Early Childhood

Kindergarten

The Early Years Learning Framework is a national framework for all early childhood educators ensuring that children in all early childhood education and care settings experience quality teaching and learning. The Early Years Framework (EYLF) describes childhood as a time of belonging, being and becoming.

  • Belonging- Acknowledging children’s interdependence with others and the basis of relationships in defining identities. Belonging shapes who children are and who they become.
  • Being- Recognising the here and now in children’s lives. The early childhood years are not solely preparation for the future but also about the present.
  • Becoming- Reflects the process of change in children’s identities, knowledge, understandings, capabilities, skills and relationships.

The EYLF has a specific emphasis on play-based learning and recognises the importance of communication and language (including early literacy and numeracy) and social and emotional development. Purposeful play is a powerful medium for learning and helps children make sense of their world. Play is an important part of your child’s first years of life because it helps the ‘wiring’ of your child’s brain. Children need opportunities to choose from a wide variety of activities, materials and equipment that will stimulate, challenge and involve them in interesting tasks. The modelling and explicit teaching of social skills will help develop the children’s self-awareness and self-control.

The main aim of our program is to make your child’s first contact with school a happy and satisfying experience, which will help to establish positive attitudes to learning.  We aim to encourage the development of your child’s confidence, concentration and social skills, to foster their imagination and creativity, and help build their self-esteem.  By providing a rich variety of experiences, we feel the Kindergarten year will help to form the building blocks on which to build your child’s formal learning.

The Kindergarten program revolves around learning centres so that the children are able to make choices about where they will play.  When children play they are showing what they have learned and what they are trying to understand. This is why play is one of the foundations of the Early Years Framework.

Pre-primary

In Pre-primary we teach reading following MultiLit’s Foundation program called InitiaLit. InitiaLit is an explicit and systematic teaching program covering phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and oral language skills. Children participate daily in fine motor and gross motor development activities inside and outside the classroom. Our ECE play area is intentionally set up to focus on the fundamental movement skills appropriate to younger children. In classrooms, teachers include fine motor activities such as playdough, tweezer activities and pre-writing tasks.

Teachers use a balanced approach to explicit teaching and play based learning. Explicit instruction is used to introduce new content followed by rotational activities where students apply the new skill. Rotations will often include intentional play based learning areas, craft activities, oral and written tasks.

Aligning with the EYLF we cater for the whole child.  All teachers have high expectations of children’s capabilities. Ensuring  that all children experience pride in their attempts and achievements. We plan and engage with children in a range of experiences where children are active participants and decision makers.  All our teaching and learning experiences value and respond to children’s ideas and their learning is extended through open-ended questions, meaningful interactions and encouraging feedback.