Summary Report - pdf - Department of Families, Housing ...

It’s a child’s lifeChildhood is a time of rapid change and development.Each year, Footprints in Time asks children and theirprimary carers questions aimed at discovering howthings have changed for them in the intervening period.Changes in measurements such as height and weight arerelatively easy to interpret as the basis for measurement(centimeters and kilograms) is the same each year.Other measures such as learning outcomes are muchmore difficult to quantify and require a different basisdepending on the child’s age. It is not appropriate to askwhether a 1 year child can read or a 5 year old child canwalk. Therefore, questions are asked only for the period ina child’s life to which they are relevant.This section examines school, child care and playgroupattendance, what children are learning, and theirphysical development.LearningSchool, child care and playgroupFor the most part, children are busy people and their timeis divided between organised activities and spontaneousplay. So where are children when they are not at home?About 27 per cent of children in the B cohort attendeda playgroup or other baby group. Most playgroups havea teacher or facilitator: 85.2 per cent of children in theB cohort attend such playgroups. While 21.7 per centof primary carers did not know the qualification of theteacher in their child’s playgroup, 69.0 per cent of primarycarers reported that their playgroup teacher had earlylearning qualifications.The main reasons for children not attending a playgroupincluded the ‘child not needing it’ (32.0 per cent),‘child attending some other child care arrangement’(18.0 per cent), ‘child being too young’ (9.2 per cent), or‘playgroups not being available locally’ (7.8 per cent).The relative importance of these reasons varied with therelative isolation of the area (Table1).In the older (K) cohort, less than 4 per cent of children didnot attend school at the time of the interview (Table 2),most of them under the age of 5. The majority (87.6 per centof children in the K cohort) attended a government school,6.4 per cent attended a Catholic school, and the remaining2.4 per cent attended an independent or private school.The likelihood of the child attending a government schoolwas higher in isolated areas.Of the children in the K cohort who attended school,56.0 per cent were in kindergarten (also referred toas prep, transition, or pre-primary level), 41.5 per centattended Year 1 and 2.5 per cent attended Year 2. Ofthe children who had attended school in the previousyear, 28.5 per cent changed schools. Common reasonsfor switching schools were moving house (25.2 per cent),finding a school closer to home or work (14.3 per cent),and academic reasons (5.9 per cent).Table 1: Main reason the child does not attend playgroup, by LORI, per centLORIMain reason child does notattend playgroupNone(urban)LowModerate toextremeAll locationsChild does not need it 22.4 41.9 23.4 32.0Child currently attends day care,kindergarten or preschool39.1 11.6 7.6 18.0Child is too young 5.8 6.9 17.2 9.2Not available locally 5.8 4.3 16.6 7.8Child would be unsettled at playgroup 5.8 4.0 11.7 6.4Transport problems 4.5 4.7 2.1 4.0Primary carer too busy 5.1 4.0 0.7 3.5Number of respondents 156 277 145 578Note: The reasons shown in the table were coded by interviewers from a pre-set list of options, except for the ’child attends day care,kindergarten or preschool’ and ’primary carer too busy’ categories which were created based on the free text responses of theprimary carers.10 Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children | Key Summary Report from Wave 3