VBJK wants to support parents and educators, in a scientifically sound way, in the education of children within the family, the school and all early childhood services as fully-fledged educational environments, and this from a perspective of emancipation and solidarity, respecting children’s rights and diversity among families.
Main focus is aimed at values and projects dealing with:
- accessibility: early childhood services as a right for all children and their parents
- affordability of services
- a pedagogical approach, focusing on the holistic and multiple development of children
- participation as an essential value
- coherence and global approach
- focus on diversity, non-discrimination, and democracy
- looking at evaluation as a permanent, participatory and democratic process
- working towards a ‘new’ early years professional, being critical, reflective, open to dialogue and respecting diversity
- considering school and early childhood services as equal partners, sharing the same image on childhood and education
- valuing international cooperation and exchanging knowledge and ideas

News

Playing at Home is also Learning

Two months without school and preschool. Two months without learning? Not at all, because playing is learning! During the COVID-19 virus lockdown, we all heard and read many things about children and ...

New Flemish ECEC Magazine is Launched by the ISSA Member

ISSA Member VBJK is launching the new Flemish magazine on ECEC Kindertijd (which means ‘childhood’ in Dutch). The first issue of the magazine will be published in the fall of 2021. That means that VBJ...

SAVE THE DATE: A series of webinars on 'Challenging the split system in early childhood care and education'

    International webinars Challenging the split system in early childhood care and education Emerging pathways: Experiences from Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands   ...

EDUCAS project – Achievements of the Consortium

        EDUCAS project awarded with Epos quality label for 'Good practice in 2021' In March 2022, Epos agency, responsible for the implementation in Flande...

‘I Like it Here, it Feels Like a Second Home’ – EDUCAS Presented to a Broad International Audience

EDUCAS project was presented to a broad international audience during the ISSA Connects Week in December 2020. The session gained the attention of 87 people from around the world. Participants in...

How Can We Rethink and Transform ECEC spaces? Reflecting with Photos and Observations

Within the EDUCAS project, Belgium’s project partners VBJK (Centre for Innovation in the Early Years) and the two Flemish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) centers involved, de Tandem and Hipp...

ISSA Connects: Early Childhood Education and Care during the Pandemic

On November 2, 3 and 4 ISSA is hosting another opportunity to Connect. ISSA Connects for Learning will include three professional development sessions, all free of charge. We asked workshop facil...

ISSA Members are at the Forefront of Innovations in the Early Years Sector in Europe

The European Commission’s ECEC webinar “Working with families and the whole community” last week highlighted 7 initiatives from across Europe. ISSA or ISSA Members have been actively engaged in each o...

Early Childhood Education and Care Spaces - Children’s Vision

EDUCAS Project aims to create Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) environments that support children’s development in a holistic way, taking into account the diverse perspectives of people invol...

BLOG: EDUCAS Case Study from Belgium

EDUCAS aims to create ECEC environments that support children’s development in a holistic way, taking into account the diverse needs of children and families, with special attention to the ones at ris...

NEWS – INTESYS: How can we accomplish more together? – Part 2

'There are four magic points when you talk about integrated working:  a shared vision, time, sufficient support and guidance, and finally, action.' Integrated systems is a complex term; don’t let...

5 Steps to Quality – A word with ECEC Expert Ankie Vandekerckhove

Ankie, you’ve been a strong voice in European advocacy for the improvement of Early Childhood Development in the past decades. What has improved and what needs improvement still? First of all, I prefe...

TOY for inclusion inspires young children in Belgium

Playing, reading and drawing is highly beneficial for the development of young children. In a lovely video produced within the TOY for Inclusion project, we see learning activities organized...

ISSA welcomes 15 new members

The association is proud to receive a large number of new full and affiliate members from different European countries, including Belgium, France, Greece and The Netherlands, thus expanding its prese...

New manual for diversification of programs in Serbia

The manual and its practicum offer alternative ways to make preschool education accessible to a larger number of children that still remain outside the mainstream system. Two ISSA full members, the C...

Another 3 new members for our ever-expanding network

Spring has arrived and brings 3 new members for our network. Our newest full member is Learning for Well-being Foundation from Amsterdam. UEF is at the origin of Learning for Well-Being approach ...

Resources

InTrans Infographics - status of early childhood care and education systems in seven EU countries

The ultimate goal of the InTrans project is to ensure that all children and families — especially the most vulnerable — benefit from warm and inclusive transitional practice in ECEC and scho...

Group reflection as a motor for high-quality educational practice. An inspirational travel guide for practitioners and leaders in ECEC and primary schools

This Guide will help you get familiar with the collaborative reflective practices of educators working in Early Childhood Education Centres (ECEC) and primary schools. It is intended for both ECEC pro...

Multilingual early childhood education and care for young refugee children

This is the Toolbox of the Erasmus+ project Multilingual early childhood education and care for young refugee children. In this project (2016-2019) the consortium made an inventory of the existing ser...

EDUCAS - Policy recommendations: Strengthening the importance of SPACE and EDUCARE approach

Educating and caring for young children is a big responsibility, challenge and commitment. The POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS for strengthening the importance of SPACE and EDUCARE approach in early childhood ...

EDUCAS Toolbox - Wonder and Beauty: Connecting ECEC spaces and educare

EDUCAS Toolbox aims to support coordinators, coaches, trainers, professionals that seek to stimulate professional development paths with ECEC staff with the aim to create child and friendly ...

EDUCAS - Case Study Belgium (FL): Re-thinking ECEC spaces/materials by reflecting on practice

Throughout the three years of the EDUCAS project, partners in Belgium (FL), Italy and Lithuania have undertaken a thorough examination of existing visions and methods related to organizing ECEC enviro...

START- Sustaining Warm and Inclusive Transitions across the Early Years. Final report with implications for policies and practices

Transitions across the home environment, early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings and compulsory school education (CSE) mark significant changes in the life of children and their families an...

Value Roadmap: Pathways towards strengthening collaboration in early childhood

The ambition of this roadmap is to inspire you, as a reader, to strengthen collaboration between assisting and core practitioners in ECEC. The underlying idea is that better collaboration strengthens ...

The points of view of families, professionals, children

The EDUCAS project planned to start the Continuous Professional Development Paths (CPD) in the three countries involved (Belgium, Lithuania, Italy) with specific focus groups involving families and st...

European Quality Framework: High 5 Quality Scan

The High 5 Quality Scan is an evaluation tool based on the European Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care accompanying the 5 Steps to Quality Training Package. ISSA has tr...

Supporting the collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners: Experiences from Learning Labs at the three Danish pilot schools

This report examines the question "How can professional development in learning laboratories enhance professional identity, a holistic perspective approach to education and care (educare) and collabor...

Supporting the collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners: Experiences of professional learning communities in two Slovenian pilot kindergartens

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate development and implementation of a common path of professional development for professionals: ECEC core and assisting practitioners in two Slovenian kinde...

Supporting the collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners: Experiences of contextual professional development in two Portuguese pilot schools

In this report we present a description and reflection of the learning path carried out in Portugal, by the teams of Lisbon and Santarém. After a previous contextualization about the ECEC system ...

Supporting the collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners: Experiences of two Belgian pilot schools

In this Belgian Pilot Report, conducted as part of the VALUE project, we examine how collaborative learning between ECEC core and assisting practitioners can be supported as part of sustainable CPD (C...

Supporting the collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners: endline report of the VALUE project in four countries

In this VALUE endline report, the following question is examined: How can continuous professional development (CPD) strengthen professional identity, holistic approaches to educational work (educare) ...

The WANDA Method: Overview and Steps Forward

This resource summarizes the contents of the Peer Learning Activity (PLA) among ISSA members during 5 years, which focused on the WANDA methodology. WANDA is a co-reflective method aimed at improving ...

Supporting Social and Emotional Well-Being of Children in Early Childhood Education and Care through Team Reflection

These Guidelines are the outcome of the second part of the SEED project, during which a group reflection pathway, called WANDA1, was piloted with 80 ECEC practitioners with the aim to help them to dea...

Manual for Diversification of Programs for Preschool Education

Two ISSA members, CIP (Center for Interactive Pedagogy/Serbia) and VBJK/Belgium, co-authored this manual as a result of the work they carried out under two large projects in Serbia: IMPRES Project –...

European Quality Framework: 5 Steps to Quality

The training package 5 Steps to Quality is promoting the implementation of the European Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care (EQF) with the aim to building and improving the q...

Quality of Early Childhood Education Services - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro

The report Quality of Early Childhood Education Services - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro resulted from a consultancy carried out by Jan Peeters from VBJK (ISSA's member from Flan...

NESET II Analytical Report: Transforming Europen ECEC services and Primary school into professional learning communities: drivers, barriers and ways forward

NESET II report on Professional Learning Communities. Each child its own story: Diversity in child care centres (from birth to 13 years) is a book acknowledging that every child starting at a chi...

WANDA

To develop a new method of professionalization for low qualified practitioners in the 0-3 sector of the Flemish Community of Belgium, in 2010 Artevelde Hogeschool (University College in Gent) and VBJK...