Take a look at your programming calendar. Really look at it.
Shrove Tuesday. Valentine's Day. Earth Day. Holi. Easter. ANZAC Day. Ramadan. Diabetes Awareness Week. World Mental Health Day, National Road Safety Week, World Bee Day, World Turtle Day, Reconciliation Week, Tourette's Syndrome Awareness Week... And that's just the first half of the year.
There is something for every week. Sometimes more than one.
And here's the question I find myself sitting with: in our genuine drive to foster a strong sense of identity and belonging for all children, I wonder if trying to encapsulate everything is unintendedly having the opposite effect. Not inclusion, but tokenism - inside a busy calendar that moves so fast no child has time to truly see themselves in any of it....to appreciate or even understand the significance of anything.
That's an uncomfortable thought. But it's one worth staying with.
The EYLF calls us to embed cultural responsiveness as an ongoing commitment, evident in everyday practice, embedded into the very DNA of the service. It’s the opposite of a ‘day’ in a calendar. The National Quality Standard strengths this approach by reminding us that intentional teaching is "the opposite of teaching by rote or continuing with traditions simply because things have always been done that way." So lets sit with this provocation for a moment – is a programming calendar full of ‘days’, however well-intentioned, culturally responsive and authentically inclusive or is it drifting into ‘auto pilot’ territory? And if these ‘days’ have never truly been questioned, perhaps now is the time to do so.
Consider this contrast.
One service we know of, situated near a large army base with around a third of their families from defence communities, approached ANZAC Day very differently. Families were invited in. Biscuits were made together and conversations unfolded naturally across the table - about why the day matters, what it means to different people, what the lived experience of being a defence family is actually like and how ANZAC spirit is still alive, celebrated and meaningful for this community and families. Active deployments are common in this community – within the last 10 years...not 100 years ago. Guaranteed, even the babies from this community would be attending the Dawn service held on base with their families. I know this from lived experience. For that community, ANZAC Day deserved that depth. It deserved so much more thought and consideration than the social media post asking “Anzac day ideas for 2-3 yr olds?”
For another service across town, it may not be the most significant thing on the calendar at all. And that's exactly the point.
We’ve been holding brave conversations as a sector around how to interweave Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into everyday curriculum without resorting to tokenistic ‘days’ or ‘weeks’ - it’s time we take that approach to our entire calendar.
So what might we do differently?
Perhaps the starting question shifts from "what days are coming up?" to "who are the children and families in front of us right now, and what genuinely matters to them?" From that question, a much more considered, and much more meaningful, calendar can emerge - one that reflects this community, this year, these children.
Then lets ask – how have families been involved in the decisions around what cultural moments or significant calendar days we celebrate and how we celebrate them? Rather than making assumptions, when did we engage families in this process?
The next question to ask is – what does recognising or celebrating a particular day look like? Does it have to be an ‘activity’ that is teacher led, checked boxed and production lined? This harks us back to the age-old conversation around child stamping (handprint ‘art’) with some candid reflections around the ‘why’ of this particular pedagogical choice and how this relates to autonomy, creativity and relevance.
And alongside the calendar, we might ask a different kind of question altogether. Not "what does our service look like?" but "what does it feel like to walk through our doors?" This is where identity and belonging truly emerge.
Walk a few steps in your families shoes... a family arriving at your doors for the first time. What do they hear? Is there music playing - and if so, whose music is it? What do they smell - is there something familiar, something that speaks of home to at least some of the families here? What do they see when they first walk in, and does it reflect something of who they are? Not just a multi-language welcome sign but in the textures, the colours, the images, the objects, the stories on the walls. And when they move deeper into the space, into the room where their child will spend their days, does it feel like a place built with this community in mind, or a generic early childhood aesthetic with a few cultural artefacts added in?
While cultural safety and identity is individual, I certainly cannot make a judgement on how culturally safe another person may feel in any particular space – these embedded considerations create a whole experience that long outlives a once-a-year ‘day’.
Now walk that journey again from the child’s perspective.
What languages are in the air – being spoken everyday - not just on display? What songs do the children know by heart? What stories are so familiar they've been requested again and again? What messages do our libraries and resources send? Whose food, whose music, whose seasonal rhythms, whose ways of gathering are quietly woven into the everyday rituals of this place? Whose cultural belongings are prioritized? Who’s are unintentionally silenced?
And who’s the judge of this?
This blog isn't asking you to ban the days. Rather, it's an invitation to question the jam-packed calendars that so often see educators reaching for a quick fix to meet an imposed planning requirement.
Yes, the shift away from 'all the days' asks something of us. It asks us to think deeply, to sit in a space of discomfort, and to wrestle with some genuinely searching questions about our practice.
But it might just open up the space to slow down, plan contextually, and create deeply meaningful early learning experiences - not activities - where identity isn't an event on the calendar, but a lived experience, every day.
AUTHOR: Linda Price