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[Image description – There is a title and three logos on a red background. The title is “AEDC Case Study: Strong Families Strong Children Project. Loddon Shire, Victoria”. The three logos are for Comprehensive Monitoring project, Australian Early Development Census – and Australian Government Initiative, and Victoria State Government Department of Education and Training.]
Paul Hon, Senior Education Improvement Leader, Loddon Campaspe Region
[Image description – Paul is in an office]
Our project is in the Loddon Shire with the range of stakeholders of the Shire and each of these schools is quite disadvantaged, in what is the second most disadvantaged LGA in the state, so getting the right data helps us to make decisions based on evidence rather than just a hunch.
I'll go back to 2014 when the Principal at the time, a great Principal, Margaret Anne Wright, had concerns about the oral language skills of the kids coming in to prep. So we got together with early childhood personnel from the Department of Education and also from the Shire, and we just explored what the issues might have been. And we looked for data sets so that it was more than just gut feeling, and so that we could actually base our hunches – sorry, we could test our hunches based on the data. And that's where we went to the AEDC.
And that really helped us explore what some of the issues were for these kids. And it was more than just oral language. There was whole aspects around, you know, the emotional, social, the physical health and wellbeing. And for some of those kids it came down to poverty, it came down to being remote in small communities that had no services, no transport, and you know that can be an issue in Country Victoria, and in particular, in the Loddon Shire.
I suppose the first thing that happened, it led to a relationship between those three organizations. Goldfields library came in, district health services came in so starting to go a really strong network of stakeholders here.
The school established a Little Legends Playgroup, a group that started with eight or nine students and now in 2021 has probably got over 60. And that's the opportunity for the school to get to know the families at a deeper level. Not all kids go to kinder, those who go to kinder, attendance wasn't tracked. It is now tracked so that we can have a look at those sort of patterns. And just by having that relationship with the families as they come into the school has been a real advantage.
The school used their equity funding to employ an occupational therapist, speech pathologist to come in and also to support kids in need and try and have a look at those early identifications, remembering some of these kids might've only been eighteen months, two years old. Also another opportunity, another place of contact where we can encourage people to go to the Maternal Child Health checks.
The AEDC data has given us context, the context of the communities. And if we go from Loddon, the Loddon Shire, the Loddon North data is different to the Loddon South. So I think it not only helps schools and educators but also helps local government, district health services as well to make sure that they understand their communities.
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Image description – There are three logos on a white background. Logos for Comprehensive Monitoring project, Australian Early Development Census – and Australian Government Initiative, and Victoria State Government Department of Education and Training.
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Updated