Early Childhood Adventures in early childhood
Kate Daymon is not unaccustomed to change – ten years ago, she and her family moved from the outback to the coastal town of Geelong. So, when the Victorian state government was offering incentives for teachers to relocate, she took the leap.
Moving from Geelong to Nathalia, three hours north of Melbourne, Kate found a job as an early childhood teacher at the Nathalia Community Early Learning Centre. In Geelong, she had been doing relief teaching, and several other casual jobs, but found it just wasn’t enough.
“It was very difficult to get permanent work doing relief teaching. The government introduced an incentive scheme to return to the early childhood sector and then relocate. I’m still receiving the incentive payments now,” she says.
When Nathalia Community Early Learning Centre offered Kate a full-time, ongoing position, she was rapt.
“The directors offered me the VECTEA (Victorian Early Childhood Teachers and Educators) agreement. I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t offered the VECTEA and ongoing, full-time work. It wouldn’t have been worth it.”
As well as being a fantastic opportunity, the job has come with its own challenges. Kate sometimes goes in on weekends, when it’s peaceful, to set up her classroom.
“It’s a very big shock to my system – long day care is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There is no time to potter around with an empty room. There are kids there from 7am till 6pm at night, five days a week, except for two weeks a year.”
The centre had been advertising for a teacher to help establish the funded three-year-old program for seven months before Kate arrived – and for their first month in Nathalia, she and her two teenagers had nowhere to live. “There is no housing anywhere for teachers,” she says.
“I’m on the high school parents committee and they are screaming for teachers here. And it’s not just teachers – it’s a struggle to get nurses, bank workers, anyone.”
“There are lots of things to fight for, but [being a union member] gives me promise and hope.”
Kate’s husband remained in Geelong, their children attend school in Nathalia, and they have all become accustomed to the long drives back and forth between the two locations.
When it comes to long day care, it’s about more than education. Kate used the morning we spoke as an example of what each day can bring. “There were a few children with separation anxiety. One little boy with some behavioural issues came in screaming and kicking. He has had a couple of days off with a cold.
“At 7am, we feed them breakfast. There are babies in there, and kids aged up to nine years old in the before-school care program. Then I take some of them over to my room where there’s playdough, water bottles, we do the chart for the day – recording who’s sleeping, etc. It was a lovely day to play outside, so we did…” This is all before 9am.
Only a few of the children are solely in the 9am to 2pm funded kinder program – most stay for a longer day. Kate is unrelentingly busy – it never stops. But she counts herself lucky. “This is me with 22 kids. Some teachers at kinders I talk to, they have 33 kids and 28 of them are non-English speaking, [for example].”
Kate is all too aware of the difficulty of delivering a quality education amid the many other duties involved in long day care. On top of the teaching and the admin, they manually sign in each child, make beds, change nappies, wipe up messy kids and do all the cleaning. There is no external cleaning staff at the centre.
She commends her fellow educators. ”They don’t get paid very much. I would love it if my co-educators got paid more.”
Both of Kate’s parents were teachers – her mother in primary and her father in TAFE. “One of my sisters took up early childhood teaching and when I did Year 10 work experience, I went to her kinder and fell in love with it. I just thought, ‘This is what I want to do’,” she says. “I love the play. I’ve got amazing connections with the children and families here. I go to lunch and come back, and they hug me: ‘Oh, you’re back!’”
However, the demands are significant. “We have a lot of expectations on us. There’s no private time where I can just sit and be by myself; there’s always someone looking at me and listening to me. We’re on show a lot.”
Kate is a regional AEU early childhood councillor, and she appreciates the opportunity that council days afford to head to Melbourne. She has also been invited to join the Best Start, Best Life Workforce Reference Group and to contribute to departmental consultations.
For Kate, being a union member means helping to shape the future of the early childhood sector. “It means I like the look of the future. There are lots of things we have to fight for, but it gives me promise and hope.”
And another thing…
The most important things I take into the classroom every day are… an ‘attention grabber’ (ukulele, bells, squeaky toy). Oh, and my reading glasses.
The most important things to leave at home… a bad night’s sleep, and stress about things that probably won’t happen and that I have no control over.
The best advice I ever received was… don’t ask a whole group ‘yes/no’ questions; pay attention; be observant and present; start with praise; focus on the good before the bad; and, when overwhelmed, just do the next thing.
My top piece of advice to someone starting out in education would be… making connections with children, families and communities is the most important thing.
My favourite teacher at school was… Ms Hardwick at Palmyra Primary School in Grade 7 in Western Australia in 1984 (WA used to go to Grade 7 in primary school). She was clever and a little bit ‘untouchable’ and I had a great deal of respect for her. She used to always wear lipstick and beautiful pleated skirts.
The people I admire most are… those who are passionate about what they do, and who are brave enough to make choices and changes if the passion dwindles.
The music or book that changed my life was… I was a dance student at the John Curtin College of Arts in Fremantle and did hundreds of lessons and performances, from classical ballet, jazz, contemporary, Aboriginal, Thai, African, tap. I vividly remember those lessons and the music we danced to, and I have fond memories.
In my other life… I would be in the wonderful cast of Play School presenters. Or I’d be an ornithologist because I’m a bird nerd.
If I met the education minister, I’d tell them… to please talk to the Minister for Children and Families and ask them to work together with the Minister of Finance to make it easier for parents (and I’m not talking just about mothers) to spend more time at home with their young children before they go to school.
