Enabling educators: Skills 4 Kids Cafes as professional learning

Upskilling the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce has long been recognised as a priority in Australia (Nailon, 2013). Here we share an innovative approach to professional learning (PL), where educators work alongside long-time early childhood education and other allied professionals to facilitate Skills 4 Kids Cafes. The cafes are designed to offer a contextualised approach to PL through situated learning where educators experiment with changing practices in a knowledge-rich environment.

We found that the skills cafes enabled educators to engage in ways that built on their existing knowledge about what works with young children (Nailon, 2013), and make active choices in how they engaged in the skills­based activities offered during the sessions through 'legitimate peripheral participation'.