Infant-toddler programs and new early childhood curriculum documents in Australia

This article examines the two curriculum documents that have recently been introduced into Australia: one a national curriculum document, Belonging, Being and Becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR], 2009a) and the other, a state framework, Victorian early years learning and development framework (VEYLDF) (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development [DEECD], 2009) that has been designed to complement the national learning framework, Belonging, Being and Becoming. The article examines these documents in relation to the potential they provide to promote high qualihj education and care programmes for infants and toddlers. Everything that happens in the day is curriculum for a baby so relationships, physical environment and the educator's own theories of infancy are part of this curriculum. Infant group education and care programmes have been identified as often under-theorised and the most challenging to deliver. A question posed in this article is; can curriculum documents, based on identified outcomes, play a role in changing this?