As educators, we know that transitions shape children’s experiences. But what happens when the transition is from school to an early childhood education and care (ECEC) service, and the child walking through the door is a ‘schoolie", a school-aged child stepping into a space primarily designed for younger children? In certain parts of Australia, it’s common for ECEC services to include older children before and after school hours. Yet this mix of age groups often invites complex dynamics, both logistically and pedagogically.
For children and young people who’ve already experienced a full day of structured learning, re-entering a kindy-focused environment can feel like stepping into a world where their emerging identities and evolving needs are misunderstood...or overlooked.
Research by Dr. Bruce Hurst (2023) highlights that older children in OSHC are often positioned as ‘difficult’ or ‘mature enough to manage’, leading to environments that fail to reflect their play preferences or social identities. This can diminish opportunities for older children to engage meaningfully in leisure, decision-making, and self-directed exploration - key elements of My Time, Our Place V2.0.
From EYLF to MTOP: Changing the lens
Early learning services guided by Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF V2.0) must also consider the expectations of My Time, Our Place: Framework for School Age Care (MTOP V2.0) when welcoming school-aged children.
While both frameworks are grounded in principles of play, wellbeing, and children’s rights, their pedagogical focus shifts with children’s developmental stages. EYLF lays the foundation for children’s agency and identity, where secure relationships and guided exploration are central. MTOP builds on this, recognising that as children enter broader social worlds, their need for independence, peer connection, and downtime becomes central to quality practice.
As Hurst and colleagues (Cartmel et al., 2023) argue, leisure (including passive leisure) is a right, not a reward. Yet the needs of older children are frequently overlooked when environments, routines, and resources remain skewed toward younger age groups.
In practice, this means school-aged children do not simply “fit in” to early years routines. Their environments must respond to their developmental stage; offering spaces for autonomy, friendship, and leisure while respecting their emerging voice and evolving social identities.
Understanding empty Cups
The Phoenix Cups® Framework helps us appreciate that school-aged children and young people arriving at an ECEC service may have some Cups running low - often Connection, Freedom, and Fun. After a day of structured learning and social navigation, they may be seeking opportunities to reconnect, decompress, and recharge. By recognising this, we can intentionally create environments that refill those Cups and help children and young people transition into the space with a sense of ease and belonging.
Hurst (2015) notes that older children often occupy a liminal space - expected to self-regulate yet rarely offered meaningful choices. This mismatch can impact their wellbeing, especially when leisure is framed as unproductive or misread as disengagement.
Bringing MTOP V2.0 to life in ECEC contexts
To support meaningful, developmentally appropriate, and inclusive experiences for school-aged children and young people, consider these key practice shifts. As you reflect, ask yourself:
- Is this environment restorative for school-aged children and young people?
- Do our routines allow them to regulate, relax, and reconnect?
- Are they seen, heard, and empowered?
Your responses to these questions can guide intentional action. Here are five ways to translate reflection into practice:
1. Curate a ‘third space’
Create a dedicated area, not just physically, but emotionally too for schoolies. A soft landing spot with sensory regulation tools, creative outlets, books, or age-appropriate tech (Hurst, 2023b) can offer choice and agency. This helps balance their need for solitude with opportunities for connection.
Hurst (2023) reminds us that older children often seek spaces where they can retreat, recalibrate, and re-engage on their own terms - spaces that reflect who they are becoming, not who they were.
2. Prioritise leisure, not just play
MTOP V2.0 differentiates leisure from play-based learning. After a structured day, many children and young people benefit from experiences that are freely chosen, social, and unhurried. Consider art jams, nature walks, chill-out corners, or interest-based clubs led by children and young people.
As Cartmel et al. (2023) point out, leisure (including passive leisure) is not a ‘gap filler’ between routines, but a meaningful right and a space for rest, identity, and connection.
3. Use a relational welcome
Rethink your end-of-day transitions. A ritual that says ‘we see you’ could include a check-in yarn, storytelling, or shared afternoon snack. These moments honour their presence and validate their day.
As Casley et al. (2024) emphasise, everyday conversations are a powerful site of rights-based practice - where children and young people feel seen, heard, and valued as citizens.
4. Empower through participation
Invite school-aged children and young people to co-create the routine, rules, and activities. My Time, Our Place V2.0 affirms their right to shape their environment. Voting on group projects, rotating leadership roles, or initiating service-wide campaigns (e.g. sustainability) affirms their citizenship.
As Hurst (2023) and Casley et al. (2024) highlight, meaningful participation means more than being heard - it means having influence.
Barblett et al. (2022) further reinforce that children are capable social participants whose voices can and should inform the policies and environments that shape their lives.
5. Design for dignity
Honour school-aged children as older young people by offering materials, language, and expectations that reflect their increasing independence and maturity. When we move beyond early childhood cues and respond to who they’re becoming, we support their sense of dignity, confidence, and belonging.
As Hurst et al. (2023a) argue, respecting older children’s dignity in OSHC requires us to move beyond behaviour management toward practices that honour their agency, identity, and evolving social worlds.
The Phoenix Cups Framework® reminds us that when Cups like Freedom, Mastery, and Connection are running low, dignity is often the first to be compromised - and the hardest to restore without intentional, relational practice.
Walking between worlds: a pedagogical opportunity
Blending EYLF and MTOP in a single setting is not about compliance with two frameworks; it is an opportunity to demonstrate pedagogical agility and deep respect for children and young people’s diverse needs. It calls on us to embrace the richness of mixed-age learning communities, where babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children each bring unique rhythms, capabilities, and contributions.
Our role as educators is to create environments that honour every child’s rights, relationships, and readiness for learning or leisure. School-aged children and young people are not expected to conform to early years routines; instead, we can offer spaces that recognise their growing independence, social identities, and need for choice.
This is a chance to lean into reflective practice and celebrate our impact:
- What does a rights-based, leisure-rich, and relational experience look like for school-aged children and young people in your setting?
- How are you ensuring your environment offers more than supervision, but a space of belonging, choice, and joy?
Final thought: Fill their cups, fuel their growth
When we hold space for school-aged children and young people with care and curiosity, we’re not just managing routines; we’re shaping relationships, identity, and wellbeing. Let’s ensure that every child and young person who walks back through our doors after school is met not with a checklist, but with connection.
Because when we fill their cups, we fill our own too.
Practice in focus: when a 10-year-old comes through the door
Let’s meet Jai, a 10-year-old who has just arrived at the ECEC service after a long day at school. He’s in Year 5, a naturally curious and capable learner. Jai loves coding, comics, and soccer, but he also masks his exhaustion with humour and occasional pushback. On this particular day, Jai walks into a room filled with four-year-olds in dress-ups, high-energy music, and an educator helping someone with a toileting accident.
Jai’s shoulders slump. There’s no clear space for him to decompress. A well-meaning educator offers him a puzzle. Jai shrugs. He wanders the room, eventually sitting in the corner and scrolling quietly on a tablet, not really engaging. Later, he gets into a conflict over a shared toy, something he felt was “too babyish” anyway. The educator sighs, wondering why Jai’s attitude seems to change as soon as he walks in.
From a Phoenix Cups perspective, Jai’s Safety, Connection, and Freedom cups are likely empty. He’s had to manage social pressures, navigate school responsibilities, and now, he’s in a space that doesn’t reflect his identity or interests. The transition feels jarring, the environment isn’t emotionally regulating, and he doesn’t feel seen.
But what if the experience looked different?
Reimagined practice: filling Jai’s cups
In this reimagined scenario, the service team has intentionally created a ‘schoolie hub’ in a separate nook of the environment. There’s a beanbag, a shelf of graphic novels (aka children’s comic books), a whiteboard with “Jai’s Game Club” ideas written by the children and young people, and a quiet space to build with LEGO or explore Scratch coding.
When Jai arrives, he’s welcomed with, “Hey Jai, looks like Game Club is voting on their next project, want to see what’s up there?” The educator knows Jai thrives with autonomy and connection, so they’ve planned for both.
Later, Jai and a friend help a younger child build a marble run, showing leadership in a mixed-age moment that affirms his skills rather than diminishing them. His Freedom, Mastery, and Connection cups are gently refilled...through choice, competence, and meaningful relationships.
This shift didn’t require more resources, just a different lens. One shaped by My Time, Our Place V2.0, child development theory, and a trauma-informed, rights-respecting approach.
Further consideration: take it outside
One of the simplest, yet most powerful strategies services can implement for school-aged children and young people in ECEC is the intentional planning of regular outings.
Older children (referred to as young people within the MTOP V2.0 framework) have a strong developmental need for autonomy, challenge, and gross motor movement, needs that are often difficult to meet in early childhood environments where equipment and supervision ratios are designed for under-fives. For 9–11-year-olds like Jai, these limitations can lead to frustration, boredom, and disengagement.
This aligns with MTOP V2.0’s principle of “Respect for diversity,” which includes connecting young people to their local communities, natural environments, and places of significance through leisure and place-based learning (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022, p. 13).
Consider this:
- Is there a local park, bush reserve, community garden or skate path within walking distance of your service?
- Could you establish a "Schoolies Club Adventure Day" each week or fortnight, where children and young people help plan the outing based on their interests?
These outings could offer:
- Access to larger climbing structures, open space for ball games or scooters
- Opportunities for risk-taking play, leadership, and social navigation
- Place-based learning and leisure, aligned with MTOP V2.0’s emphasis on connecting children and young people with their communities and environments
As Cartmel and Hurst (2023) suggest, risk-taking, autonomy, and social navigation are key expressions of leisure for older children and should be seen as central, not peripheral, to OSHC programming.
Rather than being viewed as a logistical challenge, regular outings can become a key pedagogical strategy; one that supports children and young people’s rights to leisure, developmentally appropriate challenge, and meaningful engagement in their world.
Risk assessments, community partnerships, and co-planning with children and young people can all be part of the process, deepening their sense of agency and investment in their own experiences.
When school-aged children and young people arrive in our services, they bring full lives, big feelings, and growing identities. Just like the younger children in our care, they come with needs that must be met for them to thrive - and as the Phoenix Cups Framework® reminds us, those needs never go away. Phoenix, S and Phoenix, C (2019) note that Cups like Freedom, Mastery, and Fun are often refilled through movement, novelty, and choice - all of which can be offered through community-based outings and unstructured outdoor play.
By recognising this continuity, we see that what changes is not the needs themselves, but how children and young people express them and how we best support them. A toddler may fill their Freedom Cup® by exploring a new space, while a school-aged child might need the choice to lead an activity or simply rest after school.
When we meet school-aged children and young people with presence, curiosity, and intentional design, our environments become more than after-school supervision; they become spaces of joy, rest, connection, and true belonging.
References
Australian Government Department of Education. (2022). My time, our place: Framework for school age care in Australia V2.0. Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/MyTimeOurPlaceV2.0.pdf
Australian Government Department of Education. (2022). Belonging, being & becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0. Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-01/EYLFV2.0.pdf
Barblett, L., Morda, R., Barton, G., & Maloney, C. (2022). “We’re not useless. We know stuff”: Gathering children’s voices to inform policy. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 47(3), 248–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/18369391221105518
Cartmel, J., Hurst, B., Williams, J., & Walker, R. (2023). Do children have a right to do nothing? Exploring the place of passive leisure in Australian school age care. Childhood, 30(4), 486–502. https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682231212387
Casley, M., Cartmel, J., Smith, K., O’Leary, P., & Reyes Bernard, N. (2024). Child citizenship and participation: Bottom-up level change from professional conversations with children. Journal of Childhood, Education & Society, 5(2), 270–282. https://doi.org/10.37291/2717638X.202452413
Hurst, B. (2015). Programming for older children in school age care: Adult and child engagement with developmental pedagogies [Unpublished manuscript].
Hurst, B. (2023b). Programming for older children in school age care: Adult and child engagement with developmental pedagogies [Doctoral thesis, University of Melbourne]. https://soscn.org/downloads/library/bruce-hurst-phd-thesis.pdf
Hurst, B., Brannelly, K., & Cartmel, J. (2023a). The production and performance of workplace hierarchies in Australian Outside School Hours Care. International Journal for Research on Extended Education, 11(1), 40–55. https://doi.org/10.3224/ijree.v11i1.05
Phoenix, S., Phoenix, C (2019). Phoenix Cups Story
Author: Annette Johnson