Elsa and Brian Wyatt wanted to find a center for their son Michael that acknowledged the cultural diversity of their Melton West neighborhood. After searching the Space childcare directory for childcare centres in their area, they researched what to look for at each centre for signs that the centre was embracing diversity in practice as well as theory.
Childcare centres in Melton West follow the Australian Early Learning Framework which outlines how to embrace diversity and the importance of providing an inclusive environment for children who attend.
Websites
Brian and Elsa checked out each centre’s website for policies around diversity and cultural inclusion. Photo galleries and educational programmes were a good way to get an initial feel for the centre. They also felt that visiting the centre would be a good way to see how well the policy guidelines were followed.
Social Media
Their next step was to have a look at the centre’s social media pages which provided a more transparent and real-time glimpse of the centre, with recent photos of events, children and educators and how special days such as Harmony Day, Chinese New Year and Christmas were celebrated.
A visit to the centre
After narrowing the list from Space to three, Brian and Elsa made appointments to visit to see for themselves how each centre followed their own diversity guidelines.
Festivals
Elsa was particularly interested in how multicultural festivals were celebrated and what kind of input was gained from the community. Harmony day was an important one for her and she was pleased to see artwork and videos of the day.
Books
The Wyatt’s looked for a book nook that included books featuring diverse characters and situations and books published in different languages.
Toys and Activities
Toys and activities provided for the children needed to include those from a wide variety of cultures and reflect different traditions.
Artwork
They looked for artwork on display that reflected styles from different cultures and representative art was diverse and inclusive.
Music
Brian felt that music time for his son should include songs sung in different languages and a variety of cultural instruments. Music is drawn from many countries and cultures. He was interested to see whether singing time included talking to the children about the songs that have special meanings or are sung during special traditions or occasions.
Cultural representations
Symbols of a range of cultures may be present, from plants to ornaments that are significant to different cultures.
Newsletter
The Wyatts took a look at each centres newsletters as a place that should reflect the centres diversity with news about events and programmes, and future information for parents.
Communication policies
All centres have their own way of communicating with parents. For a diversity aware centre, this should reflect cultural variations, languages and traditions to ensure all parents are being kept informed and all children are receiving equal communication from educators. Childcare Centre,
After visiting the three centres, Elsa and Brian were happy that they had done their research. Though all three centres presented some evidence of cultural diversity, the Little Royals Early Learning Centre was the one they felt suited their son best, and one that would ensure he would be educated about all the cultures that surrounded him at home.
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