Describe how quality areas 1 and 5 form the National Quality Standard address the integration of children culture in the practice of ECEC services.

Access the guide to the National Quality Framework, last updated October 2018 to support your answer. -

Quality area

Quality Area 1

Title Educational Program and Practice"

National Quality Standard (NQS) – Quality Areas 1 & 5; Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children’s cultural competence in ECEC services.

 In Australia there are the following Quality Areas that are embedded in the National Quality Standard (NQS) that seek to assure quality in early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services. Quality Area 1 had a relative importance in realising the cultural context of children in ECEC practices more than the other quality areas, especially Quality Area 5. Here's how each quality area contributes:Here's how each quality area contributes:

 Quality Area 1: Programme and Practice

 Focus: This quality area also has to do with the provision of a curriculum that meets each child’s needs and abilities. It entails the formulation and execution of learning packages, practices and services for children in their personal-social-emotional, physical, and cognitive domains.

 Integration of Children’s Culture:

 Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Quality Area 1 mentio for educators to incorporate culture into programs and classrooms. This implies, making use of children cultural and linguistic background as well as their cultural practices. In terms of teaching, culturally responsive education requires teachers to enhance the items children bring from their culture; the things they like and the things they have learnt or seen before to what they learn at school.

 Inclusive Practices: Cultural diversity is well present among children in the service and there is a need to portray the culture of children in the program. This can be done with the use of cultural diversity resources, undertaking cultural diversity activities and honoring cultural diversity events. For instance, using multicultural books, music, and art allows children to understand and find a reflection of their culture and be introduced to the rest.

 Family and Community Engagement: They should embrace the families and communities to get information concerning the cultural aspects of the kid. It assists in overcoming such barriers by partnering in the development of education that individually meets the culturally sensitive children.

 Cultural Competence: School personnel are provided with the framework known as cultural competencies or learning how to work effectively in culturally diverse environments. Cultural competence is especially important in programs for minorities and such training and professional development should be a part of such programs.

 Children’s relationship quality (also known as Quality Area 5):

 Focus: Quality Area 5 also acknowledge relationships with children as one that needs to be kept as quality relationships that are supportive and reciprocal. It involves the provision of a child-friendly environment through which children are made to feel wanted and protected in order to achieve a wholesome development.

 Integration of Children’s Culture:

 Building Trust and Respect: In interaction with children, educators are expected to foster healthy and positive interpersonal relationships that count for multiculturalism. This is, the acknowledgement and appreciation of each child’s cultural background as well as including this in operation and everyday transactions.

 Supportive Environment: Culture foster children’s social and emotional development: staff supporting several cultural children to explain their cultural views. Teachers should encourage children to embrace their cultural background and try to target their classroom in a manner that the children feel comfortable explaining their ethnicity and their stories to the others.

 Personalized Interactions: Teacher to child or any interaction with children should release an element of cultural relevancy and sensitivity. Teachers should be able to observe cultural differences; and modify the way they communicate as well as the ways through which they teach the young children.

 Family Involvement: It is at this level that communicating with families is a powerful tool to promoting understanding of culture with a view of fostering its recognition within an ECEC setting. The state recommends that teachers engage the family in the learning process and ask them how they wish to be supported regarding the cultural heritage of child.

 Summary

 Quality Area 1 has a responsibility for organisational cultural competence whereby, cultural diverse backgrounds of children are considered in the curriculum that is offered for learning. Quality Area 5 has to do with promoting cultural competence with the children and valuing the cultural backgrounds of the learners. Altogether, those quality areas constitute a well-coordinated framework for embracing children’s culture in ECEC settings for the purpose of enhancing the notion that all children are accepted in the society.