learning opportunity. That people are supported in their change journey to keep moving forward and keep celebrating and, yeah, it can be ‑ we have our Gowrie conference tomorrow. So we're really excited about that and that will be all about celebrating people. But it is just the everyday. It's about remembering what that person's going through as well and touching base with them and just checking in on people.
Luke Bo’sher - Lisa and Tiffany, do you want to share anything from your work about how you celebrate success and keep people motivated over time where there is that really long change journey?
Tiffany Stute - I probably take it similar to Michelle. Even noticing the small things during the day that a child's ‑ how they're benefitting and how you've seen that development from the start of the year to the end of the year, or from three‑year‑old kinder to their second year of four‑year‑old. Like, even just celebrating how magic those moments are I found have really helped the team go, "Actually this is working and this could be really good. We've got 20 hours or 30 hours, this could be really beneficial for some of those kids that like for our demographic of low socio‑economic that just may not be getting to school on time or getting to school frequently, that they've got that time to build up to it. But even like as a team last year I made a point to sort of celebrate some of the things the team individually and together had achieved with their cohort. I think that sort of even just gave them a bit of a bigger perspective because sometimes you just get stuck in that "didn't work today"; "this is not going to work" or a new change is "okay, yeah, we're going to 20 hours next year how are we ever going to do that?" But bring it back to the small little things and how that adds up, I think.
Michelle Guyer - Do you think sometimes educators don't even know their practice is great?
Tiffany Stute - Yeah, I think so. And I think even ‑ I know I'm definitely one for that just in the moment today sucked but I think sometimes they just look at day by day and if it was a good day or a bad day and not sort of like, "Actually, your practice is really good or you're doing a great job overall", you sort of lose sight of the bigger picture.
Michelle Guyer- Yeah. I just ‑ you reminded me of a conversation that I had ‑ another conversation I had a while ago where the team just went home on a Friday and they're just like, "Yeah, we just ‑ you know, we don't know what happened today." Then on Monday morning they came back and said, "Yep, it's always look at the environment, what's happening in there." And they went, "Actually, that was all okay." You know, "I think it was us." And I think that rawness and that confidence to actually be able to say that, that's amazing because it's ‑ you can just be really raw and truthful and honest about where you're at and you can just grow from there.
Luke Bo’sher - Anything you want to add, Lisa?
Lisa Worland - Lisa Worland - I was just going to say we really have just focused on the positives. Obviously with change and different way of working, there will be some challenges along the way but we soon realised they were only really small and that the benefits we were seeing for all in our kinder community far outweighed any very small challenges that we were facing and often the small challenges were just that maybe we were just out of our comfort zone a little bit because it was something a little bit different. So again, yeah, just supporting one another and taking a real collective sense to the changes that we've made. And making sure that everyone's feeling happy and comfortable along the way.
Luke Bo’sher - And Lisa, one of the things you said I really loved was your point about moving to rotational models, supporting priority cohort rollout for more hours. I'm sure there are some people in the sector ‑ I'm sure people some call on the night who are kind of thinking we don't have children who are likely to be eligible for priority cohorts in the service or we're in metro Melbourne, pre‑prep won't be rolling out for ages, we don't need to change anything. I think it's a great point you've made to make this change to make priority cohort more hours which wouldn't have been possible with a previous model and really thinking about doing that in advance of, you know, the priority cohort rollout happening in advance of the metro Melbourne rollout happening so priority cohort kids can access extra hours at your service. I thought that was a great point to make and a great thing for us all to reflect on. Any thoughts from the panel about how in change sometimes it can feel far away, you can get stuck in not doing anything, "I'll wait until 2034 to do that thing" and you've made that change early to make sure we can make the most of children getting access to pre‑prep across the State earlier everywhere. Any reflections from the panel, how do you make these changes enough in advance to make sure you're supporting your community?
Michelle Guyer - A huge shoutout to my colleagues at Hume City Council and also the EC branch. I think it's bringing people together because I remember like, you know, we've been talking about the priority cohorts and providing 25 ‑ up to 25 hours at the moment and it was one of these things like, "Oh how are we going to do that?" In our community more broadly, we know there's high demand for kindergarten for three and fours and how are we going to fit everybody in? And I say collaboration. You know, we think about it for so long sometimes and I remember like just being with Tanya who is in the central enrolments and we just came together and were thinking a little bit more about what that might look like. And we set a meeting down the track and prior to that meeting I was like, "Oh, it's actually quite easy. You know, in one room we have two 7.5 hour sessions, three 5 hour sessions. Those children are going to get two 7.5 and three 5 hour sessions. The beauty in how we've structured our rooms we have half sessional, half integrated children. With that, on that fifth day we can enrol integrated children into that. We also with our community we talk a lot about it's a two‑year of kindergarten program. So how beautiful is this that, you know, you're going to have consistent educators and teachers for two years. We try not to move staff unless staff may want to change to work with the unders, but in all out of four staff at least two or three staff will remain in that room. So really promoting that. And a teacher once said to me ‑ I said you know, three to five. She is like no I can't do three to fives. This is like ‑ this is going to be too hard to have that altogether. This is like, you know, like not recently. I just said with the reforms coming up ‑ so this is years ago ‑ I said if you had a three to fives you will have half your group going off to school and you will retain half your group. In the beginning of the year where you're starting up 22 or 33 children you actually have half of that. You will have half the transition statements. You know, you will have half of some of these things. So it's about helping people to get above the line thinking and think about, as you just mentioned both, the positives of this and what can roll out. So, yeah.
Luke Bo’sher - I think that's such a great message to finish on, Michelle, about seeing the positives in these things and also the flexibility in models to make sure services are really able to meet the needs of their communities. So thank you, thank all three of you so much for being here tonight for so generously sharing your experience. Thank you so much.
[Applause]
Luke Bo’sher - And that is all we have time for in tonight's Evening Leadership Series events. I will do a replug of the change management toolkit that Bron spoke to and Joce spoke to earlier. Check it out if you haven't seen it already. We talked a bit about rotational models, team teaching which are both covered quite extensively in the change management toolkit. There's somehow‑to guides in there, also some how‑to guides on workforce retention and other topics. Check out the toolkit.
[On-screen text: Change Management Toolkit. Expanding your early childhood education programs. QR code to: https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-01/change-management-toolkit.pdf]
Bron also do a plug for EC update. Strongly encourage people to sign up for that e‑newsletter.
[On-screen text: EC Update – Subscribe to the Early Childhood Update e-newsletter. QR code to: https://www.vic.gov.au/early-childhood-update]
We didn't talk as much about a resource that is more newly developed and continuing to be updated around delivering pre‑prep to priority cohorts which some of you might have seen, some of you not yet. It's available on our website. We're continuing to update and improve it after it was released a couple of weeks ago. That goes to a bit of what we talked about on the panel tonight around what are some of the different programming options, some of the questions you might ask yourself as a service, as teachers how to make that roll out work where you have some children who are eligible for more hours. So that's a kind of very practical handy guide but you can check out and we will be continuing to update it as we continue to hear more from the sector about how people are implementing programming for the priority cohort rollout. I think that just about brings us to the end for tonight. There is a short survey that is up on the screen that we would be very appreciative of people completing. So whip out your phone, scan the QR code. We would love your feedback. We would love to have these sessions as helpful and informative to you as they possibly can be. We're doing them for you, people on the call. If you think there are things we can do differently next time, tell us. We will take on board that feedback. Please do. And thank you again for joining us and I just want to give another special particular shout out to Professor Nuttall for joining us tonight all the way from New Zealand. We really appreciate you being here with us and sharing all your wisdom tonight. So thank you very much again. And thank you everyone for joining us. We look forward to seeing you around soon.
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