MONTESSORI AUSTRALIA 19 Professor Margaret Sims has worked in the Australia university sector since 1992 with previous work experience in the community services sector. Here she shares her insights into the importance of advocacy in the work of early childhood professionals. For a number of years now early childhood professionals have argued that their work is extremely important because the fundamental learning opportunities they provide children shape those lives for many years in the future. There is strong evidence to support these claims. We know, for example, that high quality learning experiences in the early years impact on long term academic achievements (Sims, 2013). These learning opportunities can be provided both in children’s homes and in a range of out of home early learning environments. Rodriguez and Tamis-LeMonda (2011) showed that children who came from homes with more literacy resources available to them demonstrated better levels of literacy and vocabulary at age 5. Melhuish, Belsky, and Barnes (2010) reinforced the importance of the learning environment provided in the home. They showed that mothers with higher education levels provided a more effective home learning environment which resulted in children achieving better results in English and Mathematics in school at age 11. Neighbourhood effects are also evident: children demonstrate better academic achievement levels when they live in more advantaged neighbourhoods: these neighbourhoods provide resources to support parents in creating a rich home learning environment. In addition to the impact of home and community, we know that children attending high quality out-of-home programmes demonstrate positive learning outcomes. High quality, particularly for children under three years of age, means the provision of nurturing, responsive care and education (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015; Sims & Hutchins, 2011). The benefts of attending out-of- home-care programmes is particularly marked for children who come from disadvantaged homes and/or communities (Côté, Doyle, Petitclerc, & Timmins, 2013; Engle et al., 2011; Hanson et al., 2017; Lombardi & Coley, 2017) however Australian research also shows that ALL children (from disadvantaged or advantaged backgrounds) demonstrate positive impacts from attendance at preschool before they begin school (Goldfeld et al., 2016). Whilst there are arguments in the literature about the value of early (ie before three years of age) attendance in out-of-home-care programmes with some researchers arguing early non-parental care has negative impacts on children (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, & DHHS, 2006; Yamauchi & Leigh, 2011) whilst others (Lee, 2016; Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 2013) demonstrate the opposite, the consensus appears to hinge on the quality of both parental Early Childhood Professionals: Advocates for the Future of our World Professor Margaret Sims, University of New England ‘…children attending high quality out-of-home programmes demonstrate positive learning outcomes.’