Looking to use School Readiness Funding to build capability and confidence at your service?

Gowrie offers professional learning programs that blend a number of learning approaches, wrapped around by coaching. Program packages can be fully customised to your budget and tailored to meet the specific needs at your service, but can include:

  • Flexible coaching, in-person or online, for individuals and teams
  • Team Workshops
  • Access to eLearning, webinars and digital resources on the Gowrie Learning Hub
  • Communities of Practice on key focus areas
  • Study Tours and demonstration sessions at Gowrie services

Programs are practical and aim to develop capability and confidence, by working with a coach to reflect on current practice, identifying needs and goals, and developing strategies. The process of working with a coach over a period of time means being able to reflect as you implement strategies and being able to rely on their support as you do so and as new challenges emerge.

Who Are the Coaches?

Our team of expert, qualified coaches are experienced early childhood professionals based across regional and metropolitan Victoria. They bring a deep understanding of the complexities, challenges and rewards you face each day, working alongside you to understand your goals and develop practical strategies to achieve them.

Drawing on their own experience and current practice examples from Gowrie’s early learning programs and services, they provide resources and support that are embedded in everyday practice, leading to tangible and meaningful outcomes.

What Can You Expect in the Program?

Coaching is designed to meet teachers and educators where they’re at, develop goals, identify strategies and support growth at every stage of practice. Whether building confidence, strengthening reflective practice or developing leadership capability, our experienced coaches work alongside individuals and teams to create practical strategies that deliver real outcomes.

As part of your coaching program, you’ll have access to the Gowrie Learning Hub — a digital platform offering a broad range of modules and library of resources. This includes eLearning, practice videos, case studies and curated content drawn directly from our programs and services. There are two levels of access with Communities of Practice and webinars also offered for higher level subscriptions.

Gowrie Learning Hub Login

Study tours at Gowrie long day care and kindergarten services provide the opportunity to observe professional practice and reflect on this with your team and coach. Designed as a half-day experience, tours include guided observation, reflection and coaching aligned to your focus areas, and the opportunity to translate theory into everyday practice back at your own service.Top of Form

Although coaching may focus on any area within the SRF plan, many services focus their learning on similar key areas that matter most in early childhood practice. These include understanding children’s behaviour, trauma informed practice and creating engaging learning environments. For this reason, we have built specialised blended learning programs under these themes for the higher level subscriptions that combine coaching, workshops, webinars, communities of practice and a suite of self-paced eLearning modules. Each program is designed to provide a baseline of theory and current thinking, practical strategies, and real-world application that educators can confidently embed into everyday practice. For most services, whole teams of teachers and educators may access the eLearning and attend workshops, whilst those who lead practice areas also attend webinars and communities of practice.

Hear from other participants of the program

Hear how our coaching program has supported educators and teams to build confidence, strengthen practice and create meaningful change in their services.

Gowrie coaching has been an incredible resource for our team. The flexibility of the program meant we could use Zoom for some sessions, which helped us continue the coaching even when staffing, time or service demands made face-to-face sessions difficult. This flexibility meant we were able to stay connected to the learning and keep building momentum as a team.

Coachee

Our coach took the time to understand the specific needs of our service and curated resources that were directly relevant to our educators, children and context. What made this especially useful was the way our coach explained how the resources could be used in practice, so they were not just something we read once, but something all educators could refer to, discuss and apply in their day-to-day work.

Coachee

The Study Tour was a real highlight of our coaching experience with Gowrie. Two of our teachers attended alongside educators from a range of other services, which created a valuable opportunity to learn with and from others. Seeing high-quality practice in real time helped us reflect on many aspects of our own work, from supervision and learning environments through to more intentional and meaningful engagement with children. The connections we made with other educators have also continued beyond the Study Tour, including through Department of Education Network Meetings.

Coachee

As a service rated Exceeding in all seven areas of the NQS, we wanted coaching that would extend our thinking and support more complex areas of practice. Gowrie coaching supported me in my role as Educational Leader by helping us build a deeper culture of critical reflection across the team. Our coach gave me the confidence to respectfully challenge practice, while also supporting educators to ask questions, give feedback and engage in professional conversations that strengthened our shared practice.

Coachee

I was hesitant about coaching at first, because it can feel daunting to share the areas of practice you are unsure about or do not feel confident in. Our coach created a warm, open and respectful space where we felt genuinely supported from the beginning. There was no sense of shame or judgement. Instead, the coaching helped us recognise our strengths, talk honestly about our challenges and build much greater confidence in our practice as a team.

Coachee

Looking to strengthen practice through tailored coaching?

Speak with our team about a flexible coaching program tailored to your goals, team and service.

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