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Shape international dialogue on how the sector should respond to the challenges of COVID-19

EECERA Online Convocation 27-28 October 2020

Following the postponement of the Annual Conference until September 2021, and as promised, we provide our members and the wider EECERA community with an opportunity to reconnect and join this important virtual forum.

Concept of the EECERA Convocation began with a Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (EECERJ) from those undertaking research into the impact of COVID-19 on young children under 8 years. Although only a small selection of these world-wide papers will be published in the EECERJ in January 2021, the overwhelming response revealed a clear need for there to be an ongoing debate.

This series of 5 webinars over two days (27 and 28 October) aims to bring together international ECEC community to learn about the latest research, approaches and perspectives relating to the education and development of young children. It also provides a forum to explore contested positions, seeks multiple perspectives and collaboration.

Why attend

• Join us from the comfort of your home as we attempt to capture complexity and multiplicity of issues by sharing narratives from children, parents, practitioners, providers and policy administrators about their COVID experiences and seek understandings for the benefit of the children and families for whom we work. 
• Speakers and panelists within and across the webinars are, we believe, representing truly international experiences and perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 on early childhood.
• Engage in critical and constructive dialogues about these responses and experiences which can inform and extend our understanding of the impact of the pandemic and how the early childhood sector might respond to the challenges it brings.

The registration fee of ?90* (or ?45* for EECERA members) will give you access to:

• All five live webinars over two days
• Live Q&A with the presenters and panellists
• Interaction with peers via webinar chat function 
• On-demand access to all webinar recordings for up to 90 days after the event.

Additional call for papers is now open

• Anybody who missed the last year's call for proposals.
• Anybody who has already submitted one proposal and had it accepted but wish to submit an additional proposal (please note the terms* below apply).
• Anybody who submitted a proposal last year but have since decided to withdraw it (because their research has developed significantly since the first call and therefore their proposal was no longer reflecting the research progress) and submit a revised version in this call.

2020 EECERA Members' Annual General Meeting 

EECERJ - This month''s pick

Weaving pedagogy in early childhood education: on openings and their foreclosure

Call for EECERJ referees

EECERJ - Monograph on COVID-19

EECERA Convocation - thank you

Thank you so much for those who joined us last month - we've been overwhelmed by your engagement in the webinars and your feedback around the event. We have benefitted greatly from the insight of the presenters and panelists. It has been heartening to reconnect with our EECERA community and to consider new ways and possibilities for the future. It was clear from all the webinars that there is a great appetite to capitalise on what has been learned, to resist attempts to revert to the status quo and instead to build back better. 
Please do keep our dialogue going by sharing your thoughts with us in a form of a blog post, either submitted to us (see below for details) or if you have your own platform you'd prefer to use, please send us a link or tag @eecera on social media.

Reconnect with EECERA friends and colleagues
for the annual dose of CPD

EECERA Online Convocation
STARTS TOMORROW AT 1PM (GMT)

1. 27 October, 1pm - 2:30pm (GMT) Corona Pandemic in the US Shapes New Normal for Young Children and Their Families
2. 27 October, 4.30pm - 6pm (GMT) Aspects of the impact of COVID-19 on Settings and Staff
3. 27 October, 8pm - 9.30pm (GMT) What have children got to say?: Children's narratives of the pandemic from 3 countries
4. 28 October, 9am - 10.30am (GMT) Children "locked down": voices, experiences and resources of children and families during and after the pandemic crisis. Insights from Italy.
5. 28 October, 1pm - 2.30pm (GMT) Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education: The pursuit of democracy, inclusion and relational praxis in the context of COVID-19

We believe this is a great CPD opportunity for many HE Early Childhood Departments staff (researchers and lecturers wishing to inform their work with the latest ECEC research), as well as postgraduate students (many of them practitioners), one that could perhaps be supported by some of those HE institutions that have been unable to offer CPD / international conference support to their staff and students this year due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the ongoing pandemic. 

For our EECERA members, we are able to offer a 50% discount on fees; for colleagues who would otherwise struggle to attend conference normally, we hope this also provides an opportunity to experience EECERA in a way that would otherwise not have been possible before.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to join fellow researchers, postgraduate students, practitioners, policy makers and other ECEC organisations representatives to identify and discuss key challenges facing the early childhood sector. 

Can't attend all the live webinars? Don't worry, we will send you recordings of all 5 webinars after the Convocation has ended.

The registration** will give you access to:

• Latest ECEC research
• All five live webinars over two days - 7.5 hours of CPD
• Live Q&A with 20+ presenters and panelists from 13 countries
• Network of peers to (re)connect with via webinar chat function 
• On-demand access to all webinar recordings for up to 90 days after the event.

* Bookings can be made for the duration of the Convocation but only those made 2hrs before a specific webinar start will get live access; any bookings made later will get recorded access plus live access to any remaining sessions.
**The ticket price points are consistent for members and non-members (?45 and ?90 respectively). However, depending on attendees' geographical location, legally, VAT application differs.

International Narratives about COVID-19 and Early Childhood

EECERA Online Convocation 27-28 October 2020

This year's EECERA Conference in Zagreb has been postponed to 2021 and in its place, EECERA's Board of Trustees have decided to call ECEC colleagues and friends together for this online event.

The impact of COVID-19 on all aspects of society and on all members of our communities, from the very young to the very old, can be dramatic and life changing. The experience of COVID is certainly a uniting call for a rethink of the way we have been living and confronts us all with a demand to change. The pandemic provides our EECERA community with both immediate and longer-term questions and concerns. It also provides us with opportunities to rethink, recalibrate and renew our mission and our methods of engaging.

This Convocation is intended to stimulate open and illuminative dialogues, the exchange of experiences, and the identification of productive responses to support young children and families as we navigate the profound challenges of this time. It provides a forum to explore contested positions, seeks plurality and multiple perspectives and collaboration, not exceptionalism.

In this Convocation we aim to:

• share actions, research and strategies that have been taken in countries around the world to support young children and families, and those who work with them, during the pandemic;
• share plural narratives about the pandemic experience from children, parents, practitioners, providers and policy administrators;
• identify key challenges facing the early childhood sector;
• engage in critical and constructive dialogues about these responses and experiences which can inform and extend our understanding of the impact of the pandemic and how the early childhood sector might respond to the challenges it brings.

The Convocation is co-chaired by Prof. Chris Pascal (EECERA President) and Prof. Tony Bertram (EECERJ Coordinating Editor) and consists of five webinars over two days; it will focus on the following topics: System Challenges; Perspectives of Staff and Settings; Perspectives of Children; Perspectives of Parents and Family; Perspectives on Pedagogy.

Each webinar comprises keynote presentation, panel discussion and a moderated Q&A session between speakers and attendees.

The registration fee of ?90* (or ?45* for EECERA members) will give you access to:

• All five webinars over two days
• Live Q&A with the presenters and panellists
• On-demand access to all webinar recordings for up to 90 days after the event.

Letter from the Board of Trustees

Dear EECERA friends,

These last months have given all of us personal and professional challenges that have demanded extraordinary reserves of energy, creativeness, resilience and compassion as we have navigated life during this ever-developing COVID pandemic. We hope you have managed to stay well and safe during these tough times but accept that many of you will have been afflicted directly by the virus and may still be in recovery. Our hearts are with you all as we reflect on these exceptional times and try and look ahead to a brighter future.

At EECERA we are mourning the loss of our conference this year and the joys of our international friendships and the companionship that it provides. We are pleased to tell you that the Zagreb conference will go ahead with a year's delay on 7-10th September 2021 thanks to the sterling work of our Croatian colleagues. More information about that will be published shortly.

EECERA SIG Meetings

SIG Corner

Message to members and the wider EECERA community

In this message, EECERA Borad of Trustees acknowledge the impact and pressures these unprecedented times have had on our lives, professionally and personally and express their gratitude for all the good words, kindness, and offers of support sent by friends, colleagues, members and the wider EECERA community.

30th EECERA Conference postponed

EECERJ - This month''s pick

"Teachers' pedagogical strategies when creating digital stories with young children" by Marianne Undheim and Margrethe Jernes

EECERJ Special Issue: Digital Childhoods, Multimodality and STEM

EECERJ evaluated as class A journal by the ANVUR commission

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