Glen Education Mordialloc

The Importance of Family

Georgie McAdam, Early Childhood Teacher 

In this newsletter, we have been invited to share how we make learning visible. We hope most of our families are aware, through our reflections book in the foyer, from coming into our learning spaces and via communications on Kinderloop, that they have been the focus of our learning this term.  

Glen Mordialloc Kindergarten, is new to Glen Education in 2024. As part of Glen Education’s orientation process families were invited to provide a photo of their family. With this invitation in mind the Teaching Team discussed how we could honour these photos with significance in our educational programs and learning spaces. 

• What would our intention be? 
• How would it fit within the Glen Education Philosophy? 
• How does it link to the Early Years Learning Framework? 
• How would the experience provide meaning for the children and their families?  

At the commencement of the kindergarten year, we are getting to know our new families. This is an exciting time of new beginnings as we get to know each other, settle into a new environment and establish trusting and respectful relationships. For our returning families we continue their journey and are excited to learn of changes and new experiences had over the holiday period or as they return to our Kindergarten between siblings.  

The family is the child’s first educator and are the primary influence in the lives of their child. As educators we are privileged to join this journey. ‘Growing relationships and friendships with and between children, families, and educators’ and ‘developing our kindergarten identity as engaged and curious learners’ forms our service goals and this term has been the focus of our programs and interactions.

Children are most knowledgeable about their families and love to share stories about their families. When helping children to settle at the beginning of the day, because it has been emotional and hard saying goodbye, an invitation to paint, draw or paste a picture for their family is often accepted by children and helps to provide a continuing sense of connection. So having our families present in our learning environments became the most obvious way to incorporate our families’ photos. Through creative arts, song and conversations our Educational Teams have intentionally facilitated the children to create a display of our families. The children have demonstrated a strong connection to this experience by willingly participating when invited to create an artwork championing their family, keenly taking their turn a group time to sing and share about who their family is and by regularly visiting their family portrait on display to share with friends, peers, educators, other families or simply for their own comfort and connection. 

Our families have also demonstrated shared enjoyment looking at themselves and the other families in our displays. Hopefully this sense of connection will spread throughout our community as families make connections with each other through their involvement at Glen Mordialloc Kindergarten.  

This has been a shared cycle of learning. Families have willingly shared of themselves, our teachers have facilitated children’s learning in our environment and children have responded with enthusiasm and engagement. 

We hope this learning has set a strong foundation for the continuation of our time together.