Through a series of system inquiries undertaken by fellows, the Apiary identified an opportunity to unify our diverse early learning system under a shared purpose for the future and help the sector visualise how stakeholders can meet the timeless needs of children into the future, as the world around us changes.

Called the Transforming Early Learning project, the Front Project and the Apiary collected child and adult perspectives from across Australia on what an ideal future for early learning might look like.

The voices gathered by this project were distilled into a set of design principles that anyone working with children and families can adopt to shape the improvement or development of new initiatives.

People who could use these principles might be:

• Early learning teachers and educators in their annual planning, early childhood professionals for their service improvement,
• Policy makers to design reform,
• Council and urban planners, when thinking about future environments and services for families,
• and more.

By all of us adopting these principles in our strategies and work, we will get closer and closer to realising a future system that children and families have asked for.

Read on to learn more about the Principles and how to use them.