Autumn 2015

Are you finding your inbox and post box cluttered with a plethora of professional development
promotional material? With many early education and care services receiving significant funds
through the Long Day Care Professional Development Programme (LDCPDP) there has been a
surge in the professional development options and products being marketed to services.
Here are some simple ideas to help you make sense of
the piles of pamphlets, decide the best way to spend your
professional development budget, and make sure you get the
best possible outcomes for individual staff and for the service
has a whole.
A good start is to check out the Professional Support
Coordinator Alliance Self-assessment Tool - Professional
Learning Plan which provides a step by step process to identify
and plan professional learning needs and a template to record
priorities and action plans.It can be accessed at
www.workforce.org.au or by emailing ECEC@workforce.org.au.
Remember planning for professional learning is an ongoing
cycle and any plan will need to be revisited and adapted
to meet emerging needs or to take advantage of new
opportunities. Don’t feel that you need to create the perfect
planning document before getting started on professional
learning for the year – it is not another form to fill in but a
resource for you to use or adapt.
IDENTIFY PROFESSIONAL LEARNING GOALS
1 Consider your workforce needs
Do you have enough qualified educators to meet regulatory
requirements now and into the future? Have you considered
retention and succession planning for current staff? Supporting
staff to gain qualifications is a wise use of your professional
development budget. If you are in receipt of LDCPD funding
you have a fantastic opportunity to address and proactively
plan ahead to meet your service workforce needs. This level
of funding may never come again, so consider using some
of the money to support educators to gain or upgrade their
qualifications.
2
Gather and assess the information you already have
about the professional learning needs and priorities for
the service.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Review and utilise
documentation and planning that the service has already
worked on. This can include:
• Individual staff performance appraisals and professional
development plans,
• The service Quality Improvement Plan (QIP),
• Service Support Plans that have been developed in the
process of accessing Bilingual Support Programs or
Inclusion Support Services,
• The service strategic plan,
• Any relevant notes or minutes from staff or management
meetings.
If some of these processes have stalled or documents are out
of date, now is the time to get them going again. Use ideas
that flow from ongoing cycles of individual performance
reviews and planning and the updating of the service QIP, to
keep professional learning fresh and inspiring for the team.
3
Build on your service strengths and vision
Too often professional learning plans take a deficit approach
focusing only on areas that are identified as a weakness for
individual staff or the service as a whole. Make sure that you
consider the strengths, passions and areas of expertise or
interest of staff, the service, and your extended community
as well. Is there an opportunity for a project that will build
on existing knowledge and create leadership opportunities?
Consider a whole of staff discussion exploring common
interest areas and imagining ways to take service curriculum
and partnerships to new places.
PLANNING PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
OPPORTUNITIES
Along with researching upcoming conferences and learning
opportunities that match service and individual staff learning
goals what else is important as you plan for individual
educators and the whole service?
1 Think outside the square
Like the children we teach, we learn in different ways and most
effectively when we are interested and engaged. Professional
development needs to link to our existing knowledge base
and scaffold our learning and skill development. Sometimes a
workshop environment cannot provide this. As well as paying
for conference and workshop attendance, your professional
development budget can be used to backfill staff so that they
can have time to read, research or visit other services or
organisations. In addition to professional development sessions
and accredited training, the PSC Alliance Self-assessment
Tool - Professional Learning Plan lists the following possible
approaches to meeting learning needs:
• Professional readings
• eLearning and online learning modules
• Team meeting packages
• Customised sessions for whole staff teams
• Professional conversations and networking
• Mentoring and coaching
• Peer observation
• Practitioner inquiry and action research
• Service visits.
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