On October 10, 2018 the Sequences multiplier event took place in Romania. 45 people participated in the conference, including the County Inspector who delivered a speech on “Preschool curriculum guidelines application method”. Among the special guests were also university professors who debated the theme: “The importance of quality in pre-school education.” The conference participants were very interested in the set of tools that had been developed, wishing to find out more details related to its implementation.

The third transnational meeting of the Sequences project took place in Malta last week. Each of the 6 countries currently piloting the Sequences draft tool-kit shared their experience of working with early years settings and their progress to date. This meeting took place in the offices of Malta Union of Teachers, Ħamrun. Thanks to all who helped make this visit fruitful and to Lorna Schembri, Head of St Margaret’s College Vittoriosa Primary School, Birgu and her team for inviting us to the school. We were delighted to meet Ms Maryanne Zammit, Education Officer Early Childhood Education who generously shared her experience of mentoring and assessing early years professional educators in Malta and informing us about the introduction of the new emergent approach to the early years curriculum.

Early Childhood Ireland is delighted to welcome five ECEC settings, based in South Dublin, to the piloting of the Sequences Tool-kit. The first training session was held on 27th March with 12 Early Years Education Professionals. Each setting is looking forward to selecting the tools that will assist them to further develop the quality of their practice, in addition to contributing their knowledge and expertise to the final tool-kit.

Italian and Irish partners from Sequences project participated in the conference “Services for children: experiences in Umbria and perspective 0-6” on March 9th and 10th 2018.

A meeting part of Sequences project was held by the Romanian partner with parents and educators of the children who are in the first year in kindergarten. During this meeting, the child’s adaptation to kindergarten and other social contexts (parties, events, excursions, and visits) was approached.

On Thursday, 4 January, in Vilnius, the Lithuanian Education Trade Union (LETU) convened a multiplier SEQUENCES project event and organised a national conference on Early childhood education. The event was attended by 130 participants, mainly education personnel from all regions of the country.

During the conference, a lot of attention was paid to the problems of early childhood education: pre-school and pre-primary. Laima Jankauskienė, the representative of the Ministry of Education and Science, presented the proposal for early education. It is proposed that the first class would be from six years old since 2020, and the pre-primary education for the five-year-olds would be mandatory as early as 2019. At present, pre-primary education is mandatory for children aged six.

Egidijus Milešinas, the vice president of LETU, spoke about the SEQUENCES project opportunities. Project could facilitate the improvement of working conditions of pre-school and pre-primary education personnel, improve their training opportunities and serve as internal quality assurance measure to help teachers to improve.

Tatiana Babrauskienė and Inga Puiša, the LETU representatives, presented SEQUENCES toolkit, which is based on collected a set of indicators to assess 5 quality domains (availability of services, personnel, training program, assessment / monitoring, management / funding) aimed to develop a culture of quality assurance at the level of pre-school and early education providers. Information about future trainings was also provided.

The Ministry of Education and Science informed that in the near future a pilot project for the external evaluation of the quality of pre-school education institutions is planned. It was agreed that the Lithuanian Education Trade Union, which puts a lot of emphasis on the internal quality assurance, will share its experience and outcomes of the SEQUENCES project and cooperate with the project promoters.

On the 15th and 16th June 2017, the SEQUENCES project held a partners meeting at the Lithuanian Education Trade Union in Vilnius. Topics of discussion included the Toolkit and the Training currently being developed and a focus of project management. The agenda also included a visit to a Lithuanian kindergarten in the region.

The “Zana Zorilor” Kindergarten, in collaboration with other five state kindergartens from Cluj-Napoca, has organized Focus Group meetings in December 2016 and February 2017. Kindergarten headmasters, representatives of the methodical committee (experienced governesses that ensures training for beginner governesses) and parents who are part of the board of directors participated. The aim of this meeting was to identify good practices in early education and care. There have been identified a lot of examples of good practices from both teachers and from parents. The conclusion of the meeting was that both teachers and headmasters need training and support for developing new ways of communicating with parents and new ways of carrying out activities in kindergartens.

More activities were organised as part of the Sequences projects. Corvinus University of Budapest in fact organised both their Focus group meeting, held on 7th March 2017, and their 1st Stakeholder Committee meeting, held on July 19, 2017. Here are images of these activities:

Teresa Heeney, CEO, welcomes our European Partners to Early Childhood Ireland.

During the recent study visit to Dublin, hosted by Early Childhood Ireland, our European partners visited award winning early years’ settings in North County Dublin.

Our European partners were warmly welcomed by the educators and the children. During their time in the settings they engaged in informative discussions about the ECCE sector in Ireland and observed the play-based emergent curriculum and pedagogical documentation in action.

Our partners were delighted to have this wonderful opportunity to spend time in these settings and their experience will continue to inform the work of the SeQuences Project.

Pictures:

Nickola Cullen, Beverton Pre-school, Donabate welcomes Sylvia Liuti (Associaziona FORMA. Azione, srl, Italy), Ljiljana Vasic, (European Parents Association, Serbia), Živilė Belickienė & Asta Juknienė (Lithuanian Education Trade Union ETU).

Kerri Mc Cracken, Manager of Roots and Wings, Donabate greets Mary Rose Cefai, (Malta Union of Teachers), Krisztina Domján, (Corvinus University, Budapest) Favia Caoiraku Scelloni (Sem Society Cooperative Social, Italy) and Chiara Palazzetti (Associazione FORMA.Azione srl., Italy).

Mandy Corcoran and Fiona Brogan welcome Marlene Housley, (Malta Union of Teachers), Lavinia Ioana Mehedeniuc, (Gradinitia cu Program Prelungit “Zana Zanelor”, Romania) Arja Krauchenberg, (European Parents Association, Austria) & Eleonora Brescaro, (Sem Society Cooperative Social, Italy) to Cottage Kids, Lusk.

Simona Montagnoli, (Sem Society Cooperative Social), Maria Ioana Zdroba, (Gradinitia cu Program Prelungit “Zana Zanelor”, Romania), Lorna Schembri, (Malta Union of Teachers) & Egidijus Milešinas (Lithuanian Education Trade Union) arriving at Bizzy B’s Preschool, Loughshinny to meet Olive Power.