“Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity.”

Given the above message for International Women’s Day, I find great hope for our girls’ future in the Early Years Learning Framework.

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is used to support early childhood providers, teachers and educators to extend and enrich children’s learning from birth to five years old and through the transition to school. Within this framework, there are five learning outcomes. This framework has a great capacity to create a diverse, inclusive and equitable society, and a snapshot of this is in the first two learning outcomes: children have a strong sense of identity and children are connected with and contribute to their world.

Each broad outcome is supported by the smaller elements listed below it.

Outcome 1: children have a strong sense of identity

• Children feel safe, secure and supported
• Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and agency
• Children develop knowledgeable, confident self-identities and a positive sense of self-worth
• Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.

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

• Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens
• Children respond to diversity with respect
• Children become aware of fairness
• Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment.

This is, of course, a small part of the Early Years Learning Framework, but it is a significant component of the five learning outcomes. This is what children in early education and care are learning and this is what our girls are learning.

Often, we can start with special days in the international and Australian calendars and consider how we might break them down to make them relevant for our girls, but in this instance, we can learn so much from the Early Years Learning Framework and build up from there.

There is great hope for the future, and I am confident that with this foundation, combined with Wilderness School’s vision, mission and values, our girls will be confident in themselves and capable of creating positive change in the world for future generations. And with that, I hope that this foundation for all children will create a world in which our girls can do exactly that!