Glen Education Carnegie

Building partnerships with children and families for positive outcomes.

By Kerry, Kavita and Sandy, Early Childhood Teachers

At Glen Carnegie Kindergarten, we take pride in providing our service that focusses on achieving best outcomes for our children and families. 

As a team we aim to have a high standard program which provide an environment that promotes each child’s sense of agency and allows our children to be empowered and active contributors to their learning and play.  As an example, we provide open ended spaces that are flexible, allowing for uninterrupted play, so they can enjoy moments of solitude or parallel play in small or large groups to use their imaginations and work collaboratively with peers. If the environment is inviting, pleasing, and relaxing children are more responsive, creative, and curious learners.  

In promoting our goals and aspirations within the program, as a team we visualise better outcomes by connecting with the children and their families and knowing the goals and aspirations are set and that we would like to achieve.  Knowing each child, we create opportunities so children can explore and discover in our natural indoor and outdoor spaces.  Children can experience a sense of wonder in their natural environment, by discovering and having fun playing with water, sand, mud, rocks, twigs and leaves. Our learning environment also teaches children to be responsible and responsive. Watering plants, looking after our resident turtle ‘Rocky’ and taking care of their environment, allowing them to become socially responsible and show respect. Outdoor leaning space like our bush kinder garden also provide opportunities for children to become strong in their social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  

In creating inviting environments, families are eager to participate in celebrations, sharing their skills and talents to educate all children and the educational team.  Over the past years, parents have eagerly shared knowledge and work experiences, examples being emergency service, doctors, nurses, construction workers and Aboriginal cultural experiences. 

We always communicate regularly with families through Kinderloop with notices, newsletters and events that provide opportunities for families to connect with our kindergarten and other families in our service.   We most importantly, we provide resources and tips from the first day to all families on how they can support their child’s transition at home, such as establishing a consistent morning routine and encouraging independence in daily tasks.