Dear Families
It has been wonderful to see the children coming together again as we welcome Term 2. I would like to sincerely thank those who are sending their children into ELC as this gives us all a great sense of community after some time away from each other. We miss our friends who are still at home and look forward to seeing see you again soon.
The ELC community has embraced our new arrival and departure protocols with great success. We are so impressed with the confidence exhibited by the children and can see that they are adapting quickly through trusting relationships with their families and our educators. We have very much enjoyed the conversations with you at this time and want you to know that your support is greatly appreciated by the ELC staff.
The teachers at the ELC are working tightly to ensure the children are receiving the best possible education. We know that togetherness and our structured learning environments greatly contribute to this. Our Learning Community model is truly an asset at this time as we are already very used to mixed small groupings, utilising all of our spaces, having trusting relationships with many of the staff within the community and working together on shared inquiries.
We have a wonderful term of learning planned and look forward to sharing this with you through our ELC News, videos and documentation. Please stay connected to us, whether you are attending ELC or staying at home. Community is our strength and I know we will work together to make a positive pathway forward. Our values of optimism and open-mindedness are pivotal at this time and we appreciate the way you continually demonstrate these.
Kind regards
Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning
What’s Happening in Learning Community 1
In Learning Community 1, we have observed the many connections the children have made through food. We have been investigating how our foods are grown, harvested, prepared, shared and eaten, and the role that we play in this process.
Involving our children in the process of growing, picking and eating has helped them understand that we can grow food for ourselves. This supports our Term 1 learnings around sustainable practices and helps us to recognise that we can take responsibility for what we grow and eat. Now, we are excited to watch our winter vegetables grow as we continue to explore seasonal planting.
Virtual Mother’s Day Stall
The Parents’ and Friends’ Association is holding a Virtual Mother’s Day Stall.
Families can purchase a gift for their mums, grandmothers or other special women in their lives. A variety of wonderful gifts are available for $5 each. They will be wrapped and delivered to ELC this Friday. If your child is not attending on Friday, we can organise an alternate way for you to receive your gift.
To order a gift, visit www.trybooking.com/BJMAW
If you have any questions, please contact the P&F via stpetersgirls.pandf@gmail.com
Bronwyn Bartter
Parents’ and Friends’ Association President
We Love You Mum!
Wishing all of our ELC mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and special friends a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday. Thank you for all you do and the joy that you bring to our ELC community.
‘Mum and Me’ drawing by Emily
Notice for Returning Students
We kindly remind all ELC families that one week’s notice is required if your child is returning to ELC after a period of absence. Due to the current free child care policy and a reduction in student numbers, we have been forced to review our staffing structures. Therefore, we are staffing in accordance with the number of ELC students in attendance.
Please note that we are making every endeavour to meet the needs of our families during this time but cannot guarantee that we can accommodate your child if appropriate notice is not given.
If you wish for your child to return to ELC or to make other changes to your enrolment status, please advise us in writing by emailing our ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer, Sarah Elliott, via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au.
Important Dates
Monday 25 May: Reconciliation Week
Tuesday 26 May: ELC Reconciliation Celebration
Monday 1 June: Mid-Year Reception Transition Visits commence
Tuck Shop Back in Business
We are happy to advise you that the School Tuck Shop has reopened and lunch orders are available for ELC children. Lunch orders can be organised online by logging into the myLink Parent Portal and clicking on the Tuck Shop icon where you can register for a Flexischools account. Alternatively, you can order via the lunch bags found in the ELC foyer.
If you have any questions about ordering lunch for your child, please speak to one of the ELC staff members.
Naa Marni – “Hello, it is good that you came”
Ned Baulderstone, son of our Learning Community 1 Educator Mel Angel, worked with the children and staff to create a song that shares the Kaurna language greeting we use in the ELC. This language has been taught to us by our Kaurna elder Tamaru. In Kaurna language, “Naa marni” means “Hello, it is good that you came.“
The dance was created by Eva Simistis (Miss Sims) and we celebrated together with the music. We feel so lucky to be able to work with musicians and dance experts to enrich our learning. We encourage you to share this music video with your children and hope you enjoy singing and performing the actions together.
Introducing Our New ELC Mud Kitchen
We are excited to share that the construction of our new ELC Community Mud Kitchen is now complete! We would like to thank Sam Boots (pictured above) and the rest of our Property Services team who helped bring our vision to life.
The children in Learning Community 2 have been busy replicating our cooking experiences from Term 1 within their play, sharing their knowledge and understanding of culturally diverse and sustainable practices in the kitchen together.
With the help of Miss Hunt and Miss Balnaves, the children led the design process, brainstorming ideas surrounding what a kitchen is to them, what their kitchens at home look like and what we needed in ours.
This space is available for the children to explore and deepen their sustainable understandings from garden to plate. Use of sustainable materials helps to deepen children’s creativity through role play and provides them with rich play experiences which are so important in the early years.
We cannot wait for our whole community to explore our new kitchen, and we hope to share it with our families soon!
Health Reminders
We thank our community for being so responsible with your children’s health. We continue to follow stringent hygiene and cleaning practices to ensure the health and wellbeing of our children and staff.
Please ensure you are communicating any health concerns to the ELC staff, and if your child is displaying any of the following symptoms, please keep them at home until they have been cleared by a medical practitioner.
- Sore throat
- Fever
- Cough
- Runny nose
Thank you for your support and cooperation.
How Can We Support You?
Although some changes have occurred to our arrival and departure system, we remind you that we are here to assist you. Please ensure that you pass on any important messages when dropping off or picking up your child.
We are enjoying the conversations we are having with families as the term commences and encourage you to utilise our email system if you don’t get the chance to speak with us upon arrival or departure.
Please see our key teachers’ availability and contact details below:
Kate Mount:
Tuesday – Friday kmount@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Annabelle Redmond (Learning Community 1):
Monday – Wednesday aredmond@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Mel Angel (Learning Community 1):
Wednesday – Friday mangel@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Kirsty Porplycia (Learning Community 2):
Monday – Wednesday kporplycia@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Nell Tierney (Learning Community 2):
Thursday and Friday ntierney@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
来自黄老师的信息
亲爱的家长朋友们，
第二学期的开始，很高兴看到我们的小朋友们又回到了我们ELC。在这里真心的感谢送孩子来ELC的家庭，即使有一段时间不见，仍然能够感受到我们ELC这个温暖的社区大家庭。我们也很想念选择留在家中的孩子们，期待很快能见到大家。
在这个学期开始，我们ELC社区建立的新的接送系统也取得了很大的成功。孩子们和老师们相互信任，这一关系纽带让孩子们表现出自己十分自信的一面，很快适应了新的接送方式。我们十分感激家长们对我们ELC老师的支持和帮助。
ELC的老师们也紧密地工作在一起，尽所有可能给孩子们提供最好的教学。孩子们通过学习小组，尽可能利用我们ELC的空间，与社区内更多老师建立信任关系，很大程度上帮我们形成了十分积级的一体化、结构化的学习环境。由于疫情的特殊情况，我们的教师团队也受到了影响。孩子们也十分想念我们的Mrs Leanne Williams 和 Miss Laura Reiters老师，以及 Miss Sera Boccacio, Mr Josh Romeo, Mrs Claire Cox, Miss Olivia Sam, Miss Jaye Bessell 和 Mrs Laura Victory. 我们同样感谢在此期间，义务来ELC帮助我们的Ms Donna Connolly。我们期待整个老师团队的早日回归。
无论您是参加ELC或选择留在家里，请保持和我们联系。我们期待您通过我们的ELC新闻，视频和纪录来分享我们的学习情况。
Emma works in Learning Community 2 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
Sustainability in the ELC
We are taking great delight in seeing the growth of our winter vegetables in our Community Garden. The combination of rain and autumn sunshine has our vegetables growing quickly, and we are looking forward to investigating and harvesting them over the coming months.
Green & Clean question of the day: Which winter vegetables are growing in the Community Garden?
Staff Spotlight
This is Kirsty Porplycia’s ninth year working at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC. She started her journey at the Centre as the lead teacher in the Hallett Room. In recent years, she has become the Learning Community 2 team’s Pedagogical Coordinator, and Assistant Director of the Centre. Kirsty is a wonderful asset to the ELC, bringing warmth and flair through her leadership and connection with the children.
What is your favourite part of working in the St Peter’s Girls’ ELC?
Each day, I am blessed to work alongside children who have a natural desire and thirst for knowledge. They enthusiastically question the world around them and challenge me to see the world from different perspectives. Every child I have worked alongside has strengthened my capacity as a teacher and leader. Each child has taught me something which has enriched my teaching and learning practice. This has been strengthened by the reciprocal relationships that I have established with their families where information is shared openly and honestly.
Why are you passionate about working with children?
Children are citizens of today, and it is important that we give them a voice and strong position within our community. Children are our future, so therefore, it is our responsibility to ensure that they have a quality education that encourages them to be brave, speak their minds and give back to others. The uniqueness of early childhood education is that it looks at the holistic development of a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs to build a strong foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing.
What are you most looking forward to this term in the ELC?
This term, I continue to exercise my role as Pedagogical Coordinator and assist in leading Learning Community 2. I am looking forward to observing how the children will be resourceful with their learning, and how they ignite their imagination and use their creativity to express themselves. I am always fascinated at how children use multiple languages to express themselves and communicate their ideas and understandings. I also continue to enjoy my role working with the children who will be transitioning to St Peter’s Girls’ School in Mid-Year Reception.
News from Learning Community 1
Welcome to Term 2! We are delighted to be with our young friends once again. In Learning Community 1, Miss Redmond and I are particularly appreciative of the opportunity to be working across both the Bell Yett and Stonyfell Rooms. As we lead intentional learning groups with combinations of children from the rooms, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the unique gifts of each child in our community.
Our Central Idea for the term is, ‘Resourcefulness can empower us to think creatively.’ Our chosen concept to explore is change. Continuing our focus on sustainable practices that we had last term, to be resourceful is to create opportunities from what we have around us. This could be in the natural environment, in the home, in our School and in the way we think. Thinking creatively is an important life skill, helping us to solve problems, work successfully alongside others and imagine new possibilities.
We have provided some purposeful invitations for the children to explore this topic:
- Working with recycled materials such as plastics, cardboard and fabric, along with scissors and masking tape, encourages the children’s hand-eye coordination as well as confidence in their ability to imagine and produce something new, either decorative or functional.
- Collections of leaves from the neighbourhood have provided inspiration for the children to make observational drawings, choosing a favourite leaf and representing its shape and colour with pens and inks whilst engaging in intentional conversations about seasonal change. This reflective process is a calming one that encourages deep concentration.
- Clay is a natural and sustainable resource that holds huge potential for physical and mental exploration. Its sensory quality invites the children to squeeze, roll, push, pinch and pat it into different forms, all the while strengthening their fine motor skills. During our sessions, the children wanted to cut the clay into pieces and were surprised when they were given string instead of scissors. The cognitive challenge of finding out how this could be done kept them busy for some time!
Next week, we will begin our visits to Ferguson Park again. Here, we will be able to discover and investigate natural resources and recall Tamaru’s teachings about ways our interconnection with plants, trees and animals can promote sustainable living.
We feel sure that the term will provide us with many opportunities for deep learning, and we are excited to bring you on this journey with us.
Mel Angel and Annabelle Redmond
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
Over the past few months, our children have stayed indoors more than ever before. They have been faced with rules that they haven’t experienced before, and they have had many of their favourite things placed on hold such as playgrounds, sports and play dates. However, despite these challenges, the children have shown us that when restrictions are in place, we can still have fun and enjoy each day by choosing to have a positive perspective and exercising our imagination.
The children have shared with us how they have been resourceful during their time at home by recreating camping trips, making forts and designing special items using recycled materials. The educators are eager to build upon these explorations from home and connect these with our sustainable investigations from Term 1.
During this time, we have the opportunity to look for alternative resources and materials due to some of our regular options being limited. Last week, Poppy exclaimed, “We can make it so we don’t need to spend money.” This term, we are looking forward to unpacking ‘resourcefulness’ with the children, and supporting them to ignite their imagination and use their creativity to express their ideas. We would like the children to understand that resourcefulness is the ability to think creatively, to generate ideas and to identify alternative options.
We are eager to involve families in our explorations, so we ask that you continue to check the Learning Community Home Page to stay in touch, and email us with any feedback and reflections you may have.
Kirsty Porplycia and Nell Tierney
Learning Community 2
Absences in the ELC
Student Absences
Please notify the School via one of the following methods for late arrivals/early departures and absences, ensuring a reason for the absence is included.
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Phone: 8334 2200 or phone the relevant room as per the contact list below.
Please include the relevant room teacher when sending via email.
ELC Room Contacts:
Bell Yett – 8155 5777
Ferguson – 8155 5776
Hallett – 8155 5775
Stonyfell – 8155 5778
Accessing the ELC Learning Community Home Page
The ELC Learning Community Home Page is a dynamic online sharing space that invites you to participate in the communities’ learning as it happens. It provides a window into the children’s life at the ELC as educators share documentation of intentional teaching, specialist lessons and spontaneous moments.
Accessing myLink for the first time:
- Visit https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
- To set your password, click the link located below the sign in section
- Your user name was emailed to you upon your child’s commencement (see Helpdesk contact details below if you cannot source your user name)
- Enter your unique user name, click ‘Next’
- On the next screen, enter the security code that was sent to your mobile
- Enter the password you would like to use and press submit
- Return to the login screen at https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au to access myLink
- Several instructional videos are available via the Welcome page if you click on the ‘HELP’ menu tab.
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)
If you have any problems accessing or navigating myLink, please contact the IT Helpdesk 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 will 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.
ELC Immunisation Policy
Under the Government’s No Jab No Pay policy, families must meet immunisation requirements to receive the Child Care Subsidy. Further information is available from the Department of Health by clicking here.
Children with high-risk conditions, as well as children who are not immunised against them, may be excluded from the ELC in accordance with the ‘Staying Healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services’ guidelines. Please refer to our Exclusion Policy for further information.
Common illnesses requiring exclusion include:
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