Learning Circles

Join us for our final Learning Circle of 2026 — a relaxed and welcoming opportunity to come together, reflect on the year and help cultivate ideas for what comes next.

We’ll share stories, experiences and highlights from 2026: what inspired us, what challenged our thinking, what made a difference, and what we’re taking forward in our work with children and communities.

We also want to hear from you about 2027. What sustainability topics would you like to explore? What conversations should we be having? Are there ideas, practices, projects or speakers you’d love to see included in future Learning Circles?

Whether you’ve joined us throughout the year or this will be your first Learning Circle, everyone is welcome. Come along to listen, share, connect and help shape the Learning Circles for 2027.

Free online event
Thursday 5 November 2026 | 7.30 pm AEDT

Small conversations. Big change. Together, we can continue cultivating a more sustainable, socially just and economically sustainable future in early childhood.

The learning circle will be an opportunity to explore ways of knowing, being and doing that can inform early childhood educational practices. We will discuss how reconfiguring our own understanding of self can help us to be more inclusive and engage in place based environmental education.

Exploration of ‘the relational self’ will inform culturally respectful learning practices which are relevant to environmental education. A pedagogy of land will allow educators and children alike to critically reflect on their relationship to place and regard for others.

Examples of strategies to help educators support children and families to avoid the dominant or ‘logic’ ways of knowing, being and doing will be shared through inquiry, active discussion of real-world problems, and exploration of the unknown.

There will be opportunities to share stories of your own connections regarding the development of diverse cultural relationships and how they were or can be formed respectfully.

This will lead us beyond theory and into practice to consider the importance of place-based learning techniques, for minimising unconscious bias, and fostering respect for cultural differences.

The Alliance is inviting you to participate in our next Learning Circle on Wednesday 27 August, 7-8pm AEST.
The focus will be on energy conservation and renewable energy in early childhood services. The Learning Circle discussion is inspired by the recently published Parents for Climate educator resource "Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy for Children’s Healthy Futures Downloadable from Resource: Teaching preschool kids about energy – Parents for Climate The Learning Circle will include links to the EYLF v2, practical ideas, play experiences and pedagogies. The session will be led by Dr Sue Elliott with insights from case study practitioners. Join us to share your questions and actions for renewable futures for all.