Newsletter guidelines

Early Childhood News guidelines

edna newsletter item inclusion policy

The Early Childhood News features topical information and items of interest to the Australian early childhood education sector, and promotes and publicises relevant edna projects and developments and items recently added to the edna repository.

Selection policy

Target audience

The service is aimed primarily at the 0-8 years sector of the Australian education and training community, with most subscribers likely to be early childhood teachers, child care workers, teacher librarians, lecturers in early childhood education, administrators, support staff, and parents.

The inclusions in the newsletter are:

content that subscribers may use in the early childhood education setting, relevant to the Australian curriculum
materials that subscribers may use for professional development.

Methodology

Items in the newsletter will generally come from material already available on edna, either in the repository, through the sibling websites, or on the calendar for schools. However new items and current materials related to the theme of the newsletter are sourced, and items in the general news and sites section are new.
Items will be selected for their relevance to the 0-8 years, early childhood group.
Items related to the theme will be pro-actively sought with contact where possible with organisers of national events.
Contributions from the School/Early Childhood Education sector that conform to the criteria below are encouraged.
Reciprocal agreements will be sought with national and international organisations that service the early childhood education community.

Criteria

The criteria for each category are:

Theme

The theme will relate to an area of interest to early childhood educators; for example, learning to read, early numeracy, child safety, child development.
The theme may at times relate to an event in the coming month that has been recorded on the Calendar for Australian Schools, such National Literacy and Numeracy Week or Red Nose Day (SIDS).
Resources from the edna repository that relate to the theme and that teachers may use in celebrating or using the event as a focus for teaching will be featured.
Where an edna repository category exists that directly relates to the weekly theme, this will also be featured here.
Themes will be available in advance on the edna calendar for Early Childhood News.
The education community is able to add events to the Calendar for Australian Schools through 'suggest an event'.
The education community is able to suggest a resource for the edna repository through 'suggest a site'.

Key dates from the Australian Schools Calendar

Relevant dates for the 4 weeks following the publication of the newsletter will be included.
These will come mainly from the Calendar for Australian Schools.
The education community is able to add events to the calendar for australian schools through 'suggest an event'. The final inclusion of such notices is subject to a quality assurance and approval process.
Events must have educational significance for schools and have website resources related to the event, but will not include conferences, which can be suggested on the relevant noticeboard (Conferences & events Australia or Conferences & events overseas).

Professional networking news from edna

The purpose here is to familiarise users with services, tools and content available on edna.
Generally two or three items will be featured.

Online projects

Some online projects registered with OzProjects relate to the K-2 grade level. These items will generally be supplied by the OzProjects team. Contributions of online projects to OzProjects are encouraged from the education community.
Some Global Education resources may be relevant to the newsletter theme. These items will generally be supplied by the Global Education Information Officer.

Events, conferences, opportunities

Events relevant to the early childhood sector may be drawn from the edna calendars including Early Childhood Events, Conferences & Events Australia, Conferences & Events Overseas, Online Conferences & Events.
The education community is able to add events to these calendars through 'suggest an event'.

Events, conferences, and opportunities e.g submission of papers to journals or conferences, may also be suggested via news-editor@edna.edu.au. Inclusion is subject to review by the newsletter editor.

Selected news and sites, including general items recently added to the edna repository

A number of new items added to the edna repository each week may have relevance to the early childhood education sector.
Reports and publications relevant to early childhood education, both Australian and International, may be included.
News items can also be added by the education community by emailing news-editor@edna.edu.au. The final inclusion of a suggested news item is subject to a quality assurance and approval process.
A selection of items may be included on the basis of their quality and relevance to the specific group of early childhood education subscribers.
Contributors of items should note that an item will not necessarily be included in early childhood news. It should also be noted that the Early Childhood News will not be used to advertise commercial materials.

Publication frequency

The Early Childhood News is produced at the end of each month, January to November, and is available on the edna website. It is also available as an RSS feed or email.

To subscribe to the email version of the newsletter, send a blank, plain text email to join-earlychildhood@edna.edu.au.

This service welcomes comment on its selection policy and contributions from bona fide members of the education community in Australia and overseas. Send contributions to news-editor@edna.edu.au.

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