aboutlift

Over the last few years there has been unprecedented improvement and change in early childhood education and care.  No longer do we accept 'babysitters' and substandard teaching practices and care standards.   Now we require all educations to undertake higher education, meet best practice national standards and comply with early childhood curriculum frameworks so that all children can be assured of their fundamental rights to a wonderful educational start in life.  To facilitate implementation of these practices, services have to find strategies to connect, collate, reflect and collaborate, not just with each other but with you the busy families using their service.  LIFT (Learning Involving Families and Teachers), as it's name describes, aspires to provide practical tools to help educators strive to both meet and exceed these new standards.  While LIFT is not designed to be a replacement for the thousands of social networking tools like facebook, it does aim to facilitate effective collaboration, fostering educator, child and family engagement into all care and teaching practice. 
When using the parent portal in LIFT, you may come across some new terms like the EYLF (Early Years Learning Framework) or the National Quality Standard (NQS).  We encourage you to ask your child's educator about these.  You can also read more at the Australian Childrens Quality Care and Education Authority's website can learn more about these at 

    Best practice is a broad and at times daunting term. The wisest voices in early childhood education have written extensively about what it is and isn’t, what it looks like for infants or older children and how it plays out in everyday practices from routines to outdoor play. The Early Years Learning Framework captures many of these ideas and explores aspects of best practice that deliver outcomes to children and families. But, for me, best practice is more than articulated strategies and key ideas, although these are critical. At the heart of best practice is the notion that we are interested in being ‘the best’ and that we value the development that this entails. It is a commitment to, as the NQF puts it on multiple occasions, continuous improvement. For some of us, making such a commitment is obvious and exhilarating. For others it represents uncertainty and an unnecessary fixation with what might be.

    It is worth noting here that this quest is not about perfection. Many of my colleagues accuse themselves of wanting no less and get lost in the details. The NQS process does not call for flawlessness but rather that, at our best, services seeking excellence should be able to ‘demonstrate [their] commitment to continuous improvement by documenting how [they] will maintain current quality practices and progress them to the next level’ (ACECQA, 2011a p. 6).

    So what might a service or a team of educators do to establish and energise a culture of continuous improvement? Below is a collection of different strategies—some grand and far reaching, to be pursued over time; others simple and targeted for quick results.

    Benefits of LIFT  
    ·         Your information is completely secure, stored and accessed via a password protected SSL secure environment (the same level as security provided with online banking). 
    ·         Families can view and comment on observations taken of their child/children.
    ·         Families can share their own observations of learning from home.
    ·         Families can view and comment on the latest programs on offer for their child.
    ·         Families can provide feedback and share ideas on their child’s overall assessments.  
    LIFT allows families to log online and be a part of their child’s learning and development. You can add observations of what you child is achieving at home, document their likes and dislikes, recommend activities that you would like to see your child doing and upload photos of your child achieving mile stones in their development.

     

    LIFT stands for "Learning Involving Families & Teachers" - LIFT is a comprehensive solution allowing early chilhdood educators to link families into every aspect of their child's learning and the service's operations. Families can: 

    • View & comment on daily plans, children's portfolios, newsletters, calendars of events, policies & other documentation
    • Share experiences/learning/photos from home
    • Parents can print portfolios from home (saving time & printing costs)
    • Link other service providers (e.g speech pathologists, OT & other medical specialists)
          Some of the unique features of LIFT and the technology supporting this system include:
          • Bank level security
          • Web based - easily accessed from PCs, tablets & smart-phones
          • Each user has their own secure log-in
          • Services maintain full control of who has access
          • Families can only view their own child's information
          • Unlimited number of users (connect all educators, family and extended family to the service)
          • Australian product developed and owned by educators for educators