From the Acting Director of Early Learning
Dear Families
The educators at St Peter’s Girls’ Early Learners’ Centre are a very reflective group of practitioners. Three mornings a week, before the teachers meet the children in their rooms, we come together for our Morning Briefing. We use this time to engage in dialogue on a range of agenda items.
This week, particular attention has been placed on the beginning of the term and family partnerships. Each educator reflected on how lovely it has been to connect with so many of you either at drop-off, pick-up or via email communication. Our friendly team of educators has enthusiastically welcomed families and children each morning and this has been a very important opportunity for daily contact and conversation.
We thoroughly enjoy these moments to connect with you and your child, enriching our relationships and providing strong partnerships between home and the ELC. If you are unable to come into the Centre on a regular basis, we encourage you to email or telephone your child’s teacher for regular communication. Please continue to log in to your child’s Canvas homepage where you are able to keep up-to-date with the inquiry investigations and other information relevant to their classroom.
The children have embraced the term ahead and have been eager to make connections with their previous inquiries from last term. We welcome our new families into our learning environment and look forward to working in partnership with you during your child’s learning journey with us.
We are looking forward to our Welcome Morning Tea on Thursday 2 August which will provide families with the chance to connect with each other and the educators. The Friends of the ELC are hosting this event and we thank them in advance for the opportunities they provide for our community to come together and connect.
This semester, we welcome Mrs Leanne Williams into the Hallett Room and we have delighted in watching the children reconnect with the teacher they had in the Bell Yett Room. We also welcome Miss Jessica Ash to the teaching team, working in the Bell Yett Room with Mrs Nell Tierney, and I’d like to thank those who have reached out to me in my new role as Acting Director of Early Learning while Kate Mount is on long service leave. I am looking forward to the term ahead and I encourage you to email or seek me out to share your child’s experiences during their first two weeks back at ELC.
Kind regards
Kirsty Porplycia
Acting Director of Early Learning
Authorisation for Drop Off and Collection of Children
To ensure the safety of staff and children at the ELC, parents/guardians are required to give written authorisation of those people who can drop off or collect their child.
If you have had any recent changes to the people who can drop off/collect your child from the ELC, please see your child’s teacher to fill out a form for our records.
Your authorised person/people may be required to present identification (e.g. driver’s licence).
Please note that the person signing your child in and out of the ELC must be at least 18 years old. If any of the people are to be removed from authorised drop off/collection, please notify us as soon as possible.
Save the Date
2 August: Friends of the ELC Welcome Morning Tea, 9am
6 August: Stonyfell Information Evening, 5pm
6 August: Welcome to the Hallett Room, 5pm
29 August: Father’s Day Breakfast, 7.45am
12 September: Grandparents and Special Friends’ Afternoon Tea, 2pm
17-19 September: Parent-Teacher Conversations
ELC Room Movements for 2019
Our Enrolments Office is currently working on 2019 ELC offers and room movement. To assist us with this process, we ask that you notify us in advance in writing if you intend leaving the Early Learners’ Centre at the conclusion of 2018. Please email ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer Sarah Elliott via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au.
For families remaining in our Early Learners’ Centre, we will be holding an Information Evening early in Term 4 to outline plans for 2019. We encourage all families to attend one of the sessions on Wednesday 31 October at either 5pm or 6.30pm in the Arts Centre.
Kate Mount, Kirsty Porplycia and Sarah Elliott
Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum
The Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum is a child safety program for children and young people from age 3 to Year 12. It is a respectful relationships and child safety curriculum that teaches all children and young people they have the right to be safe, and they can help themselves to be safe by talking to people they trust. All children and young people have a right to:
- be treated with respect and to be protected from harm
- be asked for their opinions about things that affect their lives and to be listened to
- feel and be safe in their interactions with adults and other children and young people
- understand as early as possible what is meant by ‘feeling and being safe’
The ELC educators will be engaging the children with this curriculum; explicitly teaching them about the nature of personal safety and wellbeing, their rights to personal safety and wellbeing, help seeking and self-protecting behaviours and their responsibilities to the safety and wellbeing of others. This will be done in an age-appropriate and delicate manner, and we will often use storytelling to engage the children.
If you have any questions or would like some further information, please do not hesitate to contact Kirsty Porplycia, Teena Nicholls or your child’s educator.
Vacation Care
During Vacation Care, the Ferguson and Hallett children enjoyed their time together engaging in an array of experiences including:
• participating in specialist lessons such as Music, Tennis and Gross Motor
• engaging their senses by making scents, cooking and creating ‘magic sand’
• singing and dancing
• connecting with their younger peers through music and dance, at meal times and playing together outdoors
The children continued to engage in their inquiries from Term 2, and often became leaders and ‘experts’ as more curiosities arose. Many Ferguson children were proud to share their camera filter creations and how to take photos with multiple effects. The Hallett children continued to share Aboriginal and Kaurna knowledge and traditions. Many friends also had the opportunity to work with Ada, our Humanoid Robot, and began to explore the concept of programming.
Natalie Lockwood
This July Vacation Care, the Stonyfell and Bell Yett children had a strong focus on collaborating beyond our rooms and into our wider ELC community.
This involved more structured experiences including art, cooking and gardening (with the company of our Property Services team), and also unstructured periods where children across all rooms were given time to simply coexist in the same space, both in the ELC and in Ferguson Park.
We observed many things during this time, particularly the natural responsibility the Ferguson and Hallett children felt for their Stonyfell and Bell Yett friends, and the comfort and confidence the younger children felt to enter the play of the older children.
This collaborative approach has guided both children and educators to observe and grow a ‘whole-Centre’ headset, recognising the special interactions and learning opportunities we share when we venture beyond our rooms and across the whole ELC.
Annabelle Redmond
Save The Date – Ladies’ Day Out
A Message from Mrs Yu
亲爱的家长朋友们，
欢迎大家回到第三学期！我希望大家都度过了一个美好的假期。在新学期的开始， 我们的ELC朋友们会在ELC中心内举行欢迎早茶会，时间是8月2号周四早上9点。我们真诚的期待在那天见到大家！
我们的招生办公室目前正在开展2019年ELC入学和换班。为了帮助我们完成这一过程，如果您打算在2018年结束时离开早期学习中心，我们会要求您提前书面通知我们。请通过selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au 向ELC注册和财务主管Sarah Elliott发送电子邮件。
对于留在我们早期学习中心的家庭，我们将在第4学期开始时在学校的艺术中心举办一个信息晚会，以概述2019年的计划。我们鼓励所有家庭来参加，时间是在10月31日周三下午5点或6点30分。
亲切的问候，
幼儿园早茶会：周四，8月2号 在ELC中心内
我的邮箱：syu@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Mrs Sophie Yu
News from the Stonyfell Room
Mathematics in our daily lives – what does this look like when you are two?
Mathematics is all around us. We use it every day in many aspects of our lives. However, it is an area that many of us feel we lack confidence in, or are unsure of. This term across the ELC, we are going to put mathematics into the spotlight!
I am sure you are wondering how we are going to do this and what this could look like for our youngest learners in the Stonyfell Room.
The educators have been working over the holidays, discussing and planning our term and how to build on our knowledge in this area. We are aiming to support and encourage children in many ways through this inquiry, and one area of focus will be on developing the children’s problem-solving skills.
Being able to build on this skillset supports our children with their ability to process information and develop creativity, and will encourage them to persist at a task or challenge.
We are very excited to begin this journey and we will keep you regularly updated via our Canvas page, newsletter articles and room documentation.
Laura Reiters
News from the Bell Yett Room
A big welcome to Term 3 in the Bell Yett Room. We have had a wonderful start to the term with our new children settling in exceptionally well. This smooth transition has been supported by intentional visits to the Bell Yett Room during Term 2 and Vacation Care.
We welcomed our new educator Miss Jess Ash who will be the Bell Yett Key Teacher on Thursday and Fridays. Mrs Nell Tierney will be the Key Teacher on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
We are very excited about our inquiry this term. The central idea we are exploring with the children is: Mathematicians search for patterns, rules, and relationships to explore their world. Our intention through this investigation is for our children to connect with patterns and shapes in their world. Our learning environments have been purposefully created to be open-ended, enabling the children to be creators of their learning.
We know that children have endless learning possibilities and we look forward to carefully observing and engaging with the children to uncover these potentials.
As well as a fortnightly update of our inquiry through this newsletter, you can also follow our Canvas homepage. This is updated on a weekly basis with our learning journey and includes lots of wonderful photos to share with your family. Please note: if there is a photo of your child that also includes another child, it must not be shared on social media.
Nell Tierney and Jess Ash
News from the Ferguson Room
Welcome to all of our wonderful families, old and new! The children have displayed resilience and optimism as they have made the transition from other rooms or have welcomed new friends. Many have commented that they know each other from before, even talking about when they were in the Stonyfell Room together. This has been delightful to observe.
We have been diligently preparing our space to accommodate the children at the beginning of Term 3, including:
• invitations to gather in small groups to work and communicate together
• connections from previous learning including Ferguson Park and the Kaurna people
• provocations to begin to explore our central idea this term: Mathematicians search for patterns, rules, and relationships to explore their world
A particular interest to the children has been our ‘Atelier of the Scents’ – a place where children can investigate natural materials that have intriguing smells such as:
• coffee beans
• dried lavender
• peppercorns
• star anise
• peppermint oil
• turmeric
Our intention is for the children to engage with this experience using a mathematical lens: to create pleasing combinations, we must first learn about proportions and quantities. The children have been fascinated by the process of choosing and combining the aromatics, crushing them with the mortar and pestle, and adding water to create their very own signature ‘perfume’.
In the weeks to come, we will go deeper into the mathematical perspective using simple measurement tools to record quantities of each element required to create each scent.
We invite you to participate in our learning experiences; in particular, we invite you to work with us in Ferguson Park, our beautiful outdoor classroom. This is a huge support to the children and educators, and also provides you with a unique opportunity to be involved in your child’s learning. Please speak with me if you can give half an hour of your time.
Mel Angel
News from the Hallett Room
The Hallett Room learning community has had a wonderful start to Term 3. Our continuing children have embraced their new friends from the Ferguson Room and have been wonderful role models for them as they explore their new learning environment. The transition across the rooms has been incredibly smooth and the children have demonstrated positive dispositions of resilience and risk-taking.
Similarly, I have been welcomed and supported by the children, their families and the Hallett team. It has been incredibly special reconnecting with old friends from the Bell Yett Room and getting to know many of the new children for the first time.
We have launched straight into our inquiry and are investigating the following ideas:
• Mathematics is all around us
• Mathematics is a tool to explore our world
• I can think like a mathematician
The children have been sharing their ideas about what they think Mathematics is and have been encouraged to think like a mathematician as they engage in our Hallett Room rituals and explore the open-ended materials available. The children have been very excited to share their thinking with us. Some of their ideas have included:
• Maths is learning
• My Dad does Maths
• You learn about new things
• You learn about numbers
• I can count to 30
• 30 is a big number
We invite you to regularly visit our Hallett Room Canvas homepage where we will be documenting the children’s inquiry in more detail. Please note: if there is a photo of your child that also includes another child, it must not be shared on social media.
Leanne Williams