Where Adventures Begin

Meet Gill Birkett

Hello MECS community! 

I have now been in the role of Kinder Director and Bluebirds Teacher for 7 weeks. Since I began at the start of this term, I have enjoyed a very warm and generous MECS welcome. I am grateful for how the Kinder team have embraced me and the warmth of the Kinder community as I have found my feet. 

I have come to MECS from a large Christian school in suburban Melbourne where I was in the same role. I am super excited to be working back in the familiar community of 'The Hills'. I have grown up and lived in the Dandenongs almost all my life and sent a good part of my teaching career working in The Hills as well. 

I have been a Kindergarten teacher for almost 30 years and I still love what I do! I have taught in local government, community and Christian school Kindergartens. I love that I get to be part of such an exciting and important part of children’s education. I love to see each child grow and develop as together, we wonder about and discover this beautiful world God has given us. I love the sense of community that is formed in Kinders as we journey with children and their families into the exciting world of formal education. I am passionate about supporting each child to thrive as they form strong connections to those around them and have the best start possible to their formal education. 

As well as experience in early childhood education, I have had the pleasure (and challenge!) of leading and working in a number of different team contexts. These have included church leadership, local community organisations, Christian school leadership and even a local community Christmas carols event. 

I have been married to my wonderful husband Steve for 26 years and we have 3 children who are in uni and secondary school. I enjoy cooking and gardening, although don’t seem to manage to spend much of time on these at the moment! 

I am excited by this new season and God's call to serve the MECS community as it brings my passion for early childhood education, leadership experience and desire to see children know God's deep love for them together as I have the privilege of leading the MECS Kindergarten.  

I look forward to meeting many people and becoming part of the MECS community.

Gill Birkett

MECS Kinder Director

Kew Traffic School & Bring Your Bike to Kinder Day

The Koala and Possum children have been learning about their local and wider communities as part of their exploration into the World they live in. As part of this, they went on an excursion to Kew Traffic School and also brought their bikes to Kinder for a day.

On the bus on the way to Kew Traffic School, there was lots of excitement and conversations about where they were going and locations:

“I drive this way to go to my house. I think it’s in Croydon” – Zeke

“We are going to go past my house. My house has a black mailbox” – Elliot

“I’ve been here before! I go here when I go shopping” – Heidi

“That’s the city” – Skylah

“We’re going through the tunnel. It curves around like this” – Winta

“My house is next to a double decker house that’s being built” – Joel

Once there, the children learnt about bike, car and pedestrian safety before heading off to explore on the bikes and scooters. It was beautiful to see the children growing in their confidence and knowledge. There were children who hadn’t ridden a bike before, who challenged themselves and rode bikes for the first time.

On Bike Day, the children brought their own bike to Kinder and rode them around the Primary basketball court. They practiced going in the same direction, turning around, and navigating between cones. We were excited to see the children’s independence grow as they rode and developing awareness of others around them.

Michelle Hegarty

Koalas Teacher

Myuna Farm

On Tuesday 13 August the Bluebirds and Rosella children had the opportunity to engage with and experience part of God’s wonderful creation with a visit from Myuna Farm’s Mobile Ark.

Throughout Term 3 we have been exploring how God provides for our needs and one of the ways he does this is through the provision of resources provided through farming. We have been exploring the concept of farming, how this is done and what this can provide for us. We have been exploring where wool, milk and wheat comes from and the ‘paddock to plate’ processes for these. It turns out that milk doesn’t just come from the shop!

As part of reinforcing these concepts the children had the opportunity to handle and feed some pretty special farm animals. There were chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, geese, goats, lambs and even a turtle!

There was lots of pats, cuddles and feeding. There was an escaped lamb in the Kinder playground and a whole lot of poo that of course the children were just as fascinated by!

Gill Birkett

MECS Kinder Director