It’s been a busy month for education with the programme review for 2023 well underway and the gazetting of primary teacher qualifications, on top of an increase in education enrolments this term.

Primary Teaching Bridging Award

On 2 November, Playcentre Education introduced a new Playcentre Primary Teacher Bridging Award to sit alongside the Ministry of Education’s recognition of primary teaching qualifications as Person Responsible. All centres received an email from Playcentre Aotearoa on 2 Nov with more details. In addition, Kara Daly has been emailing all primary teachers in the education database about what the change means for them and their next steps. If you are a primary teacher who has enrolled in Playcentre Education and have not received an email, please contact Kara [email protected]

More details can be found at Primary Teachers in Playcentre | Playcentre and People Requirements | Playcentre.

Fees Free for Zero Fee Providers

The Tertiary Education Commission has recently announced that from 2023, Zero Fee courses (including Playcentre Education) will not affect Fees Free entitlement or eligibility.
“Provider-based courses with zero fees undertaken on or after 1 January 2023 will no longer use a learner’s Fees Free entitlement, or be counted against learner eligibility for future years. The purpose of this change is to make the policy more equitable and better support educational success and pathways for learners to transition from lower to higher levels of qualifications. “

While Playcentre Education has very few ākonga eligible for Fees Free entitlement (2 students impacted in 2022), this means that our youngest parents in Playcentre will now be able to access the Playcentre Education programme without impacting the funding available for future study. A win to celebrate!

If you have any queries about what this means for you, please contact Glenda Caradus, Tertiary Education Funding Advisor, [email protected].

Programme Review

In 2023, Playcentre Education will be launching a refreshed programme, updated to version 2 of the NZ Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care. Once we have final approval from NZQA, we will be sharing more details about the updated programme. Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback and has been involved in the process. We are excited about the refreshed version and can’t wait to share it with you soon. The transition for current ākonga will be minimal. In the meantime, we encourage you to finish any modules you have started as this will make the transition process smoother.

Education Officer Holder Training Dates

Welcome to all new and returning Education Officers! We invite you attend the following office holder info sessions (same session on repeat):

9 Nov, 7.30-8.30pm
Click here to join the meeting

16 Nov, 1.30-2.30pm
Click here to join the meeting

End of Year Dates

Remember that our administration and teaching staff take a break over the summer holidays too. The final iQualify intakes for 2022 will be a B401 and C409 group on 15 Nov. Next groups and workshops start 1 Feb/Term 1. All assessment tasks that you’d like marked prior to the start of Term 1 must be submitted by Fri 16 Dec. We have some commenters working over the summer period so you are still able to submit work after this date, however we can’t guarantee that work after that date will be returned prior to the start of Term 1.

Ngā mihi nui
Kara Daly and Louise Albert