We visited a wide range of different early childhood centres and different types of programs (a 24-hour service, a forest preschool, and different kindergartens, preschools and childcare centres) because we wanted students to be challenged to think about the things in early childhood they take for granted here in Australia and the potential for doing things differently.

There were lots of things that struck the group as we worked our way through two weeks of visits.

Many of the students identified differences in the way children are exposed to risk.

In Australia, there are legislated standards around, for example, outdoor play spaces so that we have softfall under equipment from a certain height. Australian early childhood educators carefully choose where to position themselves in relation to potentially risky equipment (for example, a high climbing frame) to supervise and ensure the equipment is used safely, and there are experiences that children are simply not offered because we judge they are too risky.

In contrast, in the services we visited, we saw very young children climbing and playing on high structures without any adult nearby.

None of the children fell or hurt themselves, and they demonstrated the necessary physical skills to efficiently manage to navigate the (in our eyes) risky equipment.

We wanted the students to think about how we understand risk and risky play. There are certainly strong opinions that suggest that we protect our children too much; that in making their environments so safe we are not giving them opportunities to learn how to assess risk.

Ideally, we want children to be able to look at a particular situation, ask themselves what skills are needed to engage safely, and assess their own skills to determine if they can do so before rushing in and playing.

Without risky challenges, this thinking process is not practised. 

Another challenge to the students’ thinking was the structure provided in many of the Japanese services. Children operated in groups and in many services, the entire group of children were all expected to engage in the same activity at the same time.

This is a real challenge to our thinking given that Australian early childhood services are based on the idea of child-centred free play.

Some argue that the idea of intentional teaching, which is required by current legislation, is incompatible with free play while others argue that it is possible to guide play to create appropriate learning.

Despite this tension, Australian early childhood still focuses on each individual child, whereas in Japan, learning opportunities were presented to a whole group in a very structured way, and free play seemed, from our observations, to happen outside rather than in the classroom.

The students were surprised by the products children in Japan produced and felt that Australian children could not produce such high quality outcomes. We saw three-year-olds producing complex origami creations and five-year-olds playing in an orchestra.

It seemed that practicing particular skills together in a group supported Japanese children to gain a high level of skill.

Students wondered if such sustained practice actually happens for Australian students as children are more likely to abandon an activity they are not good at and move onto something else when they are free to choose. 

It is important to be aware of these kinds of differences because they remind us that the way we work with young children is not the only way.

Parents coming to Armidale from different countries come to our services with different expectations and can be quite dismayed to see practices so very different from those they believe are necessary for their children to learn.

The way these parents guide their children’s learning at home may be very different than what we might expect to see in an Australian home.

The reality is there is no one right way to support our children’s learning and we have to remain open and willing to consider new ideas.

Read more Family Matters:

Tuning in to language skills

Floor time is an important time for babies

Giving the gift of your presence

Creating a great place for kids to grow