Dear Families
It is an exciting time for us at the ELC as we wait for the final approvals to use our new Atelier. I am sure that many of you have seen this incredible space and the rich provocations that have already been created by our Atelierista, Caterina Pennestri.
When I reflect on my time in Reggio Emilia, connecting with best practice in the early years space, I am reminded of how fortunate we are to have Caterina at St Peter’s Girls. Towards the end of this term Caterina will be presenting at the Reggio Emilia Australia Conference in Melbourne on ‘the Atelierista and the Atelier as a conceptual space’.
Caterina brings the lens of the Arts to everything that we do at the ELC. Her role is multifaceted, involving carefully curating learning spaces and learning opportunities across the Centre, working with children to extend their learning and providing the resources and materials required. She works with children in the Atelier on a range of projects nurturing their creativity and supporting them to express themselves in many different ways, giving value to ‘The Hundred Languages’. Caterina also attends planning sessions sharing her unique expertise to enrich learning and add depth to our inquiries.
If you haven’t seen the new Atelier space yet, please do come and have a look, I am sure that you will be suitably impressed.
Liz Schembri
Director of ELC
Important Dates
Monday 26 June: ELC Hat Ceremony
3–24 July: Vacation Care
Tuesday 25 July: Term 3 Commences
Food and Mealtime Exploration
This term the children have been exploring a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables with the purpose of building on their knowledge of foods, further developing their palates and their confidence to try and taste new foods. We are developing a strong foundation and understanding of fresh foods, with a focus on fruits and vegetables, to give the children a voice on our ELC system of mealtime and assist them in making informed food choices.
Native Animals Visit Playgroup
This week at Playgroup, we had a Nature Educational Officer Jenna visit us. She brought along a large range of native animals for the children to study and touch. It was an exciting morning with lots of activity and hands-on learning.
Staff Spotlight – Monique Gannon
Monique is a St Peter’s Girls’ School Old Scholar (Patteson, 2003), with three young children who have all attended the ELC. With a background in psychology, Monique completed her Master of Psychology and worked in both mental health and disability settings with children, adults and families. She later completed a Graduate Diploma of Early Childhood Education, drawn to the positive and creative nature of the early learning environment.
Monique is passionate about children’s wellbeing, with expertise in strategies to help children build strong, healthy minds. Evidence suggests that mindfulness practices – including meditation and deep breathing exercises – are powerful tools to protect and enhance children’s physical, mental and emotional health. Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment with openness, curiosity and without judgement. Through playful, mindfulness experiences in Learning Community 2, Monique supports children to develop their emotional literacy, regulation skills, attention, and resilience.
TRY THIS AT HOME…
If your home is anything like mine, mornings are chaos, our days at work and school are busy, and often followed by sports practice. Once dinner and bath time have wrapped up, bedtime is the perfect opportunity to slow the pace right down. Adding a short mindfulness session into your nightly routine can help foster a sense of calm and connection with your child and promote better quality sleep. Invite your child to take three slow, deep breaths as they settle into their bed. Help them put their whole body to sleep, from the bottom of their toes to the top of their head. Gently touch your child’s foot as you say goodnight, followed by their ankles, knees, hips, stomach, chest, shoulders, arms, neck and face. This simple and tangible technique encourages your child to progressively release any tension in their body and slowly ‘switch off’, both physically and mentally. The ‘Smiling Mind’ app has an excellent range of meditations for children, adolescents, and adults, including several for sleep.
Monique Gannon
Co-Educator, Learning Community 2
Portfolios in Term 3
Portfolios are rich documentation of your child’s learning journey and include work samples, photos, your child’s voice and reflections of learning. They provide evidence of the depth and variety of learning that is happening across the ELC. As we are currently going through the assessment and rating cycle with the Education Standards Board, this documentation will form part of the evidence set viewed by the assessment and rating team when they visit in coming weeks. We will therefore send portfolios home at the conclusion of the assessment and rating period, which is likely to be at the beginning of Term 3 for all children other than our Pathway to School friends who will receive their Portfolios at the end of term 2. The Education Standards Board are the regulatory authority and as such, abide by stringent privacy practices. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Vacation Care – Bookings Closing Soon
We are excited to introduce our new ELC Vacation Care booking system. To streamline the booking process and align with the School Vacation Care service, families can book their children into Vacation Care via our online booking form on the School website.
Vacation Care will run from Monday 3 – Monday 24 July, and bookings are now open. Bookings close on Friday 23 June at 5pm.
Families must book the days they would like their child to attend Vacation Care. To access our online booking form, click here
Vacation Care runs similar to a normal day within the ELC, led by Valentina Fernandes in Learning Community 1 and Alexandra Portus in Learning Community 2. Our days are filled with a range of creative, inquiry-based and hands-on experiences, using our indoor and outdoor spaces as well as our ELC Community Garden and the School lawns. Children will frequently participate in music, dance, picnics on the lawns, gross motor skills and cooking experiences.
Similar to typical ELC days, children will need to bring their own packed lunch, hat, water bottle and a change of clothes. Due to allergies, we ask that you do not pack nuts. A healthy morning and afternoon tea and late snack will continue to be provided to children.
If you need to make changes to your booking, please email ELCVacationCare@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au.
Please note: due to staffing requirements, cancellations made after the booking period ends will incur the full day’s fee.
Can you lend a Helping Hand in the ELC?
If you have an afternoon or morning spare, we would love volunteers to join us as we explore Ferguson Conservation Park. We try to visit Ferguson Park as often as possible to provide the children with rich learning experiences; however, this is deemed an excursion and requires higher ratios of adults to children.
Volunteering at the ELC is a fantastic opportunity to connect with the ELC community, and our treasured walks in Ferguson Park allow the children to deepen their relationship with their natural environment.
To be an ELC volunteer, we require a copy of a Working With Children Check (which can be processed free of charge through the School). If you would like to get involved, or have any other queries, please email via wharding@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
We look forward to seeing you at the ELC!
Community Safety Announcement
Transportation presents heightened risks to children’s safety, in particular while embarking or disembarking from a vehicle. The health and safety of our community is our highest priority and therefore we ask all parents to be vigilant when picking up and dropping off your children. When parking we ask that you are mindful that children and families are present in this vicinity and therefore move in and out of parking spaces with caution.
Please supervise children closely when getting into and out of the car. Families are asked to use the pedestrian crossing to cross Hallett Road safely and model appropriate road safety behaviour to children. Please do not leave siblings or other children in the car when dropping off or collecting your ELC child.
来自ELC园长：
亲爱家长朋友们，
对于我们圣彼得女校ELC来说，这是一个激动人心的时刻，因为我们正在等待最终审批来使用我们的新工作室。我相信你们中的许多人已经看到了这个令人难以置信的空间和我们的教育设计专家Caterina Pennestri已经创造的丰富的教学创意。
当我回想起我在Reggio Emilia的时光，与早年最佳的实践联系在一起时，我想我们有Caterina Pennestri在圣彼得女校是多么幸运。在本学期末，Caterina将在墨尔本举行的Reggio Emilia澳大利亚会议上发表题为“教育设计专家（atelelierista）和教育工作室（概念空间）”的演讲。
Caterina把艺术的镜头带入了我们在ELC所做的一切。她的工作内容是多方面的，包括精心策划整个中心的学习空间和学习机会，与孩子们一起丰富他们的学习，并提供所需的资源和材料。她在工作室里与孩子们一起开展一系列项目，培养他们的创造力，并支持他们以多种不同的方式表达自己，为“百种语言”提供价值。Caterina还参加策划会议，分享她独特的专业知识，以丰富学习并加深我们的探究。
如果你还没有看到新的工作室空间，请来看看，我相信你会留下深刻的印象。
Liz Schembri
园长
Emma Huang works in Learning Community 1 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
News from Learning Community 1
As Learning Community 1 reflected on this year’s National Reconciliation Week theme, ‘Be a Voice for Generations’, we considered how we can share this journey with our youngest citizens and empower them to take action. At the ELC, we don’t focus on reconciliation for one week of the year; our journey has seen us embed Kaurna language, stories, and symbols in to our everyday, creating natural connections to our learning and inquiries. Through this we aim to develop children’s awareness and understanding and a community that values Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their histories, culture, and their future. Through valuing and embedding this rich culture and history, children are empowered to share this knowledge and passion in their everyday lives and into the future.
Every morning in Learning Community 1 we share our Acknowledgement of Country in our Banbanbalyas, one of our most valued rituals. Last week we all joined together each morning to have collaborative Banbanbalyas in the Piazza. The children treasured this time as we shared dance, stories, and culture. We looked closely at the Aboriginal flag, discussing the colours, what they represent and why. The children were curious as they had seen the flag before, realising it flies in our ELC garden everyday along with the Australian flag and Torres Strait Island flag. We also shared our version of the Reconciliation Story, unpacking what our country looked like when the first people arrived and how the land was beautiful, sustainable, serene and was their ‘mother’ as it provided them with everything they needed. Shelter created from the trees, water from the water ways to drink and wash with and clothing from the animals.
We also welcomed an Aboriginal artist, Mya Damon, to share in our Reconciliation Week celebrations and teachings. She was curious to see our journey so far, our rituals, Acknowledgment of Country, our knowledge and use of Kaurna language and symbols and how this is embedded into our everyday practice. Mya shared where she comes from using the map of Australia that shows the different regions of Aboriginal communities so the children could see it in relation to Kaurna Country. She shared her artwork, stories and symbols used in her work and how they differ from ours. Mya engaged the children in small group workshop experiences where they used symbols and marks to create their own pieces of artwork on leaves and paper.
Our inquiries during Reconciliation Week further consolidated our knowledge and understanding of Kaurna people’s strong connection to the land and supported us to develop ways that we can keep the stories and narratives alive. These experiences are supporting the children to develop a global perspective of the land to which they belong.
Nell Tierney, Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
Inspired by the Reggio Emilia principle of using the ‘environment as a third teacher’ our ELC Community Garden is used to host a variety of learning experiences. Not only is the garden a special place to connect with nature and to observe growth through a scientific lens, but it is also used to foster meaningful connections with numerical concepts within our inquiry into the function of food. Every week, the Community Garden provides children with exciting opportunities to collect, track and compare data about the growth of the flowers, fruits and vegetables.
When investigating the garden beds, children participate with enthusiasm as they record data related to the amount and size of the vegetables and plants. A particular highlight has been discovering the recent growth of tiny broccoli heads and counting the amount of snow peas.
To share the information collected from the data, children have worked closely with educators to create visual displays and graphs, which are located in the entrance to the Hallett and Ferguson rooms. The children also proudly report their findings to everyone across the learning community, contributing to the excitement that surrounds our Community Garden!
Whilst collecting data in the Community Garden is a joyful experience, it also provides children with crucial opportunities to develop their numerical language and the ability to count objects using 1:1 correspondence.
Chloe Skoss and Laura Reiters
Learning Community 2
News from Our Pathway Room
Being a part of an ELC to Year 12 School gives us the opportunity to access the amazing facilities and spaces on the campus. The children in the Pathway Room regularly visit different areas of the wider community to enhance and enrich our inquiries and build their understanding of school. Together we explore the spaces, places and the people and make connections on each visit.
The girls transitioning to St Peter’s Girls’ School Mid-Year Reception have started to engage in their formal transition visits. As we have accessed this classroom multiple times as a part of our Pathway to School curriculum, the girls displayed confidence when entering and began work quickly on learning tasks with their new teacher. The teachers have begun their reporting processes and it has been heart-warming as we reflect and report on the children’s progress over the past six months. We look forward to the last few weeks of term and we will savour every moment together as a class, because this group has a special meaning as they are our very first Pathway to School friends.
Kirsty Porplycia and Kathy McCabe
Pathway Room
Please Help Keep our Centre Infection Free
To minimise the spread of illness please keep your child at home if they have:
- received Panadol or Nurofen in the morning
- a fever of 38 or above. Children can return to the Centre 24 hours after their last elevated temperature
- swollen glands
- a continuous runny nose
- a sore throat
- a consistent cough without a doctor’s clearance
- been unusually tired or lethargic
- been vomiting or have diarrhoea. Children should be kept home until the these symptoms have been absent for at least 24 hours.
- an undiagnosed rash
We look forward to your child returning once their symptoms are cleared so they can be happy and engaged in learning.
Remember to cover coughs and sneezes with your elbow and wash hands regularly for at least 20 seconds.
Important Allergy Information
Please remember allergy awareness when packing food for your child.
We kindly ask you to refrain from packing nuts or nut products in your child’s lunch box.
We have members of our community across the Centre with severe food allergies to the following:
- Nuts
- Dairy
- Sesame
- Fish and shellfish
- Egg
- Banana
Due to the severity of these allergies, we are asking that you be mindful of this when packing food for your child. Please ensure food is safely packaged and/or contained.
If you have any questions, please see your child’s Room Teacher. We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our community safe.
COVID-19 Information
Please find the latest guidance from SA Health:
- It is strongly recommended that students stay home if they have cold or flu-like symptoms, and test for COVID-19.
- Whether they receive a positive or negative result, they should stay home until symptoms subside (usually five to seven days).
- It is strongly recommended that parents/guardians inform the School if a student is a close contact. For further advice regarding close contacts, click here
If your child tests positive to COVID-19, please notify the School. Please also notify the School each day of absence, or provide the expected period of absence.
You can notify us via one of the following methods. Please include the name of the ELC Room. If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well.
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Phone: 8334 2200
If children are displaying symptoms, it is mandatory that we send them home.
SA Health guidelines advise that symptoms include:
- Fever (a temperature of 37.5˚C or higher) or chills
- Cough
- Loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Tiredness (fatigue)
- Runny or blocked nose
- Shortness of breath (difficulty breathing)
- Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea
- Headache
- Muscle or joint pain
- Loss of appetite
For more SA Health information, click here
Please note that if your child is unwell, they should remain home until they have recovered, irrespective of the illness.
Find Out What Happens Throughout the Day at ELC
myLink is our School’s parent portal, where families have access to a range of resources including the ELC Home Page. Our ELC Home Page is a dynamic online sharing space that invites you to participate in our learning. We use this tool to house important information for families and provide a window into your child’s life at the ELC, with educators sharing documentation of teaching, specialist lessons and spontaneous moments.
This page can also be accessed through your smartphone, via the Canvas App.
Accessing myLink for the first time:
Each parent has an individual username to access our myLink Parent Portal. Please note that the username is your ID number followed by @stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au (your ID number has been provided to you in an email from the School). If you have not accessed myLink before or have forgotten your password, please follow these steps:
- Visit https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
- Sign in with your parent username
- Click on ‘Forgot my password’
- Make sure the ‘email’ address is your parent username, type in the code, then click the blue ‘Next’ button
- Enter your mobile number registered with the School, with the area code (Australia is +61), dropping the 0 at the beginning (e.g. +61 400000000). Then select ‘Text’
- Enter the security code sent to your mobile number
- Enter the password you would like to use and click ‘Finish’
- Return to the login screen at https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au to access myLink
Accessing the Learning Community Home Page through myLink:
- Access myLink as per the above instructions
- Click on the ‘MYLINK HOME’ tab
- Click on your child’s name tab
- Under ‘Class Contacts’, click on the ELC room name (you may need to enter your user name and password again)
Accessing the Canvas Parent App for the first time:
- Ensure you have previously logged in to myLink on a PC
- Download the Canvas Parent App from your App Store
- Click the ‘Find School’ button
- Look up: stpetersgirls
- Log in using your parent username and password
- Tap on ‘ELC 2023’
- Click on ‘Front Page’ on the top right-hand side
- Here, you can navigate the page through the app
Please note: we do not use the message feature on this app, and ask families to contact their child’s teacher via email rather than this message feature.
If you have any issues accessing or navigating myLink, please contact our IT Hub via helpdesk@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au or 8334 2227.
ELC’s Online Etiquette Policy: please note that the ELC Learning Community Home Page and ELC News contain images and videos of other children. We therefore ask that you do not copy or share images or videos, especially on social media, if they contain other children.
Absences in the ELC
If your child will not be attending ELC due to illness or otherwise, please notify the School via one of the following methods and include the name of the ELC Room.
If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well. Please also provide a reason for the absence as the School requires this for government reporting purposes.
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Phone: 8334 2200
ELC Room Contacts
-
- Stonyfell – 8155 5778
- Bell Yett – 8155 5780
- Ferguson – 8155 5776
- Hallett – 8155 5775
- Pathway – 8334 2250
ELC Immunisation Policy
Under the Government’s No Jab No Play policy, families must meet immunisation requirements to attend the ELC and receive the Child Care Subsidy. Families are required to provide all approved immunisation records to the ELC. Further information is available by clicking here.
Children who are suffering from illnesses such as those listed below must be excluded from ELC in line with our Exclusion Policy:
- Influenza
- Chicken Pox
- Conjunctivitis
- Diarrhoea
- Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease
- High Temperature
- Infectious Hepatitis
- Measles
- Meningitis
- Mumps
- Rubella (German Measles)
- Scabies
- Scarlet Fever
- School Sores (Impetigo)
- Upper Respiratory Tract Infection
- Vomiting
- Whooping Cough
As part of our approach to prioritising health and safety, we implement effective hygiene practices and work to prevent and effectively deal with any infectious disease in line with the Education and Care Services National Regulations and the advice of health experts. If your child has one of the following, chickenpox, measles, rubella, meningococcal or tuberculosis or any other vaccine preventable diseases we ask that you inform the Centre as soon as possible.