Belonging, Being and Becoming

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia

Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity

1.1
then
1.1.1
1.1.2
1.1.3
1.1.4
1.1.5
1.1.6
1.1.7
1.1.8

Children feel safe, secure, and supported build secure attachments with one and
more familiar educators
Use effective routines to help make predicted transitions smoothly
Sense and respond to a feeling of belonging
Communicate their needs for comfort and assistance
Establish and maintain respectful, trusting relationships with other children and educators
Openly express their feelings and ideas in their interactions with others
Respond to ideas and suggestions from others
Initiate interactions and conversations with trusted educators
Confidently explore and engage with social and physical environments through
relationships and play
1.1.9 Initiate and join in play
1.1.10Explore aspects of identity through role play
1.2
Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and
sense of agency
1.2.1 Demonstrate increasing awareness of the needs and rights of others
1.2.2 Be open to new challenges and discoveries
1.2.3 Increasingly co-operate and work collaboratively with others
1.2.4 Take considered risk in their decision-making and cope with the unexpected
1.2.5 Recognise their individual achievements and the achievements of others
1.2.6 Demonstrate an increasing capacity for self-regulation
1.2.7 Approach new safe situations with confidence
1.2.8 Begin to initiate negotiating and sharing behaviours
1.2.9 Persist when faced with challenges and when first attempts are not successful
1.3
1.3.1
1.3.2
1.3.3
1.3.4
1.3.5

Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities

Feel recognised and respected for who they are
Explore different identities and points of view in dramatic play
Share aspects of their culture with the other children and educators
Use their home language to construct meaning
Develop strong foundations in both the culture and language/s of their family and of the
broader community without compromising their cultural identities
1.3.6 Develop their social and cultural heritage through engagement with Elders and community
members
1.3.7 Reach out and communicate for comfort, assistance and companionship
1.3.8 Celebrate and share their contributions and achievements with others
1.4
1.4.1
1.4.2
1.4.3
1.4.4
1.4.5
1.4.6

Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect
Show interest in other children and being part of a group
Engage in and contribute to shared play experiences
Express a wide range of emotions, thoughts and views constructively
Empathise with and express concern for others
Display awareness of and respect for others perspectives
Reflect on their actions and consider consequences for others

Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world

2.1

Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an

understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active
community participation
2.1.1 Begin to recognise that they have a right to belong to many communities
2.1.2 Cooperate with others and negotiate roles and relationships in play episodes and group
experiences
2.1.3 Take action to assist other children to participate in social groups
2.1.4 Broaden their understanding of the world in which they live
2.1.5 Express an opinion in matters that affect them
2.1.6 Build on their own social experiences to explore other ways of being
2.1.7 Participate in reciprocal relationships
2.1.8 Gradually learn to read the behaviours of others and respond appropriately
2.1.9 Understand different ways of contributing through play and projects
2.1.10Demonstrate a sense of belonging and comfort in their environments
2.1.11Is playful and responds positively to others, reaching out for company and friendship
2.1.12Contribute to fair decision-making about matters that affect them
2.2
Children respond to diversity with respect
2.2.1 Begin to show concern for others
2.2.2 Explore the diversity of culture, heritage, background and tradition and that diversity
presents opportunities for choices and new understandings
2.2.3 Become aware of connections, similarities and differences between people
2.2.4 Listen to others ideas and respect different ways of being and doing
2.2.5 Practise inclusive ways of achieving coexistence
2.2.6 Notice and react in positive ways to similarities and differences among people
2.3
Children become aware of fairness
2.3.1 Discover and explore some connections amongst people
2.3.2 Become aware of ways in which people are included or excluded from physical and social
environments
2.3.3 Develop the ability to recognise unfairness and bias and the capacity to act with
compassion and kindness
2.3.4 Are empowered to make choices and problem solve to meet their needs in particular
contexts, begin to think critically about fair and unfair behaviour
2.3.5 Begin to understand and evaluate ways in which texts construct identities and create
stereotypes
2.4
Children become socially responsible and show respect for their environment
2.4.1 Use play to investigate, project and explore new ideas
2.4.2 Participate with others to solve problems and contribute to group outcomes
2.4.3 Demonstrate an increasing knowledge of, and respect for natural and constructed
environments
2.4.4 Explore, infer, predict and hypothesise in order to develop an increased understanding of
the interdependence between land, people, plants and animals
2.4.5 Show growing appreciation and care for natural and constructed environments
2.4.6 Explore relationships with other living and non-living things and observe, notice and
respond to change
2.4.7 Develop an awareness of the impact of human activity on environments and the
interdependence of living things

Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

3.1
3.1.1
3.1.2
3.1.3
3.1.4

Children become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing

Demonstrate trust and confidence
Remain accessible to others at times of distress, confusion and frustration
Share humour, happiness and satisfaction
Seek out and accept new challenges, make new discoveries, and celebrate their own
efforts and achievements and those of others
3.1.5 Increasingly co-operate and work collaboratively with others
3.1.6 Enjoy moments of solitude
3.1.7 Recognise their individual achievement
3.1.8 Make choices, accept challenges, take considered risks, manage change and cope with
frustrations and the unexpected
3.1.9 Show an increasing capacity to understand, self-regulate and manage their emotions in
ways that reflect the feelings and needs of others
3.1.10Experience and share personal successes in learning and initiate opportunities for new
learning in their home languages or Standard Australian English
3.1.11Acknowledges and accepts affirmation
3.1.12Assert their capabilities and independence while demonstrating increasing awareness of
the needs and rights of others
3.1.13Recognise the contributions they make to shared projects and experiences
3.2
Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical
wellbeing
3.2.1 Recognise and communicate their bodily needs (for example, thirst, hunger, rest, comfort,
physical activity)
3.2.2 Are happy, healthy, safe and connected to others
3.2.3 Engage in increasingly complex sensory motor skills and movement patterns
3.2.4 Combine gross and fine motor movement and balance to achieve increasingly complex
patterns of activity including dance, creative movement and drama
3.2.5 Use their sensory capabilities and dispositions with increasing integration, skill and
purpose to explore and respond to their world
3.2.6 Demonstrate spatial awareness and orient them, moving around and through their
environments confidently and safely
3.2.7 Manipulate equipment and manage tools with increasing competence and skill
3.2.8 Respond through movement to traditional and contemporary music, dance and storytelling
3.2.9 Show an increasing awareness of healthy lifestyles and good nutrition
3.2.10Show increasing independence and competence in personal hygiene, care and safety for
themselves and others
3.2.11Show enthusiasm for participating in physical play and negotiate play spaces to ensure the
safety and wellbeing of themselves and others

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners

4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.1.4
4.1.5
4.1.6
4.1.7
4.1.8

Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation,

confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and
reflexivity
Express wonder and interest in their environments
Are curious and enthusiastic participants in their learning
Use play to investigate, imagine and explore ideas
Follow and extend their own interests with enthusiasm, energy and concentration
Initiate and contribute to play experiences emerging from their own ideas
Participate in a variety of rich and meaningful inquiry-based experiences
Persevere and experience the satisfaction of achievement
Persist even when they find a task difficult

4.2

Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving,

inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigation
4.2.1 Apply a wide variety of thinking strategies to engage with situations and solve problems,
and adapt these strategies to new situations
4.2.2 Create and use representation to organise, record and communicate mathematical ideas
and concepts
4.2.3 Make predictions and generalisations about their daily activities, aspects of the natural
world and environments, using patterns they generate or identify and communicate these
using mathematical language and symbols
4.2.4 Explore their environment
4.2.5 Manipulate objects and experiment with cause and effect, trial and error, and motion
4.2.6 Contribute constructively to mathematical discussions and arguments
4.2.7 Use reflective thinking to consider why things happen and what can be learnt from these
experiences
4.3
Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another
4.3.1 Engage with and co-construct learning
4.3.2 Develop an ability to mirror, repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediately
or later
4.3.3 Make connections between experiences, concepts and processes
4.3.4 Use the processes of play, reflection and investigation to solve problems
4.3.5 Apply generalisations from one situation to another
4.3.6 Try out strategies that were effective to solve problems in one situation in a new context
4.3.7 Transfer knowledge from one setting to another
4.4
4.4.1
4.4.2
4.4.3
4.4.4
4.4.5
4.4.6
4.4.7
4.4.8

Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place,
technologies and natural and processed materials
Engage in learning relationships
Use their senses to explore natural and built environments
Experience the benefits and pleasures of shared learning exploration
Explore the purpose and function of a range of tools, media, sounds and graphics
Manipulate resources to investigate, take apart, assemble, invent and construct
Experiment with different technologies
Use information and communication technologies (ICT) to investigate and problem solve
Explore ideas and theories using imagination, creativity and play

4.4.9 Use feedback from themselves and others to revise and build on an idea

Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators

5.1
Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes
5.1.1 Engage in enjoyable interactions using verbal and non-verbal language
5.1.2 Convey and construct messages with purpose and confidence, building on home/family
and community literacies
5.1.3 Respond verbally and non-verbally to what they see, hear, touch, feel and taste
5.1.4 Use language and representations from play, music and art to share and project meaning
5.1.5 Contribute their ideas and experiences in play, small and large group discussions
5.1.6 Attend and give cultural cues that they are listening to and understanding what is said to
them
5.1.7 Are independent communicators who initiate Standard Australian English and home
language conversations and demonstrate the ability to meet the listeners needs
5.1.8 Interact with others to explore ideas and concepts, clarify and challenge thinking,
negotiate and share new understandings
5.1.9 Convey and construct messages with purpose and confidence, building on literacies of
home/family and the broader community
5.1.10Exchange ideas, feelings and understandings using language and representations in play
5.1.11Demonstrate an increasing understanding of measurement and number using vocabulary
to describe size, length, volume, capacity and names of numbers
5.1.12Expresses ideas and feelings and understands and respects the perspectives of others
5.1.13Use language to communicate thinking about quantities to describe attributes of objects
and collections, and to explain mathematical ideas
5.1.14Show increasing knowledge, understanding and skill in conveying meaning in at least one
language
5.2
Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts
5.2.1 Listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech, stories and rhymes in context
5.2.2 View and listen to printed, visual and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures,
actions, comments and/or questions
5.2.3 Sing and chant rhymes, jingles and songs
5.2.4 Take on roles of literacy and numeracy users in their play
5.2.5 Begin to understand key literacy and numeracy concepts and processes, such as the
sounds of language, letter-sound relationships, concepts of print and the ways that texts
are structured
5.2.6 Explore texts from a range of different perspectives and begin to analyse the meanings
5.2.7 Actively use, engage with and share the enjoyment of language and texts in a range of
ways
5.2.8 Recognise and engage with written and oral culturally constructed texts
5.3
5.3.1
5.3.2
5.3.3

Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media

Use language and engage in play to imagine and create roles, scripts and ideas
Share the stories and symbols of their own culture and re-enact well-known stories
Use the creative arts such as drawing, painting, sculpture, drama, dance, movement,
music and storytelling to express ideas and make meaning
5.3.4 Experiment with ways of expressing ideas and meaning using a range of media
5.3.5 Begin to use images and approximations of letters and words to convey meaning

5.4
Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work
5.4.1 Use symbols in play to represent and make meaning
5.4.2 Begin to make connections between and see patterns in their feelings, ideas, words and
actions and those of others
5.4.3 Notice and predict the patterns of regular routines and the passing of time
5.4.4 Develop an understanding that symbols are a powerful means of communication and that
ideas, thoughts and concepts can be represented through them
5.4.5 Begin to be aware of the relationships between oral, written and visual representations
5.4.6 Begin to recognise patterns and relationships and the connections between them
5.4.7 Begin to sort, categorise, order and compare collections and events and attributes of
objects and materials, in their social and natural worlds
5.4.8 Listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech, stories and rhyme
5.4.9 Draw on memory of a sequence to complete a task
5.4.10Draw on their experiences in constructing meaning using symbols
5.5
5.5.1
props
5.5.2
5.5.3
5.5.4

Children use information and communication technologies to access

information, investigate ideas and represent their thinking
Identify the uses of technologies in everyday life and use real or imaginary technologies as
in their play
Use information and communication technologies to access images and information,
explore diverse perspectives and make sense of their world
Use information and communication technologies as tools for designing, drawing, editing,
reflecting and composing
Engage with technology for fun and to make meaning