Glen Education Brady Road
Creating a sense of belonging
By Helen Tselios, Early Childhood Teacher
Starting a new role as an Early Childhood teacher at a new service can be overwhelming. As the new teacher at Glen Brady Road Kindergarten, I must admit I felt nervous on my first day. However, I immediately began to feel a sense of belonging as the team was so welcoming and made me feel like I belonged at Glen Brady Road Kindergarten. Feeling this sense of belonging, we are focusing on our service goals to gain a strong sense of belonging, create a strong sense of identity, resilience, communication, foster a love of learning, develop social-emotional skills, and build a strong foundation. We incorporate diverse learning experiences, respect the natural environment, promote sustainability, encourage collaborative play, and support self-expression.
As a whole service team, we prioritise getting to know the children and their families to provide the best support for Term One. At the beginning of the year, our most important tools as educators are reading the enrolment files and the child’s "Getting to Know You" form. By collecting and gathering this information, we set a plan for the goals set by their families. This goal setting encourages us as educators to explore and pursue the children’s interests and passions. As we get to know the children, we learn what identifies them as individuals and what they're genuinely passionate about. This helps them gain a sense of purpose and fulfillment. By fostering their interests, we empower children to develop a varied and enriched life, brimming with activities that bring them joy and personal satisfaction. We have a child who loves magic tricks he asked if he could do his magic trick at group time in front of his peers this links to EYLF Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.
Another child brought in caterpillars she found in her garden and wanted to show her teachers and peers. This became our inquiry project as the children began to ask questions about how they would turn into butterflies. We asked the family if we could keep it at kinder so children across the service could see it. The children took great delight in watching the caterpillars eating the leaves in its enclosure. As an extension to our inquiry project, we read Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. The children related the story to what they had been seeing with their own eyes, as they returned each day, curious to see what progress had been made inside the caterpillar enclosure. This links to EYLF outcome 4.1: Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity.
Our new and existing families at Glen Brady Road Kindergarten play a crucial role in supporting their children to build strong foundations within the service. We encourage our families to participate actively in their child’s learning journey by attending kindergarten social events, parent-teacher meetings, showcasing their talents, and working bees. Connecting helps them stay informed about their children’s progress and service goals. We, as educators, maintain open communication with our families as we share information about their child’s interests and strengths, which helps us tailor our approach to meet each child’s unique needs. We ensure as a service that every child and family feel welcome, safe, and connected with our early childhood education service. Our service provides a sense of community – one that families feel they belong to and are active participants within. One of our families attending is a woodworker.
A while ago, I had picked up from the community a wooden toy train that needed refurbishing. Knowing this information from the child’s ‘Getting to Know You’ form, I communicated with the family, and they were happy to refurbish the wooden toy train for our service. After all, families and educators share the same vision for the children attending the service to feel nurtured and engage in learning experiences that help them reach their fullest potential.
Our service goal is to involve families and our community its essential that the desired outcomes are being achieved. We are always available to interact with the families and children during program activities. This allows us to assess the quality of engagement and the impact on children’s development. We communicate with the families about their children’s progress in areas related to the program goals, such as social skills, creativity, physical activity, and emotional well-being. By using these methods, we gain a comprehensive understanding of how well the strategies are working and can make necessary adjustments to improve family involvement and support children’s growth and development through their learning journey at Glen Brady Road Kindergarten.