The unit Arts and learning in the Early Years introduces the rationale, aims and content of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts through a focus on children’s ways of knowing and meaning making. Students reflect on their own engagement with the processes of Making and Responding which comprise the strands of the Arts curriculum to examine the role educators play in supporting young children as unique, confident and capable learners and effective communicators while meeting the stated aims of Arts learning in school contexts. Students investigate the importance of responsive interactions, connectedness and aesthetics for making meaning through and in the five distinct areas of the Arts curriculum and analyse the effect of pedagogical approaches that afford time to be present with children and support their creativity and expression of ideas. They problematise how these approaches to Arts learning may be supported in the transition to formal schooling and the implementation of the Arts curriculum in the Foundation to Year 2 Band Level. Students deepen their intellectual and emotional engagement with the challenges of planning and delivering authentic Arts learning experiences for children through a process of inquiry and documentation that makes young children's learning and meaning making processes visible. They respond to this process by writing a manifesto that identifies guiding values, principles and practices for themselves as contemporary early childhood educators in the Arts.

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