Glen Education Chelsea

Strengthening Connections

By Natalie Andrews and Sheridan Daniels,

Early Childhood Teachers

Each year, the Education Team at Glen Chelsea come together to create goals for the year and discuss how we would like to improve our Kindergarten. This year, we reflected on our achievements from 2024 and how we wanted to adapt and add to our long term goals. You can find our new service goals displayed in the foyer as you walk into the service. Everything we do with the children links back to these overarching goals which are derived from the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework.  

his year, we are committed to creating a strong sense of community at Glen Chelsea Kindergarten. The Stay and Play sessions during the Orientation period, as well as the Family Welcome Picnic were wonderful opportunities for families to not only get to know the educators, but connect with each other and begin to form social relationships. We have already seen the benefits of fostering a sense of trust and respect within our community with the formation of our new VPG. Our VPG will be supporting our Kindergarten by organising social events, fundraising initiatives, and working bees. We are always so grateful for the support of our families and excited to see more families get involved in our program and community.  

Another of our service goals speaks of connecting with the local community and getting out and about with more excursions. We are very excited that as part of our School Readiness Funding, our educators will be undertaking a professional development course on the implementation of a Bush Kinder program. We will be looking to begin this late Term 2 or Term 3, and look forward to how this will extend the children’s learning by strengthening our connection not only with the community but with the land, and how they will benefit from many opportunities that nature play has to offer. We are also hoping to connect more with the local community through inviting people into the kindergarten to talk with the children about their jobs and what they do for the community as well.   

We are also excited to find new ways to use our outdoor environment to create more play spaces and learning opportunities for the children in our outdoor area. We are excited to create these spaces with the children, using the children’s interests to help guide the creation of them and make the currently under-utilised area into a space of fun and engagement for the children.   

We are excited for the year to come and how these goals will help grow and shape the Glen Chelsea community.