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The role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is to support the learning and development of all children in collaboration with families. The notion of inclusion in ECEC is important for providing children with a sense of agency in becoming a learner able to participate fully and actively in their community. This paper illustrates how ECEC assessment approaches risk labelling young children in 'deficit' terms. Specifically, through a case study the paper through a case study critically reflects on the implementation of a new assessment tool in kindergartens in the south-eastern region of Melbourne, Australia (low-middle income). Interviews were conducted with managers about the new tool, and documents (checklists and observations) were collected from the teachers. Findings show that the children were positioned as vulnerable with the introduction of the new assessment tool, leading to a diagnosis of 'at risk' for many children and a subsequent referral to education consultants, and medical and health professionals. We explore the tensions of labelling young children, 'at risk' against the notion of 'becoming' that frames the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Department of Education and Training 2019,) and professional understandings of 'inclusion'. The work of Nancy Fraser on 'social justice' augments the examination of this tension.

This essay aims to reconstruct a cross-cultural conversation about sacred matters between Lancelot Threlkeld, a missionary with the London Missionary Society (LMS), and Biraban, a leading man of the Awabakal of eastern Australia. Between 1825 and 1841, Threlkeld devoted himself to learning the language of the Awabakal in hopes of converting them to Christianity, while Biraban, his principal language teacher, helped him translate Christian concepts and educated him about Awabakal traditions. The records of their endeavours are preserved, albeit in an edited and fragmented form, in the missionary's grammars, vocabularies and Scriptural translations. A close examination of these linguistic texts reveals, in outline, the dynamics of a complex, multi-faceted exchange. Read carefully -and in conjunction with Threlkeld's other writings -these texts yield new insights into the cross-cultural translation and indigenous reception of Christianity during an early period of British colonisation.

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