The Kindergarten Improvement Advisor role is an exciting opportunity to be part of the Department of Education's Loddon-Campaspe Area Early Childhood Improvement Branch. You will be supporting Kindergarten Providers and Early Years Professionals with the implementation of the Best Start, Best Life Reform including the roll-out and embedding of Pre-Prep- up to 30 hours of four-year-old Kindergarten, School Readiness Funding and Early Years Learning Networks. To be successful in this position you will require signicant experience and expertise in early years pedagogy and practice, and the ability to build practice change at a service and system level. This position will suit someone who can work both autonomously and within a team, and has significant experience leading early childhood teams.
About the Department
The role of the Department of Education is to support Victorians to build prosperous, socially engaged, happy and healthy lives. It does this by supporting lifelong learning and healthy development, strengthening families and helping to equip people with the skills and knowledge for a 21st century economy and society.
About the Branch
The Early Childhood Improvement Branch ensures a dedicated team supports Early Childhood providers and services in Areas. The Branch has multiple responsibilities, including supporting services with kindergarten programs and the implementation of the suite of Early Childhood reforms including, Pre-Prep, three-year-old kindergarten and the Best Start, Best Life reforms, as well as driving improvement in service delivery and outcomes for children across the Early Childhood sector.
About the Role
The Kindergarten Improvement Advisor will need to draw on extensive experience and knowledge in an early learning context, early childhood reform, administration of early childhood services and curriculum delivery. To be successful in this role you should have excellent interpersonal, influencing, and analytical skills. You will possess a strong understanding of quality early childhood pedagogical practices and a strong knowledge of the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF). You will play a lead role in strengthening early childhood service collaboration, which will ultimately support services through a time of significant reform activity, help create a culture of trust and reflection, and improve transitions for children and families between services and into school.
Key responsibilities of the role may include:
* establishing and maintaining strong working relationships with funded kindergarten providers and services
* applying problem-solving skills to manage problems and decisions
* using data and evidence to identify and address the needs of the services as it relates to educationally disadvantaged children
* fostering the development of collaborative relationships widely in the community
* understanding current research and developments in the early childhood sector, identifying implications and opportunities
* Coordination of and lead meetings and networks
* implementing quality assurance measures to ensure that early childhood reforms are delivered in line with Departmental requirements
* providing support, tools and advice to early childhood service providers to assist them to develop plans in response to their identified challenges in delivering early childhood reforms
* advising and supporting funded kindergartens to plan the best use of allocated Early Childhood reform funding.
* working collaboratively as part of a team and support/supervise other team members as agreed with the Early Childhood implementation Understand the needs of individual funded kindergarten services and identify opportunities for reform efforts to improve educational outcomes
* Oversee quality assurance mechanisms used to monitor implementation of the reforms
* Identify and document program or project risks and issues and develop effective management strategies
* Provide leadership to funded kindergarten services and be an identified point of escalation for issues and challenges
* Use appropriate planning and monitoring tools to track implementation of the early childhood reforms.
Attributes
The ideal candidate will have strong project management skills and use their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to provide innovative solutions to complex issues. They will be able to build and develop strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders and work collaboratively within a team. They will also have the capacity to effectively analyse data and utilise this to inform decision making skills and be able to work proactively and independently.
Desirable Qualifications and Experience
Desirable: Relevant tertiary qualification in Early Childhood or a related discipline.
Desirable: Recent relevant experience in an early childhood setting or other clearly relevant and transferable knowledge and skills.