ECMS’ VECTEA PD Day in May 2025 was a joyous gathering – over 600 of our people, thinking, learning and sharing ideas about what matters most – now, and into the future.
Held during Reconciliation Week, two of the day’s important themes focused on reconciliation. Guest speakers Aunty Tracey Linn Bostock and Dr Red Ruby Scarlet challenged us to consider what Acknowledgement does for reconciliation, while education expert and Adnyamathanha and Nukunu Aboriginal woman Dr Kim Kinnear took us on a journey through her experiences as a teacher living with legal blindness and made us think deeply about the importance and power of place.
At ECMS we pride ourselves on our place-based approach to pedagogy. It was both inspiring and challenging to hear Kim’s perspective on what is truly needed to be place-based in our approach. Kim advocates for a reimagining of education with Country.
In her paper ‘(Re)Connecting Bodies and Beings on Country Through an Indigenous Australian Early Childhood Education Outdoor Program’, Kim gives a compelling account of an Indigenous-led outdoor early childhood education program in Victoria and invites us to explore what happens when we pause the busyness of routines and policies, and instead, simply be with Country. This is not just about taking learning outside—it’s about rethinking how we listen, feel and relate to the land, the children, and each other.
The program, co-designed by Aboriginal Elders and non-Indigenous educators, foregrounds relational learning — “becoming with” Country rather than merely learning about it. Through this perspective, the children’s experiences move beyond curriculum checklists to deeply embodied, sensory, and spiritual engagements. One of the Elders reflects: “It’s not about teaching Aboriginal culture — it’s about learning through relationship, through spirit, through silence” (Kinnear 2023, p. 9).
This story is anchored in place, people and practice. It centres on Boon Wurrung Country, where time isn’t linear and learning doesn’t follow a timetable. It follows children’s spontaneous acts — climbing trees, sitting quietly with bark, building nests — which are all part of forming relationships. These moments, described by educators as “an ethic of slowness,” reveal how trust, listening, and respect grow when we move at the pace of the land.
As educators, this reminds us that anti-bias practice must include disrupting colonial ways of knowing. It’s about de-centring ourselves and walking gently behind children, letting Country lead. One educator said: “Our bodies remember — we just haven’t been given the space to listen” (Kinnear 2023, p. 12).
The program is not a blueprint; it is an invitation to reflect, to notice, to be changed. The children were not learning about Country — they were in relationship with Country.
And the advantages for children’s learning speak for themselves. At PD Day, Kim told us that when interconnected through place, early childhood education speaks to:
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a place of welcome and guidance
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a place of children’s learning through Indigenous ways
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a place of relationality so that practices are shared and honoured with children and families
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children knowing the world as a place of learning and all belonging in it
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a place where management help shape these relationalities and reciprocate in the workplaces and through the learning they value
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children reciprocating learning when wider workplace practices help enable and shape children’s experiences
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a place where staff are trusted and enabled in their positions and belong
In this way, Kim described place as a centre of strength that foregrounds Indigenous ways of thinking and drives inclusion. Place, according to Kim, is “everybody’s business and responsibility, now and into the future.”
The theme of the day was ‘Phase: Next’ and featured a discussion about leading through change. The provocations from our guest speakers and in particular Dr Kim Kinnear, gave us so much to think about as we contemplate that next phase.