Senior secondary students from 13 government schools spent five weeks finding out what a career in early childhood education looks like day to day, through the second phase of the Introduction to Early Childhood for School Students program. A total of 41 students split across three of our services, Broadmeadows Valley, Minindee Road Kindergarten in Manor Lakes, and The Harbour in Docklands, working alongside educators one day a week.
This Phase 2 pilot is funded by the Department of Education and follows two earlier programs. In 2024, we ran a four-week program for 17 participants from Melbourne’s culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community in Carlton, funded through the department’s Early Childhood Tertiary Partnership program. In 2025, we trialled a four-day introductory pilot at The Harbour across two groups in Term 4, with 23 students completing the program. Those two programs informed us on how to help students understand the role of an educator, and how to practice respectful, attentive communication with young children.
Students began with the basics, covering child safety, workplace health and safety, communication and professional practice. From there, they spent progressively more time in early years learning environments, working alongside educators and teachers, observing indoor and outdoor programs, and meeting ECEC professionals who shared their pathways into the sector. In the final two weeks, students planned and delivered learning experiences for small groups of kindergarten children and took part in a careers expo with representatives from Headstart, universities, RTOs and Gowrie’s own recruitment team.
Program Manager Sue Plowright said the immersion was carefully scaffolded, building from guided observation toward students designing and delivering a series of learning experiences themselves. “We introduced the planning cycle by supporting students to document and reflect on each delivery experience, to redesign if needed and reimplement an experience,” she said. Feedback from students, teachers, facilitators, room leaders and educators across the three services was overwhelmingly positive.
Molly, Program Facilitator at Broadmeadows Valley, thanked the team for how deeply they involved students in daily practice. “The way you have taken the time to explain your practice, share the why behind what you do, and include them so genuinely has made a huge impact on their learning,” she said.
For many of the students, the five weeks were the first real chance to reflect on whether early childhood might be a career for them. Students completed a post-program survey, with many agreeing that they want to work in early childhood education and care.
“I enjoyed the work and found it helpful to decide what I would like to do in the future,” said one student. Another, who stayed with the same group across the program, said shadowing teachers and learning the daily routines “really helped me understand the job.” Several students had a single request, more weeks, not fewer. Five weeks, more than one told us, went by too fast.
Across Broadmeadows Valley, Minindee Road Kindergarten and The Harbour, educators reported similar impressions of the students. One Broadmeadows Valley educator said the training students receive prepares them well to feel part of the room and the team, and ready to put what they’ve learned into practice. At Manor Lakes P-12, the school’s Careers Coordinator said students were loving their placements, noting the school had “received nothing but positive feedback from them about their experience.”
Program Manager Sue Plowright, who leads Introduction to Early Childhood for School Students, noticed the same pattern play out across all three sites. Even the students who weren’t sure whether early childhood was the right path for them described the five weeks as enjoyable and worthwhile, and by the end, didn’t want the program to finish. Students left with a deeper appreciation of the role educators and teachers play in children’s learning, something they carried with them long after the final day.
On the last day, students made cards for the children they’d worked alongside, and many found saying goodbye harder than expected. Children and educators returned the gesture with farewell messages of their own, and every student left with a certificate marking their place in the program.
Forty students and 13 schools make Phase 2 our largest intake so far, and the design principles behind these five weeks will carry through to the courses we run in 2027 and beyond. If you’d like to learn more about this program you can contact our team at enquiry@gowrievictoria.org.au.
Find out more: School students get a glimpse into a career in early childhood
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