FAQ

What is Flight: Alberta's Early Learning and Care Framework?

The framework began as an idea when the government invited the faculty of MacEwan and Mount Royal to develop and pilot a made-in Alberta curriculum framework for early childhood educators who work in centre-based child care and family day homes in Alberta.  In 2012, with the collaboration of educators, administrator, children, families and their experiences resulted in the release of the Play, Participation and Possibilities: An Early Learning and Child Care Curriculum Framework for Alberta. In 2018, the framework was renamed to Flight: Alberta's Early Learning and Care Framework to accommodate educators who had found the name too long when referencing or using the framework.

The framework is a guide for educators who work with young children ages 0 - before 6 years old and their families in a centre based child care and family day home setting.  It is flexible in thinking about how children learn and experience their worlds, and is a guide that fosters strong early childhood communities.

Flight is different from a traditional framework.  It focuses on broad holistic goals rather than specific outcomes for each curricular area.  The goals in the curriculum framework are used to describe and interpret children's everyday experiences and are used as sources of curriculum meaning making.  The curriculum emerges from children's fascination with the world.  The role of the educator is to observe children's interests in the environment and to make connections in their experiences and the holistic goals and children's dispositions to learn.  Educators co-construct the curriculum with children and make the curriculum visible to others.  The curriculum is embedded in the daily experiences children have with their families, local communities which guides the interactions, routines, experiences and curriculum decisions in early learning and child care programs.