Glen Education Edithvale

Community Driven Curriculum Goals

By Kate Kett,Early Childhood Teacher

At Glen Edithvale Kindergarten, our teaching team collaborate regularly to reflect on our program and set our goals and intentions for our curriculum and learning program. The Early Years Learning Framework (2022, V2.0) underpins the program at our service. Our teaching team notice, recognise and respond to children’s learning and development based on a combination of principles, practices and the five learning outcomes, whilst also incorporating our own intentional teaching strategies. We ensure that children have opportunities to access a range of experiences in all our learning areas.

These include; manipulative play, dramatic and imaginative play, sensory play, visual arts, active play, and quiet play. Developing meaningful curriculum involves interactive decision-making by children, families, educators, and the broader community – all with the aim of fostering children’s learning and sense of belonging.

When considering the goals we set for our service and the children’s learning program, we consider what we want the children to learn, their interests and developmental needs, input from families and their goals for their child, and what is important to our teaching team. Through this process, we have committed to the following goals at Glen Edithvale Kindergarten for 2025 and have provided you with a few examples of how we are implementing these to date:

To create a sense of belonging and connection for our children and families, and to extend that connection to our wider community

Sense of belonging tree with family photos
Discussions with children to share what they love about kindergarten and put their thoughts and pictures on display in the foyer
Encouraging children to take home ‘Treasure Bag’ to connect home and Kindergarten

To support the children’s resilience as active and capable citizens of our Kindergarten community

We are discussing and learning about emotions, feelings and respect as we learn to work together in a group situation
Playing small group games to promote turn taking, fairness and collaboration

To acknowledge First Nations people and reflect upon ways to embed respectful and meaningful practices into our daily program

Each day we practice an acknowledgement to country before our group times
As a group we are learning about the land in which we live on: Bunurong/Boonwurrung, how we can care for the land and animals in which live on this land
Children have shared their ideas on how we can share and respect the land on which we live on

To create positive and strong partnerships with families to support children’s learning and development

As educators we listen to our families to learn further about their children
We read the “Get to know you” form and seek ways to implement your goals for your child/ren
We encourage families to read your own child's Portfolio to showcase the learning we are noticing

To support the children’s agency, reflected in our environments, routines, and learning experiences

Children are encouraged to look after their belongings
Children reflect on whether they are hungry, thirsty, require the toilet, feel hot or cold, and how they feel through educators posing open ended questions to support self-regulation

To respect our environment by implementing and embedding sustainability practices into our program and recognising our role as global citizens

Educators are discussing which bin is best for rubbish and paper
How items can be reused or recycled
Having discussions surrounding water usage such as remembering to turn off the tap after we have washed our hands

These goals support our play-based learning curriculum which enhances children’s thinking skills and lifelong learning dispositions such as curiosity, persistence and creativity.

TWe have had strong commitment to creating a sense of belonging, a positive sense of identity, and building strong relationships with our children and families. To support the children’s sense of belonging and safety, we have been discussing how to keep ourselves safe and happy at Kindergarten. The children have shared their ideas on how we will engage with each other with kindness and respect, using the children’s ideas to form our ‘Kindergarten Expectations’ poster to display in our classroom. To support the extension of Kindergarten and home, we have introduced the children to ‘Treasure Bag’ – to provide an opportunity for each child to bring in items that are important to them, to share them with their peers. We have also created a ‘Family Tree’ using the children’s handprints and family photos to support the connection of home and Kindergarten while building each child’s sense of belonging.

We recently came together to celebrate and promote respect for cultural diversity and inclusiveness as we recognised Harmony Week. We have invited families who would like to be involved in our celebrations of inclusiveness and our continued commitment towards building a community and world that embraces diversity, inclusiveness and recognition that everyone belongs.