Development of Haven's Curriculum

Educational Curriculum

Progress and growth, two things I am happy to say I have seen over term two in all our classrooms. I have been so proud of the children and their listening skills at mat time.  As we move through the year, we will only see more progress in this area. While it was a hard decision to move from having outside persons coming to our Centre to run extracurricular activities, I am delighted with the advancement we have seen in our team’s confidence and skill set.

With our commitment to a music and well-being program, Term one saw us introduce bonkers beat.  As we took time to implement the program, we have felt through term two that it was one that would not work so well throughout Haven. Our classrooms have individually prepared focus areas that link into their programs.  We felt as we take from the children's interests, that not all of bonkers resources were current with our children's curiosity.   It is great to have access to their resources though, with some of the classrooms using their transitional songs for certain times of the day.  The other side though is that we found that these became quite limited.  There have been some positives though that the teams have taken from the program. So we are now ensuring that we are having a mat time routine in some classes two times a day and focus topics that run for two weeks.

Should the children continue to enjoy certain focus songs, these may continue into the next fortnight.

We have been able to commence Auslan with the children through introducing sign language to the songs we are doing with the children.

Afternoons each classroom focus on their well-being program.  Once again these are repeated over the fortnight to allow the children poise in yoga and meditation.

Moving into term three, we are hoping to extend this out to families on the first Friday of the fortnight cycle.  This is going to allow your children to do these songs, yoga, and meditation programs at home.  Please bear with us as this is all very new, and we needing to find a way of ensuring all of this flows.

We are currently in the process of looking at Auslan training for our team.  Auslan is the name used for Australian Sign Language, and is the natural language signed by members of Australia’s Deaf and hard of hearing community. Dr Trevor Johnston, sign linguist and lexicographer of the Auslan Dictionary, coined the term, Auslan in the 1980’s. Auslan evolved from the British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, signed by Deaf people who immigrated to Australia during the nineteenth century.

According to research, Auslan is not based on spoken language, because many aspects of the vocabulary and grammar of Auslan are not related to English. Furthermore, Auslan has its own vocabulary and grammar as well as gesture-like signs. The connection between Auslan and Deaf Culture has been well established. (reference https://signlanguageaustralia.com/services/what-is-auslan/).  With recent lock downs this will set us back a few weeks. But it is important to know that we are very passionate around communication and want to ensure that we are doing everything possible to work with all children and infants.

Storypark comes with many questions we know.  If you ever need help, you can click on the help me tab. Through a series of questions, it will help you find your answer. Moving through term 3, you will start to see comments from either myself or Sarah on your children’s learning stories and developmental observations. As the named Educational Leaders,  this will help us see how your children are going, and for us to get to know them a little bit more.  While we do get to spend time visiting the children throughout the day.  These stories allow us to learn more about the children ona more individual platform,  and how they are progressing.  Moving forward we will also be looking more at outlining how each of your children are progressing. We will be meeting with the team soon to discuss, how we best do this.

We have seen Forest and Field talk you through learning experiences layouts through photos and editorial.  This has been a great resource to show you all how your children are gaining their skill set in a variety of areas.  I also love this idea, as you can too set these activities up in your home.  We would like to see this idea filter down through to our Sun and River rooms.

We look forward to share our Term 3 achievements with you all.