Practical Placement Coordinator to support your experience

Friday, March 19, 2021

It’s no secret that practical experience is vital to gain and develop skills that will boost your capabilities in an early childhood education career. Practical placement is built in to our early childhood education courses because we know the importance of it for our learners.

Getting hands-on and applying the knowledge you are learning through your studies in a real-life setting can take your learning to the next level and help you feel ready for the workforce. For some learners, arranging practical placement can seem daunting.

With Practical Outcomes, our practical placement coordinator, Kylie Jackson, can help make sure you find an early learning centre that is a perfect match for you to undertake your placement hours.

Kylie Jackson: Practical Placement Coordinator

Kylie is passionate about the importance practical work placement plays for learners and takes great pride in making it a valuable and positive experience for all.

To do this, she takes great care to get to know each learner individually so that she can match them up with a centre that will give them the best hands-on learning opportunities through their practical placement.

Part of the practical placement coordinator role as undertaken by Kylie is considering learners’ personal attributes too. For example, Kylie had a learner with a hearing impairment who was finding her placement wasn’t working for her and wondered if it was a communication issue related to her hearing. Kylie knew exactly how she could support this learner.

“I knew of a centre who had a room leader with a child who has a hearing impairment. It ended up a perfect match for my learner and she actually went on to win a Victorian educator of the year award recently!”, shared Kylie.

Fostering positive relationships with early learning centres and their teams helps Kylie to do her job effectively. She makes it her mission to understand the way their centre runs, their training methods, values and approaches to early learning.

“It’s not just about availability of learners and matching that to what works for centres. Matching learners to centres involves really getting to know the learner and the centres and giving both the best experience from placement”, says Kylie.

This commitment to helping others get the most from their experiences extends outside of Kylie’s work as practical placement coordinator. Since the age of 23 Kylie has been an emergency foster carer. Kylie says the children she nurtures have made a big difference to her life and to her children who have developed a beautiful appreciation of families.

“Children impact your life and you hope to have a positive impact on theirs”, Kylie said.

Practical Outcomes learners are sought-after

The feedback Kylie gets from childcare services reinforces the approach Practical Outcomes takes to our courses, our learners and our placement coordination. She frequently hears from centres that they are very happy to take on Practical Outcomes learners because they know how high quality the training is.

It is further backed by many learners seeing their practical placements turn into long-term employment by means of job offers during placement.

Why practical placement is so important

Practical placement gives learners essential skills and experiences, and ensures they can graduate feeling confident. Through placement in the workplace, learners benefit in many ways. They see their knowledge and theoretical learning come to life in a genuine context.

The placement experience is further enhanced at Practical Outcomes with our human-centred education approach, which encourages learners to engage with their learning in a meaningful way and reflect throughout the journey.

This approach is strengthened with tools such as our best practice practical placement journal. Gain insights on your strengths and weaknesses while tracking your progress and assessing what you need to work on to get the best results.

Get the most from practical placement

With a practical placement coordinator like Kylie behind you, you can get the most from your practical placement in early childhood education. Kylie and the rest of our team will guide you through practical placement, helping you know what to expect and how to maximise the experience.