Prep teachers in national roll-out of the AEDI
MARCH 2009
Queensland Prep teachers will soon take part in the compilation of a comprehensive picture of early childhood development throughout Australia.
The AEDI will give a population measure of Australian children as they enter formal schooling.
In the national roll-out of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) teachers of children entering their first year of schooling will complete online checklists for each child.
Queensland AEDI coordinator Kathy Treichel said the data collection would provide a population measure of the nation's children as they entered formal schooling.
'Every community will know how their children are developing at the time they start school and how communities have supported children before school,' Ms Treichel said.
'The federally-funded $15.9 million AEDI follows a four-year pilot involving 60 communities, more than 2000 teachers, 37,000 children and 1000 schools.
'The pilot program found teachers viewed reflecting on each child's development as a positive experience.
'The AEDI data will be used to support policy, planning and action for health, education and community support.'
Ms Treichel said class teachers would use their existing knowledge and observations of the child to answer more than 100 questions covering the five development areas of physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills and communication skills and general knowledge.
'Individual children will not be identified within the data, which will be reported at a community level,' she said.
'Schools will be given funding for teacher relief, based on one hour for each Prep teacher to complete a training CD-Rom and read the AEDI Guide for Teachers and 30 minutes for each completed checklist.'
Queensland Association for State School Principals president Norm Hart said the AEDI would be an important resource for teachers.
'Principals involved in the pilot phase reported it encouraged teachers to discuss early childhood development in a number of early years forums,' Mr Hart said.
Southport State School principal Brad Francis said the school's AEDI pilot involvement in 2004 and 2008 had given teachers valuable information on early childhood development in their local community.
'The data collection enabled teachers to reflect on this information in conjunction with other community and school-based data,' he said.
In Queensland, state and non-state school Prep teachers will complete the checklists between 1 May and 20 July 2009.
Schools will receive AEDI guides which give step-by-step instructions on how to complete the checklists, a training CD-Rom and information for parents.
For more information visit our AEDI website and the official AEDI website
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