Get ready to be inspired as we journey into the heart of an exceptional early childhood education center with Narelle Dawson, the esteemed Director of Bribe Island Community Kindy.
Narelle offers rare insights into leading a team that's been rated excellent four times in a row, a testament to their commitment, dedication, and unwavering focus on building meaningful relationships. She reveals the secrets behind their success and the transformative power of fostering a nurturing environment and maintaining a balanced focus on learning and growth.
For Full Show Notes Head to👉 https://www.raisingwildlings.com.au/blog/mastering-the-art-of-education-and-community-involvement-with-narelle-dawson
Other ways we can help you:
Get ready to be inspired as we journey into the heart of an exceptional early childhood education center with Narelle Dawson, the esteemed Director of Bribe Island Community Kindy.
Narelle offers rare insights into leading a team that's been rated excellent four times in a row, a testament to their commitment, dedication, and unwavering focus on building meaningful relationships. She reveals the secrets behind their success and the transformative power of fostering a nurturing environment and maintaining a balanced focus on learning and growth.
For Full Show Notes Head to👉 https://www.raisingwildlings.com.au/blog/mastering-the-art-of-education-and-community-involvement-with-narelle-dawson
Other ways we can help you:
In this episode we're chatting to Narell Dawson, Director of Bribe Island Community Kindie, someone who's been a part of its fabric for over 29 years. Just this year, Made History, is the only early year setting in Australia to have been rated excellent for four consecutive years in a row in the assessment and rating process.
Nicki Farrell:Now anyone that has been through the process here in Australia will know that it is a rigorous and very demanding process. It takes an incredible amount of team effort, intention and incredible leadership to be rated excellent even once, yet alone four times in a row. So today we'll be picking Narell's brain about what makes Bribe Island Community Kindie stand out and, ultimately, what success looks like for her and the children in her care. We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we record today the Kabi, kabi and Gabi Gabi people. We recognise their continued connection to the land and waters of this beautiful place. We recognise Aboriginal people as the original custodians of this land and acknowledge that they have never ceded sovereignty. We respect all Gabi Gabi elders, ancestors and emerging elders and all First Nations people listening today.
Vicci Oliver:Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education, stepping into the wilderness, however that looks, with your family.
Nicki Farrell:Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.
Vicci Oliver:Wear your hosts, vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School, popping your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure.
Nicki Farrell:Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings podcast. I'm your host, nikki Farrell. Good morning and welcome to the show, narell. How have you been? What have you been up to this morning?
Narelle Dawson:Well, before I jump, on what we've been up to this morning. I, at this moment, would like to acknowledge and respect to the Jundaburi people of the Gabi Gabi Nation, who are the traditional custodians of the land and where I am placed today. I honour them as the first people who have only cared for this land where we are blessed to work and play and humbly walk with them to share and continue on with the tremendous responsibility of looking after this land. I wish to pay respects to all elders, past, present and these future old people coming through.
Nicki Farrell:Beautiful. Thank you for that. It's a beautiful way to ground before we begin.
Narelle Dawson:So this morning, each time during the scohoades, because we are kindy, we do family bush and beach walks and we go to different cultural sites in this area, and today's walk happened to be at a space called Dolphin Calling Point, and so what we do is we put this out to our families.
Narelle Dawson:Come along, bring your children and, you know, the younger siblings, the olden siblings, so it becomes a really nice family walk and we also, as many of our team who possibly can come along do, and we also invite community people in the community who would like to come along.
Narelle Dawson:And today we had the absolute pleasure of Bruce Phillips from Muritaka, now living in our community, and over time, since he's moved here, been able to build a relationship with him and he joined us as part of the community on this walk and brought along with him his wealth of knowledge around local plants and their use, mainly from an edible perspective, but he does have some knowledge also of a lot of medicinal knowledge of plants as well. So it was fabulous, it was really lovely and I managed to learn more about different plants that were in there and I've managed to unlearn, for this moment, some of the things that you know. I thought I knew before and I need to do more research and look into you know how traditional owners feel about Oka, for instance, and whether the traditional owners, which are the Jundiburi people, how they feel about Oka being taken off country and used in our programs. So that was the big thing I took away from today.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, I really want to touch on this because A the word unlearning, I think, is so important in what we do, and particularly in the programs and the people that we meet in the communities that we work with, but also that there's different perspectives and there's different layers, and these things are often an ongoing continuous learning and unlearning journey. But we can't have them without these touch points and these community conversations and these deep relationships, and I think that's what you do so fabulously at Rybe Island, kindi. So I want to say, first of all, thank you for the incredible work you do there in building those relationships and for setting that bar of what it can look like, because I think that is really important for people to be able to see what it can look like.
Narelle Dawson:Thank you. I just think that it is a journey and it's not something that can happen overnight. But if you are genuine and committed and open to sometimes some challenging times, then the doors will open. But we've been on this journey for a very long time. I've been at the Kindi for 29 years, finished up 29 years this year, so I've learned a lot along the way and our journey into let's use the term embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island perspectives. It took about 10 years. Just chipping away and working at it and trying to work out how we can be the best we can possibly be in this space. When it comes to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait First Nations culture is to be prepared for it to take a long time, and I think this is where some struggle, because they want everything to happen in relationships and general relationships don't happen that way. So it has taken a very, very long time.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, well, it's the whole three cups of tea. And even three cups of tea is just the beginning of the relationship, isn't it? And I think you touched on something really important there. We need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and putting our white fragility away and being pulled up on our mistakes and taking ownership for them, really, honestly, deeply apologising if and when we do, and seeing what we can do to repair relationships, mistakes that we've made, because we are going to make them. If we're going to build relationships. I'm not saying that's okay. I'm saying what we need to do is be uncomfortable when we get pulled up, because if we're doing it right, we will be open to those conversations rather than being ghosted in those conversations. If that makes sense, absolutely. Talk to me about so. You've been 29 years. I mean that is amazing in itself. How would you describe for a parent coming to Bribe Island Community Kindie for the first time? How would you describe your philosophies and what you do and what you're all about?
Narelle Dawson:I think that the way that we would describe is exactly these things that we're talking about now. We would make it very, very clear about our relationship with and respect for, first Nations people, their ways of doing, being and knowing. We would talk about how we believe it's important for non-Indigenous children also to learn about First Nations people. It's important for our First Nations children to absolutely feel like this is their place, that they belong here. That is first and foremost to families who come through our doors. We're very, very clear about where we stand with that. We talk about community and how we need to be in community for children to feel like they're part of a community and grow up and feel like they have been members of a community. I talk a lot about how community is embedded in our philosophy and being part of community, but also that we are embedded in the community in different walks of life for many different aspects.
Nicki Farrell:It's pretty hard not to be embedded when you've lived there and worked there for 29 years. You must be raising multiple generations. Now I am how amazing.
Narelle Dawson:I know I am teaching children of children and that is so, so special and such a privilege too, so beautiful. I live slightly off the island but it is, yeah, special. Another thing that we also talk about is, I guess you know, we talk about sustainability and what that looks like in this space, inside our fence line and outside of the fence line, and we talk a lot about play and nature play, because that's who we are. We're not. We do document, but we are, I believe, quite minimalistic in our documentation, but we still seem to be getting it right.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, I think that's the conundrum. People, I think people would love to hear what your documentation might look like and then what these? Because the things that you're doing are incredible and they're also I mean, it's not something that's important to me, but they're hitting the early years learning framework right, because you've made history. You've been rated excellent four times in a row, which is the first time any early years setting has ever been, has ever done this this many times in a row. But you do it exactly because of this, because you are so deeply ingrained in your community, all of your communities, and you tick I don't want to say tick those boxes, because I know that's exactly why you've been rated the way you have, because you're not ticking boxes. It is your deep intention, your deep purpose. Can you tell me, from a leadership point of view, how you lead the documentation process? But how you lead your team, your incredible team, to also, I guess, know that at the heart is the process and not this ticking the box product at the end?
Narelle Dawson:Okay, so you're absolutely right. We do not tick boxes on many levels, on many, many levels, and one thing that that is very important to me as a mother or grandmother, or now great grandmother, is family time. You know, family time is so important, and so I have never, ever and place that demand on any of our team to do any work once they walk outside these doors.
Narelle Dawson:Hallelujah, it's not to say they don't, yeah, but it's not to say that they don't, because you know there's a few of them who prefer to gather their thoughts at home in peace and put it in writing and turn that into a bit of a short, very, very short story. And these stories that they do do form the basis of a lot of the programming because it actually shows that we are noticing what children are doing, we look at it and analyze it in our own way and we don't focus too much on where to from here, unless that child wants to go where to from here, so we do have lots of beautiful little stories that form documentation for the year on the children.
Narelle Dawson:We have very few individual stories because we believe that children generally don't learn in isolation. They're usually learning with someone other and sometimes in a big group. So a lot of these stories will include other children. We, as far as our planning goes, we plan together. Everyone in our team has a voice in our weekly plan and we all go into that at different times throughout the day when moments allow it, and each person puts their voice in there, and that's pretty much our planning. That's it. There are things that we will carry forward to the next week. It may go somewhere or it may go nowhere. We're comfortable in saying it went nowhere and then that's. Honestly, that's pretty much it.
Narelle Dawson:I'm even looking at now, you know, this big thing about summative assessments. It's the bane of my existence. I'm never happy with what they look like. No one really cares about it. Parents don't engage with it, even though they could, which kind of tells me that they're just happy, that their children are happy and that their children are coming home with stories and they're obviously sharing, you know, conversations and new learning. That's going on, and we do take photos from time to time and generally we will ask permission. But most of the children come in and say, hey, can you get the camera and just get this because I want mum to see it. So we do send home photos at the end of each week, but the purpose for this is around children having those conversations with their parents at home about their learning. Parents know what the children are learning and that's pretty much our documentation.
Nicki Farrell:Do you know? What I heard from that was that you trust children to be learning at all times. You trust that parents trust you, that their children are learning and that they care mostly that they're happy, not that they're learning because they just know that that's coming from being safe and in a place where they are cared for and nurtured and listened to. And I think if more places could understand the depth of the relationships that need to be built to get to that level, I think we would see more more success in being able to eliminate more paperwork.
Narelle Dawson:Absolutely, and you know what it has worked for us. We have never, ever been pulled up by anybody to say you're not doing it right or you're not doing enough. So you know, I get quite sad for people out there in other spaces who have this incredible stress placed upon them to do what not even the regulations expect us to do.
Nicki Farrell:That's what blows my mind. It's not in the regs that level, the level of planning, the level of documentation, the amount of photos being sent home, the daily observations on children it's on individual children. It's not a reg. So why are we placing this pressure on our team members when it's leading to depression, burnout, exhaustion and people huge amounts of people leaving our sector, who we need? We need, and they are incredible at their job. If we could just let them do their job.
Narelle Dawson:I agree and I think this conversation, the conversation that we're having now, you know, probably would be more beneficial to you know owners of these services, or you know you know directors who you know feel that it needs to be done that way. I don't know how we, how we reach people to understand. It's just a complete waste of time. It's rubbing children of your attention, you know, to what they're doing. And in saying that we, you know we don't sit down and play with children. Part of our philosophy for a very long time has been stand back, observe, understand their cues. You know, understand we might get that certain look that might tell us I'm wanted or I'm needed, and we might. You know they will ask for something. But I can remember years ago, you know, the pressure was on to get down and get in the sandpit and play with children. And I remember, you know I'd go and I'd sit down and all my friends would leave me. You know children will let you know when you need it.
Nicki Farrell:Absolutely, and you've just just reminded me you were saying earlier about when you're planning. You know you're planning for a child says oh, tomorrow I might want to do this. I 100% agree. I can't tell you how many times we've gone quite well organized, that we'll get the resources, that sounds like a great idea, but then being happy to let it go when you present it to the child the next day and they go nah, that's gone. That, that idea, the passion, the engagement for that idea is gone. And not forcing it, because I do feel like sometimes that idea is then pushed back upon the children for the paperwork and to tick that box that they've extended, extended the learning, and they haven't extended it if they, they're not interested in it. So I think these conversations are really important, that I loved hearing that you were comfortable with letting that go, just like you're comfortable with letting that amount of paperwork go. That's not relevant for them, for the children. So to me, what I'm hearing is it's children, children first, always.
Narelle Dawson:Absolutely children first and and one of the documents that we focus on is around children's rights, and we often will will look at that and revisit that and have conversations and just make sure that we're not missing anything and that we are making sure that you know we adhere to all of children's rights, Especially for every moment that they're with us, which is only six hours a day, five day fortnight for one year mostly, but it's impactful that time like we're in those, those first early years and the work that the early years settings are doing, is so important and these conversations about you know the framework at its heart is beautiful.
Nicki Farrell:You know that sense of place and belonging and I think sometimes we miss that. That actually means hard work on our behalf informing those relationships. Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the I don't even want to call them projects because it makes them sound so tokenistic when I know how deeply rooted they are? But things such as your gender blurry walkbook and the community art gallery and I know you've got dozens more Can you talk to us about how you've gone about those and how important they are to the children?
Narelle Dawson:Okay, so I'll talk to you about the gender blurry walk, because that that began back in 2016. And I had put my hand up for some action research and it was. It was with Sue English and April Cunningham, and it was around a natural childhood for children, and so each of us in that action research project that, I think, went over about a six month period, we had to find our own thing and our own question and work at. You know which direction we wanted to go, and we knew that we had this amazing bush space right behind us at the kidney. We've got a creek, we've got the bush space, we've got our beach at the end of the road. But we were, we were stuck in in our feds line and we weren't really going out to too many places, and so that that's what led to the gender blurry walk. So we, first of all we, we, we went to a local space and we said we want to do this action research and we want to build further, build on our relationships. We just wondering if you've got anyone that would be interested in walking this journey with us. If so, could you pass on our details? They did say yes, we do have someone in mind that might be interested. We'll pass your details on.
Narelle Dawson:Within two hours I had a phone call from our beautiful uncle Ron. Within another hour of that phone call he was on our doorstep and he has never left. Uncle does not have any local relatives. He has some assisted further north and nephew, but he doesn't have anyone local. He's lived all of his life with his parents. His parents have passed. I think it turned out that uncle needed us as much as we needed him. Uncle spends every Wednesday and Friday with us. We have cut him back to half days now because he is a volunteer. He is getting on and we need to make sure that he's looking after himself. And we are looking after him as well With this Junderbari Walk project.
Narelle Dawson:Apart from meeting uncle Ron, uncle joined us and we contacted traditional owners and said to them this is our idea. We'd love to research this space and make it a little bit of a botanical walk, not just for us but for the whole community. Anilisha went for the walk with me and she wholeheartedly endorsed the project. The next step was to get on to Council and say traditional owners have given their blessing. This is what we want to do. Where do we need to go. Council contacted more traditional owners all over to get our local TOs endorsement ratified with all of them. Council came back and said yes, you can have the go ahead, but any signage that you put up must be able to be removed.
Narelle Dawson:We planned that within our planning and we then spoke with a local botanist who came in and looked at the 27 plants and trees that we had identified with uncle Ron and had a look at all of them. We made sure that the information that we had was correct. We spoke with traditional owners and Kabi-Kabi people to get the traditional use, the medicinal use or other use, food source or shelters, whatever that may have been, to make sure that we were incorporating that information into all of the signage. We basically was born from there. We did our first big sign that had the 27 plants and trees on it with a little mud map of where you go throughout the walk. We had individual signs placed on each 27 plant or tree. A big job and with information on those signs. Yep, and then that was basically the first stage.
Narelle Dawson:And then the next stage was we thought that we had incorporated some Jundaburi language on that first sign and honouring the Jundaburi TOs. But we always speak of. This is Jundaburi space, but it is also part of the Kabi-Kabi nation and so that was another stage. We did another big sign and we spoke with Auntie Melinda Serico, An artist, Kabi-Kabi artist, and she designed the sign and we incorporated some Kabi-Kabi language within that sign. It's awesome. We've got two beautiful big signs.
Narelle Dawson:The next stage was one of our parents who now lives up the coast and is a tattoo artist. He designed a beautiful big mural out there that represents animals that would be seen in that bush space. And another one of our dads came along and said you know, I'm a bit of an artist. I like to do artwork. You know how about I compliment that with the whole of our back colour-boned fence having beautiful artwork on it to blend in with the animals and everything. It's just beautiful. So that was another stage, and now we are at stage of we've got one more stage and I hope we're getting to the end, but that is to Lobber Council to ensure that that complete walk is all people accessible.
Narelle Dawson:So, it mostly is, but along the creek bed can be a little bit uneven, a bit rocky, and we have a lot of elderly people who actually come and do this walk as well, and we would just like along the creek bed to be a little bit safer so that anyone who wants to come, whether in the wheelchair or with a walker or completely able-bodied, then it's accessible to everybody. So that's the stage we're at now. How incredible. And we did, yeah, and then we thought, you know, we were so proud and people were just saying how much they loved the space and how much they were learning from it. So we thought, you know, we could put this into a book. And so we did. We worked with our First Nations children. Then we worked with Palmerston Indigenous Education Employment Council, worked with them every Thursday afternoon and they actually added their interpretation of the actual plant. So they had an image of the plant that was out there and then they drew their interpretation of that plant. And then we spoke with all of the elders over at Palmerston Indigenous Education Council and spent time with them getting their voice about how that plant or tree spoke to them throughout their life and especially, you know, growing up with their family, and so that became the book and it's had incredible interest.
Narelle Dawson:And then finally, with that project, you know, intention was never, ever to make money from this and so what we actually did was handed over the rights for Peace Mob to profit from the sale of the book. So we do have a stash for us to gift to different people and we have gifted a lot every school, every learning centre locally. Queensland State Library has it archived now. Yeah, we've gifted to a lot of people and everybody that was involved in the book, every child, every elder. So we do gift, but mostly locally and even further, a Palmerston Indigenous Education Employment Council. They are profiting from the sales of the book now.
Nicki Farrell:That's incredible, narelle, what an amazing gift to give and to work with community, to give back to the community and to hear community stories. I think that's what people are missing when they're saying we go out to earlier settings and we do Bushkindi, pds and whatnot. And one of the questions we get constantly is how do we build community and how do we reach out to TOs and how do we get them here? And they often just want to get them in NAIDOT week or one of the special days and there seems to be there's no ongoing conversation. There seems to be a take and not a give, and I think people need to remember that we need to give more than we take and we need to build genuine relationships, not just capitalist society.
Nicki Farrell:And don't get me wrong, people need to be remunerated and need to be repatriated and paid. What I mean is it's not just transactional. I really wish we could see more people genuinely building those relationships, like you said, over time. It's not a year, it's a 10-year project that people need to invest their love and care into for it to happen. It's a huge, huge, huge ose for the work that you've done and the relationships that you've built. And another thing that I know that you do is oh sorry, you go, you just hit something on the head.
Narelle Dawson:There we are thinking it's so connected because back in the beginning of my journey I was part of another project that was. It was called Tok Blow Umi and it was up at Noosa and I attended that on a regular basis over a six-month period because doors were closing. Back in that time and I thought, if we're doing something wrong, something's not right. And the light bulb moment during, towards the end of that professional development that I did was I realised that I wasn't looking at this in the right way and the catalyst was I'm looking at what I can get for our children and our service and not what I could give back. And that was the turning point for me and from that moment we constantly give back, constantly and we are now trusted widely in First Nations communities because we have we've walked the walk and we've talked the talk and we've been genuine in that and that has made a difference.
Nicki Farrell:For so long, white fellas have just taken and taken and harmed and abused and whatnot, and it takes a long time to build trust and I think people need to really think about that when they go into these relationships and realise how much, how long trust takes to build when you've been harmed and face trauma generationally, like has happened here in Australia. So, yeah, again, I think these conversations are really important. So thank you again for modelling what that needs to look like for it to happen genuinely and authentically. I'd love to talk to you about the work that you do with your local aged care setting. Can you talk to us about that?
Narelle Dawson:Sure. So, interestingly enough, our relationship with the aged care began in about 216 as well, and it, I guess, the thinking around community and how our children can more be part of community, came from our very, very first excellent rating assessment. So we applied for the rating and we had a site visit from a sequer and that was in 2014, beginning of towards the end of 213, but we were awarded in February 214. And one of the areas that we applied for was community and we thought we were doing it pretty well, but the comment that came back was that we could be doing more, and so that set us on a trajectory to look well, what else could we be doing that is authentic and ongoing? And so, even though we were having some elderly folk come in and we'd have morning tea for them, we approached local aged care facility and had discussions with them about you know what this could look like, what would they like it to look like and what we would like it to look like for, you know, the children and the elderly, and so it really just began from there. We agreed that we would visit on a weekly basis and we were doing that, and then the COVID hit and we thought you know, what can we do? We can't stop this just because of COVID. What can we do to ensure this continues? So we did. We went back and had discussions with them and at first what it actually looked like was the oldies were on the inside of these great big glass doors, which was the entrance up there, and we were on the outside and the children would. We'd give chalk pens to the oldies and they'd be drawing on the inside and the children would be drawing on the outside. They would occasionally open up the doors for us and we would have some of the oldies singing for us and then we would reciprocate and sing back for them.
Narelle Dawson:And then there came a point in time when the facility decided we were a bit of a nuisance and people were trying to come in and out. We were just in the way and which was a bit sad. So we thought what else can we do? So we were doing FaceTimes with them on a regular basis. We were doing drawings and writing little letters and delivering them up there. I was blessed. My daughter-in-law worked for Gladio Lo Farm and they had surplus supplies a couple of times a year. So she would gather or they would donate the Gladio Lo and we went searching for some beautiful blue wine bottles and got enough for every resident up there and we were delivering flowers to them, just doing whatever we could think of to continue that connection, because we've learnt that it's just so, so important for the children and for a lot of these elderly people as well. So it's still going.
Narelle Dawson:Today COVID has disappeared and we are back to visiting. I'm not allowed to take as many children as I used to, so we take up to about seven, eight maybe children, but that's okay because it's not for everybody, and at the time when we go, which is Fridays around about 10 o'clock, a lot of our children are already immersed in their play, and so I have to go around and say, okay, who'd like to come and visit the oldies? We normally can gather some children together and we'll head on up there. But it's just so rewarding to see the joy that it brings to these elderly citizens who have been and still are the backbone of our society. And it's just we do build sometimes stronger relationships with some than others. It's just the nature of personalities, I guess.
Narelle Dawson:And we've just very, very recently had a beautiful lady, joyce, who lived, absolutely lived for Fridays for the children to come and if we were late, she was wanting to know where we were. And even recently we've built a relationship with her daughter in Sunning Law and I received an email the night before saying you know, joyce isn't doing too well. It's probably not good for the children to come. And then, of course, next day Joyce rallied and I had her Sunning Law on the phone saying where are you? She's wanting to know where the children are. You need. Can you get up here quick?
Nicki Farrell:So we did.
Narelle Dawson:Sadly, we lost Joyce very recently and you know so. But you know we had to have those conversations and we've had to have those conversations with the children before. But this is part of why we do what we're doing as well. They're learning about life.
Nicki Farrell:We're trying to normalise um um aging as well, and it's, it is just one of the most beautiful things that we do and we will continue to do this, no matter what, oh gosh, it's so important for so many of those children that don't have grandparents around and vice versa, and that intergenerational learning and respect and for the for our oldest to be seen and remembered and and, like you said, that circle of life is. It's real and grief is real and we are learning to process it from a bit of a distance, close, but not, you know, intimate family, close. I can't imagine the positive impact this is making on children in the future when they have to come across these things as well. It's it's so important and we so often dodge it or gloss over it, but you can't gloss over it when the children have been visiting this person and they have relationships with this person and I just think that's just so beautiful.
Narelle Dawson:Yeah, it is lovely and it is one of the most rewarding things that I do each week.
Narelle Dawson:and get to do this with children who are up for it and you're after year and you're right. And some of these people don't see anybody other than the people that work there from one week to the next and you know that's very sad really. And when we leave, the first conversation we have, when we walk out those doors is, I ask the children, how do you feel? How do you feel knowing that you bought those beautiful smiles to these people? And they always say you know it feels good, they feel good about it.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, we're built for connection. And what was the incentive for you what was the straw that broke the camel's back for you to start leaving that gate more, like you said, you had that beautiful space behind you. What was it that you went? You know what we're ready. It's time.
Narelle Dawson:I think that professional development helped me along the way. You know, I was building connections with some amazing people who were doing amazing work beyond the fence line and we thought well, you know, we want community to be at the heart of what we're doing and it can't be if we're in here, you know, every day, all day. And so I think that that was the driving force. We want to be part of community. We have to get out there in the community and you know we do so much. Like we said, we set off to go down to the beach, which is right down the end of the road, but we detour to a little cafe on the way most times, and there's a beautiful man there on Wednesdays that plays his piano and everybody at the cafe sitting out on the waterfront sing, and then we turn up and the children sing and dance as part of that as well.
Narelle Dawson:And you know that's about being in your community, just turning up and, you know, not ringing up and saying, well, we're coming. You know, let's make this special. We just turn up and go with the flow, and that's just one. You know just one little thing that, yeah, that makes this special and makes these children, you know, feel that they're part of a community. And you know we've got Bob the pirate that lives in his ship on the waterfront and he became an integral part of our community garden. And you know we did. We wrote a book about that too, about Bob the pirate having a green thumb because he helped us for a year, you know, really get that community garden moving. And you know, now we see, when we see Bob out on the back, you know the children from year to year that have met him just able to say, hey, bob, how are you going? And yeah, it's just lovely.
Nicki Farrell:It's so beautiful. What were some of the barriers, as a director, that you had to overcome there, that you know what were the barriers that you faced, that you overcame to leave the gate more often.
Narelle Dawson:Probably not going to like this answer, but there were no barriers.
Nicki Farrell:Good.
Narelle Dawson:In the end, there weren't yet. There were no barriers. We realised there were no barriers and we made sure that this was part. You know that we spoke of this in our philosophy. We're open to families who come to us. We do have policies and we do have risk benefits, but that's the key word there the benefits. So we don't do risk assessments. We always speak to the benefits of why we're going to do this and honestly yeah, I've been asked this before what are the barriers? There are no barriers. We won't allow there to be any barriers.
Nicki Farrell:I'm just slow clapping here in the background. You just said you're not going to like this answer. That is actually the most perfect answer I've ever heard, because there are there is no reason people can't leave their gate. None. There is zero, zero reasons that you can't leave the gate, and it drives me nuts because there is an answer and a solution to everything. If we just take the time to sit and problem solve it and that means generally, you can solve it within your team. You don't even need to outsource that, because you have a highly resourceful team at all. Anywhere that you work Any setting I've ever been to generally they could solve it themselves, and if you go and visit other settings that are doing amazing things, they will help you. And if not, then yes, of course, you can outsource and get other people like ourselves to help, but so often it's just taking the time to sit and go. I feel like this is a barrier, and then someone has to say, well, here's a solution. Thank you for your actually perfect answer. That's wonderful. I am.
Nicki Farrell:It's probably not the right word, but I'm going to turn it like this because I want to ask you how the changes you've made, particularly since 2016. And what does success and I guess that's the word. People are uncomfortable with the word success, but success means a hundred different things. So, first of all, what does success look like for you as a setting, as a director, and then as just a human being? And how have the changes that you've made helped you hit, though your own personal targets of success, because success doesn't necessarily mean full books and loads of money. What does success look like for you to begin with, I guess, and then how have you gone about meeting those, those markers of success for you?
Narelle Dawson:Success for me Is being happy, loving what you do and doing what you love, but also being able to impart that on the people that you spend your time with, especially in your workplace. So it's always been really, really important to me to be an effective, a good leader and I feel that I guess I have the right to feel success in that area. And, of course, we do have a team. We have longevity in our team. Nobody usually leaves us unless they've. You know, we've had someone who I nurtured through from her set three to her teaching degree and she's teaching. But generally, you know, our team are very happy. They love what they do. We have happy children. We mostly have happy parents. I'm not saying that some of the things that we do haven't challenged a parent from time to time, but I think, yeah, success to me is just everybody being joyful, the children being joyful, our team being joyful, me being able to be joyful and all of the people that we build relationships with are able to be joyful as well.
Nicki Farrell:So I guess the deeper question for me there is what brings you joy and what brings your team joy. If you were to break it down, what is it that sets your setting apart from other settings where you do feel like you can be joyful at work amongst community doing your paperwork? What is it that enables that?
Narelle Dawson:I think having autonomy and being brave helps to support that we do as an affiliate service. We do have autonomy and so, while we totally love the C&K brand, we still, as an affiliate, are autonomous to do the things the way we believe is best for our children and our families and each other and the community. So I think that's the key for us that autonomy and then being brave to let's just get in and let's do this Because we've seen the results. We know that what we're doing is working well, and I'm not even referring now to the fact that we are the first in Australia to receive the fourth consecutive excellent rating. That rating doesn't define us. It certainly speaks to a lot of what we do, but if we had not been successful and we almost didn't apply if we had not been successful in that rating, we would still be doing exactly what we're doing today.
Nicki Farrell:That's telling. I think that when you are so joyfully doing what you do, it breathes through assessment and rating. When you've got happy children, happy team members, happy directors, it parents. That yes a challenge, but I think that's part of community. And belonging is also being able to resolve conflict and have uncomfortable conversations successfully. I think that's a huge part of belonging is being able to have uncomfortable conversations and still know that you're accepted and belong in that community. So the work that you do is so purposeful in making people feel like they belong and feel safe to be themselves. They're authentic selves. It's probably hard not to feel joyful like that. I'm guessing. True, very true. So what do you think success would look like in five to 10 years for you?
Narelle Dawson:Success for me in five to 10 years. Well, I don't know if we can go 10 years, but let's just talk about five years.
Narelle Dawson:I'd love to still be doing what I'm doing you know, I'm 66 now and my body and my brain and my well-being and everything is just going really, really well for me. So I'd like to be doing exactly what we're doing there in another five years, 10 years. I mean. The girls often joke that, no, you're never leaving, and even if you're in a wheelchair, well, will you enter the office and you can deal with all the problems and we'll look after the children?
Nicki Farrell:You can be the volunteer.
Narelle Dawson:Exactly so. I hope to be doing exactly what we're doing now, you know, and to continue to learn along the way and refine, if we need to, what we're doing. We're not perfect, but just yeah, I wouldn't change anything really.
Nicki Farrell:So beautiful If you could go back in time to when you first started out, thinking of all the early years educators just starting their third threes or diplomas or whatnot. I hope that any advice you'd give to yourself or them starting out.
Narelle Dawson:That's a tricky one, because the person that I am today is not that person that started back then and.
Narelle Dawson:I often say that the teacher that I was back then needs to pull all of those children back in here and almost apologise for the way we did things back then. So I guess my advice to people starting out now in early childhood is to have an open mind and research as much on professional development as they can that speaks to their own personal philosophy as well, and not to be afraid of change. I find that change seems to challenge a lot of people, whereas myself and our team we love change, we embrace change, and that has helped us to grow and to be better versions of ourselves, not just as educators, but as human beings as well. So I guess that would be always look at change as an opportunity to maybe do things better.
Nicki Farrell:I can hear your bravery that comes from a growth mindset and that not fearing failure and seeing that as potential for growth and learning. I think for a lot of people that's the means to success and if we can impart that sense of not fearing failure to children, I think that's one of the biggest things that we can set them up for health and wellbeing and happiness and joy. So again, thank you for role-modelling it.
Narelle Dawson:Pleasure and you mentioned a growth mindset and that has become a really big part of what we're focusing on with our children at the moment. We are seeing some positive results from that as well. Not so much of the language of that's lovely and fantastic and you're really clever, and all that type of language that sometimes we fall into, and we've been very mindful of using the language of growth mindset now so that children do understand that we don't get it right from the beginning and sometimes we have to try and try and try and try again until we can get it right, and we are seeing that that's been very beneficial in this space with our children as well and each other.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, and I would add as a parent too, it's been. One of the best things for my children's mindsets is I've particularly got names, but one of them has trouble beating himself up a little bit, but flipping the mindset to be it's not a mistake. We're just learning. Scientists have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prototypes and it's all just one big experiment life and we're all just learning and making mistakes and it's the only way we grow. And that has really flipped his mindset in the last couple of years and I'm so grateful for that because it's changing those neuro pathways and changing the story that he tells himself rather than I'm dumb and I'm a failure and that sucked, or I suck, it's now, oh well, it's just a mistake and gosh, just that semantics in that language makes such a difference. How good is that so amazing? Do you have anything else that you'd like to add or tell us about Bribe Island, ck. Before getting to some rapid fire questions, I don't think so.
Narelle Dawson:My brain is quite full at the moment.
Nicki Farrell:It's amazing. All right, I'll get stuck into some rapid fire questions. So, nero, what is your favourite book of all time and why, or what are you currently reading, or even listening to, if you prefer, podcasts or a recommendation as an education leader, anything Okay that's a tricky one.
Narelle Dawson:I've got lots of favourite books. This child in the woods has always been a favourite of mine. I read a lot of Nikki Buckins work.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, she's great.
Narelle Dawson:And yeah, she is great and has been a wonderful mentor for us as well, believe it or not. At the moment, I'm reading the book on the voice the yes right.
Nicki Farrell:I just started that the other day.
Narelle Dawson:Yep, yep, so I have almost finished that and it has helped me so much. I mean, I'm guided by the relationships that I have with First Nations people, not just locally but in many different areas, but this book has definitely helped me to understand more and understand the facts, rather than from listening to the hype that's out there.
Nicki Farrell:Absolutely.
Narelle Dawson:So that's not really well it is. It does relate to early childhood, because this country has the opportunity to make a decision for the future, old people. But it's not just about now. It's generations first, nation, generations to come, which is driving me at the moment.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, See you. I highly recommend grabbing that book and also, exactly like you said, make sure on your social media feeds that you are following particularly First Nations voices in your local area, like on your country, your local mobs, but also the voices for everyone. You know First Nations mobs all over Australia. So listening to different voices, young and old, and hearing the concerns. There are concerns, but I think that book, like you said, the book is really good at setting out the facts and I think that that's really important. There is a lot of misinformation going around at the moment and I am going to be very political here and say the saying that if you don't know, vote no, is I'm going to swear here and say is absolute bullshit. We have a bigger responsibility than that. If you don't know, find out, be a grown up. Only grown ups. Get votes. Go out and find out the information. It's not a good enough excuse to vote no. That's my piece?
Narelle Dawson:No, absolutely. Yeah, I'm with you on that and you know I'm about to have a bit of a Facebook clean out. Yes, and not because people are on the same page as me, but that they're being so public about it and are misinformed. Yeah, so yeah.
Nicki Farrell:Yeah, I just feel for our First Nations mob having to go through the vitriol and the racism that is being given a stand at the moment, and I understand why it needs to be a referendum. I understand that that's the only way we can change the constitution. I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish it didn't have to go to the white public to vote, but that's, that's the way it is. So please have the hard conversations with your family and friends, because this is really, really important, and sweeping it under the rugs not going to make it go away, it's only going to make it uglier.
Narelle Dawson:Yeah, one other book that I'm reading at the moment, too, is by Tony Christie, and she talks about the title of the book is Leading with Heart and Soul, and I'm absolutely loving that. And another thing that I follow Tony with is about rituals, because we have a lot of rituals at this kind of and it's, it's yeah, it's another great, great one to follow.
Nicki Farrell:I haven't read Leading with Heart and Soul, so I'm going to grab that one because, again, they do amazing work, those two. It's again, it's just child and heart centred, and I think I can walk and you would be the same, having the experience that you have. You can walk into a setting and and know the settings that are led with heart and the settings that are I'm not. It's where I'll leave that, yeah, yeah, all right, where do you go or what do you do to reset after a tough day?
Narelle Dawson:I go to my family. After a tough day, there's no place that I want to be other than with family. I'm blessed to have not had too many tough days. I think I could count the tough days in my time here probably on two hands, which is pretty good. That's amazing. But yeah, I start my day again with that growth mindset of today's not going to be tough and everything will be okay and I will get through today. I usually do.
Narelle Dawson:Most of my days are joyful and not many people can say that, but yeah, I think my family is my safe space At the end of the day. I live off the island only just. I drive over that bridge in the morning and I love it, and I am equally happy to drive off in the afternoon and be at home with my husband or when my daughter visits, Unfortunately, my granddaughters and great grandchildren.
Narelle Dawson:They've all moved up around 1770 area, so I don't get to see them a lot, but we communicate a lot. I'd have to say my family is my retreat definitely.
Nicki Farrell:That bridge is a beautiful drive and a beautiful way to bookend the day too. What a nice way to almost fare well, with a beautiful, likely half a sunset happening too. If you could choose just one thing to change about, I usually ask the education system, but I'm going to ask the early childhood. What would it be?
Narelle Dawson:If I had the power to do this, I would make children older before they start formal schooling. I would like to see children at least another six months older because, oh my gosh, this is a battle. This actually is a battle being able to provide children with that time, that extra time that a lot of them just need to play and to learn through their play and before they go into formal schooling. That's a hard one. I'm a keen advocate for every child, no matter where they are cognitively. Every child should have two years of kinship.
Narelle Dawson:Obviously, that can't be that is one thing, especially those children that obviously need it. We are firm advocates for that. We don't always succeed for them, but we do our best. It's not coming from a perspective of having bums on seats and filling out numbers we don't need to Anyway. It comes from a genuine, genuine concern for these children that aren't ready and they are going to be in a state of, I guess, some type of anxiety because they will always be trying to catch up. That's one thing I would change. Let's just make all children at least six months older before they start formal schooling.
Nicki Farrell:Here here. I'm a huge advocate for the delayed start. If you've got any concerns emotionally, cognitively, socially for your child entering school, that's enough of a red flag to delay them. Don't worry about them meeting their social needs or learning needs. They are learning it at Kindie. They are learning it at home with you. They just need time to be children. Let them be children. This is really good timing. It's nearly October. People are going to be thinking about whether they're sending their children to school. Here's your permission from a very, very, very wise educator. Narell is giving you and I'm here to advocating for delayed start. I've never, ever, ever, met a family or a child that has regretted delaying their child not yet, absolutely.
Narelle Dawson:Yeah, you know, we actually have families coming back to thank us for making the recommendation. Another book. I must mention that I actually haven't got to read it yet because I've lent it to one of our families who's struggling with the decision. So I bought the book and passed it on to her for these holidays to have a read. But an amazing guy called Andrew Overther. Andrew was principal down Pine Rivers, one of the schools down Pine Rivers. He writes a book about you know, are you ready for school? And he as a school principal.
Narelle Dawson:He's amazing and very raw and honest about you know when children are or aren't ready for school, and for anyone, any parents or even any educators who need something to back up you know what they do. The best for the child. Get this book, sit it in your parent library and you can also Andrew Overther. There's a link with Andrew Isit first door, first door early childhood consultant. She does a really good interview with Andrew about this. So well worth, well worth everyone having a look at that.
Nicki Farrell:Fantastic.
Nicki Farrell:I'll find that link and I'll put it in the show notes for anyone listening as well, I think, again, those resources are invaluable because a lot of the times parents are speaking to other parents that also don't know they're in the exact same boat. They're all feeling the same anxiety and they're not sure who to speak to about it other than people that are in school, and that's often not the people that are helpful yet. So, yeah, that's thank you for those resources. Really appreciate it. And the last thing where can we find out more about Bribe Island Community, kendi? And if I'm a parent in the area, how do I go about maybe perhaps trying to enroll my child?
Narelle Dawson:So we've got our website, bribekendicomau, we've got our Facebook page and we do share a lot of the learning, a lot of the children's stories, a lot of the joy. We do share a lot there. And you know, just a call, just give us a call. We make ourselves available as often as we can. We normally say don't pop in on Wednesdays because we won't be here Friday mornings. It's not great, because I'm normally up. You know I'm visiting the oldies with the children, but we're pretty flexible and pretty open and you know we can be asked anything. We will be honest, yeah, and everyone's welcome.
Nicki Farrell:Amazing. Thank you, narell, so much for joining us and again, thank you for being what people sometimes feel they can't see. It's so wonderful to be able to. I follow you guys on Facebook I have for years and it brings me such joy to see you out and about and chatting to oldies and elders and, you know, seeing the wildlife in the ocean. And I think, like you said, this is what parents want for their children, but sometimes early childhood settings that can't work out how to do it because they believe there are barriers. So, if you have any barriers, just ask, ask around, ask, ask, ask anybody, because nothing should stop you from getting out of that gate. So please, if you need any encouragement, let this be your encouragement to deeply embed our First Nations perspectives sustainability, community. It's so beneficial. I think the thing I've taken most out of this is not only does it benefit the children and community, but in a sector that is losing education team members by the thousands at the moment, it's a great way to enable our teams to feel very purposeful and have a beautiful sense of belonging and well-being. So thank you, thank you for all the work that you do, narell, and thanks for being here today. My pleasure. What I took from our chat with Narell today is that embedding anything into your programs and settings takes a lot of time, authenticity, deep listening and a huge embracing of failure. I also learnt that success to Narell is happiness, joy, play and healthy relationships, putting those connections to community first. And I would add though she didn't verbalise it herself that the work that they do at Bribe Island is deeply, deeply purposeful and likely makes them all fill a deep sense of connection to their community as well. We've been having a lot of chats here at Wildlings about what success looks like to us as a business and what it looks like to others and ourselves as individuals. We know that here for us at Wildlings, success doesn't mean being multi-millionaires though that would be a lovely bonus, I'll have to admit or raking in awards though it is really lovely when we have won awards in the past. But for us as a business, success looks like meeting our purpose and our values and mission, which is getting more children outdoors adventuring. It's helping families build connections and their village and it's about helping raise the next generation of children who will help protect our planet Individually.
Nicki Farrell:For me, success, again, doesn't look like huge amounts of money and fancy cars and nice clothes and all of those things that I guess mainstream media tries to set us up to want and need. Instead, for me, success looks like more time, or at least flexibility in my time, to be with my children or to work the hours that suit our families and to be able to go away when we want to. Success to me is a healthy body and a healthy mind, which I'll only get through building healthy relationships and connection to my community and my neighbors and, of course, nature. It's having fulfilling work where I can be my authentic self and play and where it's filled with awe and wonder, by shifting my markers of success to what made me actually feel good inside and outside, rather than these external markers again, that mainstream media kind of sets for us. That was the catalyst for me to move towns 10 years ago when our firstborn arrived, and then moving from the suburbs here to acreage multi-generations on our property. It pushed me to take the risk, to take the leap and change careers, to move out of mainstream teaching, and it pushed me out of my comfort zone where I checked out a bunch of different playgroups, really slowly and intentionally building my village. It's seen me let go of unhealthy relationships and surrounding myself with doers who are secure in who they are, who build up as, rather than people that bring people down, and it saw me leaving the schooling system the traditional schooling system and heading down the unschooling path.
Nicki Farrell:I guess all this is to say that this is my version of success and there is no wrong or right answer. But I think, from the talks that we've been having in and around our community, that a lot of people don't know what success actually feels like to them. What success is to you will look very different to anyone else. There is no wrong or right answer. So don't even bother looking at what anybody else is doing, because you don't know what they're sacrificing for that success. And that may be your main marker for success. But until you know what success actually looks like to you, then it's really hard to start taking the baby steps toward what that looks like in your life.
Nicki Farrell:So some questions you could ask yourself, or your setting or the people in your team, are how do you or how do we define success here? Do you think you're a successful person or do you think this setting is successful? If not, what areas would we like to change? What would I like to change about my life Compared to a year ago. What parts do film arcs successful and what changes did I make to get there? Where do you feel you are succeeding in your personal and business life and what are those indicators and really feel into them with your body?
Nicki Farrell:I can't recommend turning the TV and ads off enough. I can't recommend putting away tabloid magazines more. When I did that, I really believed. Turning the TV off and having those bombardments of what I should look like and what I should be attaining and what success should look like really allowed me to listen to my own inner voice about what that would look like. And I think that sometimes takes time. It takes time away, it takes us. We need to kind of set intentional time to go and do that so, and that can be really hard.
Nicki Farrell:I think if you've never done it before, we have created a little guide. We get asked this a lot, obviously because we run our wild business course how can I make change? How do I know my business is successful? How could I take the leap and leave my job? And so we have designed a little guide to help you start drawing out some of those answers. Because again, what success looks like to me is very different. We've got people in our wild business course that want to set up multiple spaces and make this a really successful financial venture. That is perfectly, perfectly great goal to have for other people, but that's your goal. That's amazing. What you then need to work out is how you're going to work backwards from that goal and break that down into tiny steps.
Nicki Farrell:So we have created a free find your purpose activity and you can download that and complete that and do that in your own time. You can find that on our Raising Wildlings Instagram and the link in bio and why not give us a sneaky follow while you're at it, if you're not already? Or you can find it on our Raising Wildlings website. It's just at the bottom of our homepage. You'll find the link there. It's.
Nicki Farrell:I think it would take you about 10 minutes max and it's a real find your purpose, because I think without knowing what your purpose is, you can't actually work out what success means to you. I actually think it's worthwhile doing every year, every couple of years, even if you're happy, because I think sometimes maintaining the status quo feels safe, but that might not necessarily be what's best for us. You know, moving forward, and we need to always be moving, not no, that's not true. We don't need to be moving forward, but we do need to be checking in on ourselves. If there's anything else that we have and that we can do that's within our power to make our lives easier, smoother, calmer, more peaceful, what makes you happy? Because if you don't know that, you can't achieve it and you can't start breaking it down. I'm not entirely sure how I got down that rabbit hole.
Nicki Farrell:From summarizing Narelle's episode today, I do know. I think Narelle and her incredible team at Briaby are happy, and they're happy and their team are healthy and they have great well-being because their intentions are deeply rooted in authenticity, purpose and connection, and we humans need connection. So, to summarize all of this, maybe a good question to ask us is are our connections healthy? Is my relationship with my children, my partner, my team, healthy? And if not, what kind of steps can I do to help that? Because without healthy connections, life can be really, really hard. I'll end on that note Thank you, as always, for taking this journey with us and until next week, stay wild.