Glen Education Chelsea

Building Partnerships to Strengthen our Community 

Glen Chelsea Kindergarten Educators 

Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice 

Our emergent curriculum at Glen Chelsea Kindergarten is based on skilled observation of children's play to identify their interests and developmental needs. We use this information to modify our continuous provision and design invitations to engage in learning experiences that are engaging and relevant to the children. 

You will notice that children’s learning is documented meaningfully and respectfully, each portfolio detailing a wonderfully unique learning journey. This is something that all educators treasure and value as much as children and families do. We hold dear these portfolios as integral and necessary to the planning cycle. They are much more than photos of the children or snapshots of an activity. They are observations that we have privileged because they are relevant. They provide information that enabled us to provide extensions for our capable independent learners. They reflect the values and philosophy of the service and educators. 

The leadership team at Glen Education provides ongoing monitoring and support to ensure that the emergent curriculum is meeting the needs of all children. This includes regular check-ins with the educational team, monitoring and feedback of observations, service reflections and ongoing professional development opportunities.

- Maree Scott, Early Childhood Educator 

Quality Area 2: Children’s health and safety

The team at Glen Chelsea have a full and thorough awareness of the needs of each individual child and will adjust and respond to this throughout the day. We actively promote healthy eating through the embedded practice of being a nut free service, and encourage and support only using waste free food, no wrappers of processed foods. We have successfully embedded growing our own fruits and vegetables from our own waste as part of our commitment to sustainability. Last year each child grew an avocado tree, it was a yearlong project. This year we have started growing onions and lemon trees. 

During lunch this day Educator Maree and some children started a discussion on how foods grow, the children looked inside their lunch boxes to see if they had any fruits or vegetables that could grow to produce again. The children set up an experiment with some carrot tops and other seeds. This is an ongoing learning experience, there will be photos to add in the coming weeks to see the end results. 

Edward and some of his peers were having a table discussion during lunch about healthy eating and where nutrients come from. Educator Wida documented this in Edwards learning story. 

We are committed to healthy physical activity and as part of the program children access yoga classes with a professional instructor, Nerada, and Playball with Victor or one of his other instructors. Children can choose if they would like to join in and more often the educators find that each child participates.

- Rebecca Purcell, Early Childhood Educator 

Quality Area 3: Physical environment

Our outdoor and indoor space support the access and full participation of all children and promotes and positively support children’s interaction with space, materials, and each other. And the spaces are always safe and clean. 

Educators consistently consider the ways they can support children’s learning and development, through a strength-based approach. Educators carefully consider the resources that they add to shelving to extend learning in ways that are suitable for each child.  There are puzzles, for example, that are available at differing levels of complexity, so children can achieve success and be challenged. Children work with educators to restock resources when they are low, particularly in the art space, so they are ready for the children attending the following day.  They take a lot of pride in working with educators to maintain the environment, for the benefit of the whole community.

The maintenance of the physical environment is in response to discussion and opportunities for input by all educators to create an inclusive, safe, physical environment that strengthens children’s learning and development outcomes and enhances participation in the program. We reflect, individually and together, on the physical environment, and consider opportunities to make changes to strengthen inclusion and participation, and to enhance children’s safety, learning and development outcomes.

We have critically reflected on the ways we have, for example, been able to install an inclusive swing for children, when challenged by the restrictions to the grounds (historical contamination under a secure geo mat).  We did not let this stop us from installing the swing, rather, worked with the landscaper and council to secure the swing above ground.   

- Jess House, Early Childhood Educator 

Quality Area 4: Staffing arrangements 

Glen Chelsea kindergarten ensures that the educator to child ratio is always maintained throughout each room. The two rooms within the service have stability of staff on the session day basis to ensure continuity of care is given. We have two educators who are enrolled in graduate diploma or Bachelor of Early Childhood. We also have a pool of regular casuals that are trained, and we can call on to ensure consistency of care for children, whenever our permanent staff are away.

All staff have completed their First Aid, Asthma and Anaphylaxis training, Child Protection training, have their Working with Children’s Check or VIT registration. Educators are given the opportunity to request changes to the roster via the swag app, this allows for any Annual Leave or additional hour requests.

Our staff team consists of 10 full time, part time and casual employees. If any temporary changes to staffing within rooms are required, updates are sent to the families via email.

We pride ourselves on the relationships we have with the children, our families and each other. Due to our team consistency of employment, we form strong bonds with our children and families that continue to grow over many years.

The educators enjoy a professional, friendly, and supportive working atmosphere with each other and have strong bonds built

 Our staff team have a high level of collaboration. There is a daily communication book in which important information about a range of topics is shared with each other, messages relayed, and objectives raised. Communication is also relayed on our staff WhatsApp group and through email. Staff are constantly communicating throughout the day to support and learn from one another and to continually improve their skills. Our educators share their perspectives, values, observations, and planning ideas with each other informally and at formal times, such as service team meetings.

Staff development can occur throughout these times as a team and staff have opportunities to attend professional development training which is linked to their professional development needs. All educators share responsibilities of programming, planning and routine tasks. Staff are supportive of each other in their home lives and are flexible with changing shifts due to their own family needs, whilst still balancing consistency of care at the service always.

Professional standards guide all aspects of our staff roles. Interactions consistently demonstrate mutual respect, equity and reorganization of each other’s skills and strengths, promoting a positive, warm, and family like environment with our service. Staff take part in developing their professional learning goals through their yearly appraisals. The team leader and staff collaboratively design the professional goals which combine the service's requirements for developing educational programs and staff professional interests. The staff are to provide at their appraisal, an outline of the professional goals, with timelines and processes for achieving these outcomes.

After a staff member attends a professional training session or conference, they share their learnt knowledge with the team. Educators are accessible to children, families, and each other.  We are committed to the NQS and continually strive to deliver the best learning and care programs for our children and families.

- Wida Tausif, Early Childhood Educator 

Quality Area 5: Relationships with children

Working with families and professionals to support children’s social emotional development has been a central focus for the Glen Chelsea Education Team. As a teaching team we recognise the importance of ensuring each child feels part of our new community and safe when they are at kindergarten.  For many children, we recognise that they may not have experienced the opportunity to develop independence away from their family home and trusted adults. This may be their first opportunity to develop strong social links.

Teachers and educators, engage in regular conversations with families to ensure identified goals (family and allied health) are central to how the program is planned.

Communication amongst the team is paramount.  Children are actively taught strategies to regulate their own behaviour and respond appropriately to the behaviour of others.  Problem solving visuals, for example, are used by educators where necessary, and children are helped by the educators to walk through an incident by discussing what has happened and exploring the different ways to resolve the problem.  There are many areas available in the indoor and outdoor environment for children to be alone and chose some quiet time, so they can self-regulate their feelings. We call one of these spaces ‘The Zen Den’ (pictured).

To support children to self-regulate, we have introduced the Alert Program during sessions. This was devised by two Pediatric Occupational Therapists and is recommended by the OT Kerry Liddell and Melanie Martin, our local Preschool Field Officer.  

In the Alert Program children are supported to develop the skills to be able to self-regulate by tuning into how their bodies are feeling.   It is based around the concept of our bodies and minds running like engines.  It helps children to tune into how they are feeling, what speed their engine is running, and consider if this is the appropriate speed for the situation. 

This Alert Program is used consistently across both rooms. 

The Alert Program is just one of the ways that we have worked with families towards shared goals (information gathered from the ‘Getting to know your forms’). Many of the families, expressed a desire for their child to learn strategies to self-regulate. 

The service has built a partnership with the local Chelsea RSL, and in doing so, were successful in applying for and receiving a grant, to further support self-regulation experiences, such as yoga. 

- Leila Yazdi, Early Childhood Teacher

Quality Area 6: Collaborative partnerships with families and communities

Glen Chelsea staff are passionate and enthusiastic about collaborative partnerships with families and communities. We see each child as a family unit vs an individual, learning everything we can to create authentic connections. We enjoy and encourage regular communication: face to face at drop off/pick up, phone conversations, meetings, email to find out how we can best support each family. 

Families are involved in our VPG (volunteer parent group) which have fundraising opportunities, working bees, our first held in late March where the Barrass family assisted in setting up our new composting area.  Social events such as our February Welcome BBQ & Picnic offers a relaxed opportunity for families to create meaningful connections. We regularly display and update in our foyer local community events and activities. 

We welcome families to join in our session, read through our folios and assist with skills they may have in our sessions.  We embrace belonging in our community: waving to the postman, lollypop person, to the primary School children through the fence, our gardener.

We transition children to the community with local walking excursions, visits to the library, going to Chelsea Primary School.  We continuously explore cultural inclusion, inviting families to share where they are from? Discovering we had families from Argentina, Germany, Philippines, Italy and regularly practice saying hello in those languages.  We offer regular tours of the center through the year, a flexible orientation and transition at the beginning of the year and enjoy hosting seminars for families such as “PREP 4 PREP” and “Creating confident children.” 

- Maree Scott, Early Childhood Educator 

Quality Area 7: Governance and leadership

At Glen Chelsea Kindergarten we have the benefit of support from the leadership and office staff at Glen Education. The Glen Education leadership team provides support and professional development opportunities to enable us to deliver programs reflecting best practice. Inclusion support provides advice and guidance to help us ensure that each child has access to an educational program that meets their specific needs. Compliance and administration support allows us as educators to spend our time focusing on what we do best. Having access to the Glen Education pool of casual educators allows for greater consistency in relief staff and more familiar faces for the children. 

Being a Glen Education kindergarten also provides us access to a network of kindergartens and educators that we can learn from and share information with. Recently two of our teachers Leila and Katie spent the day at Glen McKinnon Kindergarten, so that each team could share with the other strategies to improve our practice. At Glen Chelsea Kindergarten we have implemented a number of ideas that the Glen McKinnon team shared with us. In particular we have taken on board some practical tips to assist with the day-to-day responsibilities associated with operation of the kindergarten, which will help us to provide the best service to children and families that we can. 

- Amelia Carter-Watson, Early Childhood Educator