National Annual Awards and Gala Dinner
Clontarf Castle Hotel
3 April 2020
Closing Date For applications: 21 February 2020



About Our National Annual Awards & Gala Dinner 2020
Early Childhood Ireland National Awards celebrate and showcase our members’ ambition and commitment to continuously improve the quality of their practice and their services to children and their families.
The night shines a light on the creativity, innovation, impact, leadership and the advancement of professionalism in our sector. A vibrant and glamourous night, it has now become a highlight of the weekend with the evening booked out within 3 weeks last year. We return to the fabulous Clontarf Castle for our 2020 Annual Awards evening.
We are very excited about our refreshed awards . The Award Categories are:
The Learning Story of the Year Award showcases a Learning Story to a child. Learning Stories are an effective and inclusive way of documenting and assessing learning in early childhood settings powerful ways of documenting learning, using the reciprocal relationships between the child, people and the environment.
(Written about a group of children) NEW!
The Emergent Curriculum in Action Learning Story of the Year Award showcases a Learning Story written about using children’s interests to create meaningful learning experiences with them.
(individual child or group) NEW!
The Learning Story of the Year Award to a Newcomer showcases a Learning Story about a group of children or to a child submitted by a setting that is new to Early Childhood Ireland’s Awards.
The Inspired Practice Award showcases the commitment of our members to formal and informal continuous professional learning, to being part of learning communities, learning from each other by sharing their quality improvement journeys.
The Partnership with Families Award showcases a member service that has introduced a practice or process to foster strong partnerships between parents and early years services, which is central to children’s learning and development, well-being and belonging. Services should be designed in partnership with families and be based on trust and mutual respect.
The LINC Award for Leadership in Inclusion recognises and highlights a member service that exemplifies the aim of the LINC Programme: to support the inclusion of all children in early learning and care services. Services that have appointed an Inclusion Coordinator, who is a LINC Programme graduate, can showcase how they have implemented learning from the LINC Programme.
The Pedagogical Leader Award showcases an educator in a member service who is a ‘leader of learning’ in services, for staff teams and children and who demonstrates effective dispersed leadership practices
The First 5 Award for Transitions for Children Award showcases elements of good practice in transitions for babies and children in member services, and to illustrate the development of good quality transitions practices and policies by settings.