Early Childhood Ireland
National Annual Awards
The Early Childhood Ireland National Annual Awards 2021
Welcome to our National Annual Awards 2021.
The Early Childhood Ireland National Awards celebrate and showcase the sector’s ambition and commitment to continuously improve the quality of their practice and their services to children and their families. The awards promote professional practice within early learning and care and school-age childcare services and encourage ongoing reflection and shared dialogue between educators. Early Childhood Ireland believes that sharing quality education and care practices and pedagogies through documentation has the power to build and enhance quality in services and promotes high-quality experiences and environments for children, families, educators, and local communities.
Key dates for your diary
Opening Date: 19 April 2021
Closing Date: 31 May 2021
Award Winners Announced: 8 October 2021
Award Categories
There are 6 categories and 9 awards.
What do the winners receive?
- All winning applications will be announced and presented with an award and a bursary.
- Early Childhood Ireland will promote the Award winners through our social media channels, local media, and our award website.
- Award winners can link posts to their social media platforms and website.
Click below for more information
- How to Apply
- Judging process
- Application Form
- Early Childhood Ireland National Annual Awards FAQ
- Judges Information
- Early Childhood Ireland Award Sponsors 2021
Resources to support you in applying for the awards
Each award category has a resource section with additional information to support you in applying for each award. The following documents underpin award category criteria:
- Good practice principles and model of participation.pdf
- Early Childhood Ireland’s Reflective Framework.pdf
- Aistear – The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework
- Síolta – The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education
- National quality guidelines for school age childcare services guidelines
Please email kwhitham@earlychildhoodireland.ie if you have any questions.
Jenny Buckley
TV Broadcaster, Voiceover Artist and Actress
We are thrilled to have Jenny as our master of ceremonies for this years National Annual Awards 2020.
Jenny is a TV Broadcaster, Voiceover Artist and Actress. She has worked with a number of stations including RTÉ, Virgin Media and UTV Ireland.
Judging Panel
Thank you to our panel of 18 national and international judges, who have various backgrounds and areas of expertise. They all agreed that the standard of entries this year is very high. You can read about the 2020 Early Childhood Ireland National Annual Awards judging process and our 2020 judges here:
Aine Lynch, National Parent Council (NPC). | Dr Lisha O’Sullivan, MIC Limerick. |
Anna Barr, LINC Programme Tutor. | Julie McNamara, Kildare County Childcare Committee. |
Anne Fitzpatrick, TU Dublin. | Lorraine Sands, Educational Leadership Project, New Zealand. |
Dr Anne-Marie Brooks, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY). | Marlene McCormack, Institute of Education. Dublin City University. |
Annette Kearns, Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood, Maynooth University. | Mary Daly, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). |
Carole Dee, LINC Programme Tutor. | Mary Skillington, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology. |
Chantal Williams, Stepping Stones Children’s Services, Tasmania. | Michelle Hart, National Childhood Network (NCN). |
Delia Goodman, Better Start National Early Years Quality Development. | Paula Hilliard, LINC Programme Tutor. |
Dr Judith Butler, Cork Institute of Technology. | Professor Emer Ring, MIC Limerick. |
Early Childhood Ireland National .
Sponsors
#ECIAwards20
Click here to hear an interview with Minister Roderic O’Gorman, who outlines why the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is proud to sponsor the Early Childhood Ireland National Annual Awards 2020.
Click here to hear an interview with Marie O’Doherty, National Coordinator with the Leadership for Inclusion programme, who outlines why Linc is proud to sponsor the Leader in Inclusion award in the Early Childhood Ireland National Annual Awards 2020.
Keep an eye on this web page, on our twitter hashtag #ECIAwards20 and on our other social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn for further updates.
