Building belonging and agency by honouring children’s rights

Children’s Week 2025 has wrapped up, but the voices and conversations it inspired continue to ripple through early childhood services, schools, and our wider community. Every year, Children’s Week offers us a moment to pause, reflect, and honour what childhood truly represents.

 

This year’s theme Everyone should know about Children’s Rights, reminded us of something fundamental:

 

“Every child has the right to express their views, and every adult has the responsibility to listen.” 

 

Article 12: Children have the right to express their views on matters affecting them.

 

Article 13: Children have the right to seek, receive, and share information and ideas.

 

Simple on paper, Transformational in practice.

 

These rights remind us that listening to children is a legal, ethical, and deeply human responsibility. Every trusted adult in a child’s life has a part to play and the carers, educators, teachers, leaders and advocates who walk alongside them help bring these rights to life every single day.

 

Rather than a celebration alone, Children’s Week became a gentle checkpoint, an opportunity to acknowledge the incredible work already happening in learning environments, and to reflect on how we can continue strengthening children’s voices across the year.

 

What This Year Made Clear

 

Across services, schools, playgrounds, libraries, and community events, we witnessed countless examples of educators creating spaces where children felt confident, valued, and heard.
This year’s celebrations reinforced several important truths:

 

Children’s voices are strong when environments make space for them.

 

We saw children confidently sharing their ideas, leading activities, designing displays, and shaping conversations when adults stepped back just enough.

 

Agency is more than a trend – it’s a right.

 

Children led problem-solving tasks, contributed to community artwork, and voiced their feelings about belonging. This wasn’t “choice time.” This was agency in action.

 

When children feel heard, their wellbeing flourishes.

 

Educators consistently reflected on the emotional shift they witnessed 

 

• greater confidence
• stronger collaboration
• increased willingness to speak up
• deeper resilience

 

Listening is wellbeing. Voice is protection. Agency is empowerment.

 

None of this happens by accident. It happens because of educators who notice, who invite, and who honour children’s perspectives with care and respect.

 

Reflection Questions: What Now?

 

The end of Children’s Week isn’t the end of children’s rights conversations, it’s the beginning of the next chapter.

 

Here are questions for teams, leaders, and learning communities to carry forward:

 

• How do children influence what happens today, next week, and next month?

• Is our planning cycle responsive to children’s ideas and perspectives?

• Do our environments reflect children’s cultures, identities, and imaginations?

• Whose voices do we hear the most? Whose are still emerging? Whose are missing? Why?

• How can we support children as co-researchers in their learning?

 

Children’s rights live in the everyday transitions, in setting expectations, in choosing materials, in structuring routines, in the language we use, and in whether we treat children as capable contributors.

 

Moving Beyond Celebration into sssCommitment

 

The ACT Children’s Week Committee witnessed how deeply learning environments across the territory embrace children’s rights. But celebrations, posters, and special events are only meaningful when paired with continued commitment.

 

Children’s Week is not an end point. It is an annual reminder that:

 

• Children deserve decision-making power in their own lives.
• Their voices shape stronger, safer, more inclusive communities.
• Listening is both a practice and a promise.

 

Our challenge now is to carry that energy into the year ahead ensuring children’s rights influence our planning, our leadership, our environments, and our relationships.

 

Because when we truly listen to children

 

We don’t just shape better programs.

 

We shape better futures.

 

Author: Farah Junaid, Centre Director and Winner of the ACT ECA Director of the Year, Reimagine Australia, National Inclusion Award, and the NEiTA, National Excellence in Teaching Team Award 2025, also serves as a Committee Board Member of the ACT Children’s Week Committee.

 

With more than two decades of experience in education and leadership, she is known for her commitment to mentoring, reflective practice, and shared decision-making. Farah’s work is grounded in inclusion, sustainability, and empowering both children and educators to thrive.”