Glen Education Serrell Street
Recognising our Connections to our Community
Glen Serrell Street Kindergarten Educators
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice
Glen Serrell Street Kindergarten's weekly programs are inspired by a combination of observations on children development and interests, intentional teaching and community celebration which empowers our children to learn and grow in a holistic way.
Intentional teaching is a significant tool in scaffolding and extending children's learning. Educators notice, recognise and respond to children’s individual needs. We embed community celebrations in our educational program, such as Anzac Day, Special person's day or Road Safety Week, which support children to connect home culture and contribute to their world. For example, making paper poppy for Anzac Day, developed their understanding of how we can remember those in our community who are not here anymore and celebrate their lives. Discussions about who our special people are provided an opportunity for children to show their care and love to people surrounding them. Children had the opportunity to create a gift, which supported them to use visual art to share and project meaning.
Our indoor and outdoor setting can ignite children's creativity and problem-solving abilities during child directed play. For instance, our Glen Serrell Street ambulance centre comes from children's ideas of emergency services in our community, our children become more confident in communication skills, cognitive skills, and teamwork through taking turns playing as police officers or ambulance officers and interacting with each other. This led to an extension in creating a Cabrini Hospital table, another dramatic play setting, where our children express ongoing interest in doctors and patients. Children and educators worked together and created this space.
- Helen Song, Early Childhood Teacher
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice
During this term we intentionally introduced the concept of road safety into children's play by adding various road signs to the kindergarten space for children to explore during play and organizing a local excursion for exploration of local buildings, houses, trees, birds, insects and road and street signs.
The program enhances each child’s learning and development, by making connections to their current knowledge of their community and the world around them and by developing their curiosity and interest in the local community.
When children were shown the various signs, it opened the way for open ended questions and interactions in which children were encouraged to answer confidently with what they knew and guess what the signs they did not know could mean. They were even happily surprised when some of the sign meanings were explained to them, leading to children adding their own further comments such as why these signs were important. On our outing children were able to identify signs such as house numbers, sign boards for church and our kindergarten. We noticed various shapes and objects such, as the bell and cross on the church building, or the shapes of houses and windows. Children were able to make connections with the community through their interactions with other pedestrians by saying hello or stopping to noticing the smaller world beneath our feet by looking at the insects crawling across the ground. This created a sense of confidence, supporting children’s learning and curiosity by learning about their surroundings.
- Reena Chourse, Early Childhood Educator
Quality Area 5: Relationship with Children
As we are responsible for developing and nurturing respectful and equitable relationships with children, we as a team are intentional in our approach to our everyday interactions and shared learning opportunities with children.
Positive interactions such as spending time talking to each child individually to understand their interests, hobbies, and preferences helps us to personalize our own interactions with children and shows that we care about their individuality. Creating a safe space for a child to share their thoughts and feelings is imperative in fostering a positive educator-to-child relationship as it allows them to feel accepted and safe and helps the child be supported when they feel that they have a voice in the group and can contribute to decisions. We do share our own personal experiences from our childhood which are relevant and engaging for the children. This helps children to feel confident about themselves and helps open up to us by sharing their own stories.
We offer praise and encouragement when they accomplish tasks or demonstrate kind behaviour. This positive reinforcement helps build trust and self-confidence. We give utmost importance to establishing an open communication channel with families.
We share information about the child's progress, discuss any concerns or challenges, and involve parents in the learning process. Collaborating with parents shows a shared commitment to the child's well-being and development. We make it a priority to celebrate birthdays, festivals, and other special occasions together and engage in activities such as crafts, music, and games related to the occasion.
We help children to become aware of their own interactions with others, as well as to understand how their actions affect others. Role modelling and supporting children to convey and construct messages to express their needs, respond to their own needs with purpose and confidence can encourage young children to relate to others. We support self-regulation development by using the strategies like building warm and responsive relationships, structuring the environment, and coaching self-regulation skills.
- Amrutha Jose, Early Childhood Educator
Quality Area 6: Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
Every family is unique and valued and so are their children. We are respectful in the way we conduct ourselves, the language we use, we are empathetic and try to meet their child's needs. Upon enrolment we ask families to fill out a 'Getting to Know you Form' and ask for a family photo for us to display on our family tree to show partnership, belonging, community and value.
Families often look for advice for example toileting, we understand that it is up to the child to be ready, so we work in partnership with the families observe and inform possible strategies. We complete Personalised Learning Plans that both educators and parents can write down strategies, we complete orientation transition plans with families for children and parents that need that extra time.
We support families to be involved in the service not just in our educational programs but also by inviting families to join our Volunteer Parent Group, which works closely with Glen Education management to contribute to service decisions for example an upgrade of the children's backyard space.
All families in 2023 have been invited to meet with the educational team for a 1:1 interview to discuss any additional information about their child, such as goals for their child’s learning or what they believe their child may find challenging at kindergarten. In a positive partnership between families and educators, we respect and supported their role as the child’s first teacher.
- Joanna Palios, Early Childhood Teacher