GEKA Glover Street

Inclusion and Diversity 

Bhargavi Peddaraju, Early Childhood Educator

I started working at GEKA Glover Street Kindergarten over 2 years ago. I felt a little nervous going into work on my first day, but after meeting everyone, I immediately began to feel a sense of community. The workplace is filled with supportive people which makes me feel so comfortable and helped me settle a lot quicker. I thank the team and the GEKA Community for being very approachable and inclusive in their decision-making. 

GEKA promotes diversity by honouring the histories, cultures, languages, traditions, child rearing practices and lifestyle choices of families. And also respects the diversity of families and communities, and the aspirations they hold for children, to foster children’s motivation to learn and reinforce their sense of themselves. It changed the way I looked at my perception of different cultures. I strongly believe the change of attitude is an important step for educator and it underpins a positive approach to Inclusion and Diversity. 

Inclusion is important in early year education. As an Educator, we want to ensure that ourselves and the children do not discriminate against culture or other differences. Respect for differences makes it easier for Educators to find common ground and build relationships with families and children. From our relationships we can grow strong partnerships with our families and learn more about their backgrounds, values and beliefs.

Positive family partnerships improves communication and interactions. It also builds a stronger and more inclusive environment where children feel safe and secure. I feel blessed to be part of this Community. The GEKA team members show their respect for diversity by celebrating their festivals and activities, and also encourage the families to participate in the cultural activities and programs, which strengthens children’s self-identity and promotes an Inclusive practice. It starts by recognising our own culture, the diverse cultures of our families and Australia’s indigenous culture.

Sea of Hands

Rachael Gemmil, Early Childhood Teacher

We watched the play school episode ‘Walking Together – Reconciliation Special’ where presenters Hunter, Rachael & Emma Donovan walk us through our shared histories and the role we all play in building relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories, cultures and futures.

Hunter and Rachael create hand shaped cut-outs to include in a ‘Sea of Hands’, along with brightly coloured hand shapes provided by Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR). ANTaR has been advocating for justice, rights, and respect for Australia’s First Nations Peoples for almost a quarter of a century. Their organisation evolved out of a people’s movement for Native Title and Reconciliation that inspired the first Sea of Hands at Parliament House in Canberra in 1997. 

After watching this a number of the children followed their own interests and traced around their hands, cut them out and decorated them. 

We had the 3 flags placed on the drawing table and Benny made his own hand to join the ‘Sea of Hands’ based on the provocation offered by the Walking Together episode which included the colours of the Aboriginal Flag.  He also shared that he had seen a video of the Prime Minister saying sorry for taking all the babies away from their parents.

Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant

Jodie Goldfinch, Early Childhood Educator 

GEKA Glover Street Kindergarten has been selected as a recipient of a Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant!

Landcare received over 2300 grant applications and along with ours, 1609 primary schools and early learning centres across Australia have been awarded a Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant. This is the largest number of Junior Landcare grants ever given out in a single round.

We will be using our grant to re-establish the veggie gardens at GEKA GSK so the children can experience how plants grow and where food comes from, with a focus on cooking and enjoying the food we grow, alongside using sustainable practices and engaging as a community. The whole GEKA GSK community will be involved in the project and we will invite families to join us for planting during sessions in Term 3.

Our front garden beds will be transformed into a community herb garden and once established we will invite you to cut the herbs and utilise them in your homes. This term the children have been involved with the planning and installing of the new garden beds, installing the worm towers and selecting the plants we will grow in term three. At the beginning of next term the children will begin raising seedlings and looking after the seeds and plants and hopefully harvesting and cooking some crops.

We have a focus on sustainability within our project which will enable the children to take on responsibility for feeding our worms and adding scraps to the compost. 

The final component of our project is to support local pollinators so we will feature a variety of flowering plants within the garden beds to support the bees and other pollinators.

We are very excited to be able to share this news with you all and are very eager to undertake a project so rich in real life learning.