As the conveners of Children’s Week in WA, we know all about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). We’re not only talking theory but how these rights can be put into practice in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector and through our wider support of families and the community. Let’s explore how Meerilinga embeds several of the UNCRC articles in our curriculum.
Article 31: You have the right to play and rest.
We’re all about learning through play with Educators that set up different activities each day to encourage children to engage with new concepts and with each other. This approach helps children to understand the world around them without forcing them to learn an exact method around literacy or numeracy that may work against the pedagogical practice of your child’s future Primary School teachers.
We have rest times baked into our daily routines (see our Family Handbook for details) with Educators who are experts in knowing when a child needs to slow down and when they need to go go go. We are committed to helping families and carers understand how play and leisure enhance their child’s learning, development and wellbeing, so make sure to chat to our Educators and Curriculum Leaders exactly what they’re doing each day.
Article 6: You have the right to live, to be cared for, and to grow healthy and strong.
We’re focused on creating safe environments with Educators that provide care throughout the day. To help children grow healthy, we approach food a little differently than other Centres with families asked to provide their children a nutritious breakfast before arriving as well as healthy packed lunches. This practice provides children with a better understanding of their food choices and helps parents to manage what their child is consuming, rather than relying on mass produced foods that may not suit every child.
We’ve also designed our Centres to help children physically develop with playgrounds, trees and jumping mats that harness a child’s energy safely. This can be seen throughout our natural play areas where children have room to safely explore risky play alongside their Educators.
As Kingsley Curriculum Leader, Samantha, explains, “Children might explore elements such as climbing and heights through activities like climbing trees, scaling playground structures, or using climbing walls – these all require physical strength, balance, and coordination and encourage children to test their limits and build confidence in their abilities.”
Article 12: You have the right to share your thoughts and ideas and have grown-ups listen to what you say. Your voice matters.
Our Educators are equipped to be able to listen to the children they’re caring for and involve them in decision making, whether it’s around what game they’re going to play or how they’re going to tackle a tricky obstacle. The respect that we show for our children allows them to grow in confidence while harnessing their individuality and creativity. With this as a basis, many of our Educators have training in Hand in Hand practices such as ‘Stay Listening’ (the act of sitting with a child as they express strong emotions, without interrupting, distracting, or rushing them) and ‘Special Time’ (a way of leaning into short, intentional moments of child-led connection).
This Right can also be seen on any tour of our Centres with Play Communication Boards set up around each of our play spaces. These boards combine Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) and colour-coded word types to help children communicate with each other and with Educators, whether they are asking questions or expressing wants and needs. These boards have created an equal playing field for our children, helping those who are still developing their understanding of language to visualise sentence structure and inform Educators of their needs and wants. Find out more about the importance of these boards here (https://meerilinga.org.au/news/seeing-to-understand-the-power-of-visual-supports/).
Article 24: Children have the right to a clean and safe environment, & Article 29: Your education should help you to live peacfully, protect the environment.
Our Centres practice and teach sustainability throughout our curriculum, especially through using permaculture to cultivate thriving natural gardens and by involving children and families in community programs. These include hosting Containers for Change collections, creating drop off points for hard-to-recycle items (like batteries and textas) and encouraging ways of re-using products.
In our play spaces, this means partnering with organisations like REmida to safely gather recycled materials and use them in play learning. In our community spaces, this might mean food diversion programs (with any leftovers going straight to the chicken coop), Street Libraries for old books, stalls and stands for children’s clothes and swap events. These actions help to form a circular economy that our children and families can readily engage in. Even if it’s as small as contributing to the Street Library, our children are learning to protect the environment.
Article 30: Children have the right to use their own language, celebrate their culture and practise their religion.
This year’s theme for Children’s Week is a statement on the rights of children to their language, culture and religion. At Meerilinga, we ensure that we do not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexuality, age, ability, economic status, family structure, lifestyle, ethnicity, religion, language, culture or national origin. This lack of discrimination extends to our staff, who are part of Meerilinga because they’re great at what they do – not because of their gender or ethnicity. By creating an environment where all people are equal, adults and children alike, we’re showing children how to be accepting of each other’s differences and to see how these differences can make our community stronger.
To learn more about this year’s theme for Children’s Week, head to https://www.childrensweekwa.org.au/.
There’s too much to write home about when we’re talking about how Meerilinga promotes children’s rights!
If you want to know more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, our posters on the Children’s Week website are a great resource.
If you’re interested in more ways that we’re following the United Nation’s charter in practice, make sure to chat to one of our Educators or staff. Book a tour by contacting us.
