Dear Families
We are excited to welcome you this coming Saturday into Ferguson Conservation Park for Songs in the Park from 10 – 11am with Ned Baulderstone. The songs that will be shared are sung regularly in the ELC and many have been written with Ned and the children. We are sure that you will be able to recognise the tunes. We will have a coffee van to greet you as you enter the park via Hallett Road. We ask that families remember to social distance at this event.
We are looking forward to a wonderful final term of learning together in the ELC. There has been no time wasted launching the inquiry with thought given to continuing the momentum from Term 3. The teachers have planned some exciting learning intentions and are noticing how settled the groups of children are. We can see that our nearly school age children are very ready for the next step and we are providing them with the stretch of learning that is required. We work extremely hard on successful transitions and this process is already in motion.
In a centre as large as ours, there are always some staffing changes. We celebrate the next steps our staff take to further their careers and are proud of the role we have played in their journey at St Peter’s Girls’ Early Learners’ Centre. Sadly, at the conclusion of 2020, Mel Angel will be departing our Centre. Her exciting journey is going to take her to London in 2021 and we will be appropriately farewelling her at the conclusion of this year. We know she will be dearly missed by us all.
Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday in the park.
Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning
Important Dates
Saturday 24 October: Songs in Ferguson Park Community Event, 10 – 11am
Monday 9 November: Reception Transition Visits commence
Friday 20 November: End of Year Celebration, 5pm
Thursday 3 December: Learning Community 2 Farewell Afternoon Tea, 2.30pm
Friday 4 December: Last day of Term 4
Songs in Ferguson Park – This Saturday!
Initiated by the teachers and children, we invite you along for Songs in Ferguson Park this Saturday 24 October from 10 – 11am in Ferguson Conservation Park adjacent to the ELC.
We will be joined by singer/songwriter Ned Baulderstone who has been working with our Friday children all year. Together, Ned and the children have created songs which have been enjoyed by the entire community.
Barista-made coffees and morning tea will be provided by the Friends of the ELC as you enter via Hallett Road. Please note that Saturday’s weather may be damp so please come dressed in appropriate wet weather clothing.
Symphony of Languages Celebrates Joy
The SOL team is continuing to support the children’s creative languages.
Inspired by our Term 4 central idea “participating in the life of the community can bring joy”, we are inviting the children to reflect on the feeling of joy and what makes them happy.
Receiving or making presents for others is one of the most common reasons for the children to be joyful. In the Atelier, the children have been busy creating presents for themselves or their loved ones. They created little ‘bags of joy’ using materials and drawings that symbolise memories or inspire happiness.
We are supporting their understanding of the beauty of giving, sharing joy with others and being an active part of the community.
With the children inspired by the joy of giving, this infectious feeling has flowed through to the language of dance. Using carefully selected music, the children celebrated the joy and happiness dancing together. They explored the joy of participating in the life of our Learning Communities, expressing themselves through dance and creating joyous movement symphonies.
The Importance of Ongoing Professional Learning
We aspire to be the best educators we can be, and in order to do this, we continue to learn. This is done every day in our practice as we research alongside our children and also in our choices of professional learning that we externally seek. This year has challenged many of our opportunities; for example Annabelle and I were unable to attend the study tour in Reggio Emilia as planned. However, we have found new ways of learning and have actively embraced these. One has been utilising webinars, an engaging and effective way for us to access learning after hours.
This week, Caterina Pennestri, Kirsty Porplycia and I had the privilege of presenting a webinar for Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange known as REAIE. It is part of a series of webinars titled, ‘Encounters with Languages: the role of the atelierista’. It is indeed an honour to share our work across the country and beyond and also to know that our creative ideas and interpretations can make a difference to others.
Over the weekend, I also joined a full day, online professional learning opportunity with more than 100 leading educators across our country to celebrate 100 years of Loris Malaguzzi’s life. He was the founder of the Reggio Emilia Educational Project that lives on across our world as the leading early childhood practice. He led a political and social movement to establish schools that were run by the city of Reggio Emilia. He was an educator, a psychologist, a writer and an activist. He changed the world’s view on early childhood, giving strength and value to the way in which children are seen.
Based on a model of ongoing research, it has impacted so may lives, including mine! I started at St Peter’s Girls over 15 years ago and brought with me this wonderfully exciting pedagogical influence that has enabled our Centre to thrive and develop. In addition, I sit on the National Committee of our REAIE and create ongoing opportunities for others to learn and grow.
The driver of my work is to have an impact on as many educators and children across our country as possible to ensure they have the best early childhood education they can. It is something I am extremely proud of, and last Saturday’s celebration of this wonderful man made me feel honoured to be part of such an organisation as REAIE. Loris Malaguzzi’s famous words, ‘if the eyes leap over the wall’, have encouraged me to look and go beyond, to take risks, to look to the future and hold our image of the child as the strong driver of our every action!
Although this event did not take place in Melbourne with speakers from Reggio Emilia as initially planned, the celebration was reimagined and in some ways it made us appreciate the opportunity even more as we shared our learning together online.
Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning
Safety of Our Children
We are continually focusing on the safety of our children. This week as the warmer weather set in, we became concerned that some families were choosing to leave the siblings in the car when coming in to collect their ELC child. We urge you to please take the extra minute and bring siblings in with you.
The safety of our children and the laws around this are paramount. Please click here to read supporting documentation.
From ELC Friends to Year 12 Leavers
We are celebrating the Year 12 students in their final week at St Peter’s Girls’ School.
Featured above are Isabelle Norman and Madison McGregor-Simms, two of our students who began their Saints Girls’ journey in the ELC with Kate Mount. It has been wonderful to see the girls grow and flourish over the years, and we are very proud of the young women who stand before us now.
Sun Safety in the ELC
Please ensure your child brings a broad-brimmed hat to ELC each day they attend. If you do not have an ELC uniform hat, we ask that you pack another broad-brimmed hat for your child to wear. As we move into the warmer months, it is extremely important that we adhere to our policies and procedures. If your child does not have a hat, they will be asked to play under the shaded areas or indoors.
Please note that sunscreen application also occurs regularly at the ELC. If your child requires an alternative sunscreen, please provide this to your child’s teacher. We ask that your child wears their correct ELC uniform and avoids wearing dresses or singlets where the shoulders are exposed. Appropriate footwear is also required, such as sneakers or sandals that have a backing.
Children’s Lunch Boxes
With the weather warming up, it is important that your child’s lunches are prepared and stored safely to avoid the risk of food poisoning. Keep pre-made lunch boxes in the fridge until they are ready to be packed into your child’s bag. We ask that you pack a frozen ice block/ice pack in your child’s lunch box to keep food cold. Please consider healthy, safe lunch box alternatives such as fruits and vegetables, and please ensure your child has a drink bottle filled with water each day they attend ELC. The staff can refill the bottles as required throughout the day.
来自黄老师的信息
亲爱的家长朋友们，
我们热烈欢迎大家来参加这周六早上10:00-11:00在Ferguson公园和Ned Baulderstone一起来唱“我们的歌”的活动。所分享的这些歌是我们在ELC定期会唱的歌，也是Ned和孩子们一起谱写的。我们肯定你会辨别出一些旋律。届时在Hallett路上，我们会安排咖啡车迎接你们的到来。请家长朋友们记得尽可能地保持社交距离。
我们期待着在ELC度过一个美好的一学期，也是今年的最后一个学期。老师们不遗余力争分夺秒展开研究单元学习，将继续保持第三学期的学习势头往前学习。老师们已经计划了一些令人兴奋的学习目标，孩子们已经安定适应。我们可以看到，我们接近学龄的孩子已经为下一步做好了准备，我们正在为他们提供必要的学习扩展。我们为成功的过渡付出了极大的努力，而且这个过程业已开始。
像我们这样规模的ELC，总是会伴随着一些员工的人事变动。我们为我们老师在事业上迈出的下一步而庆祝，并为我们陪伴她们走过的日子感到骄傲。令人难过的是，到2020年年底，梅尔·安吉尔老师将离开我们的中心。2021年，她将去伦敦开启她令人激动的新旅程，我们将在今年结束时正式同她道别。我们知道，我们大家都会非常想念她。
园长
Kate Mount
Emma works in Learning Community 2 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
Sustainability in the ELC
Exploring Summer and Spring Planting
This week, we have been busy preparing our garden beds for the next cycle or our spring/summer planting. Involving the children in clearing the garden beds allowed them to help sort the waste into the green bin and the worm farm. The worms have been very busy gobbling up the waste and turning it into nutrient rich plant food both excellent for improving the health of soil and plants and creating worm wee to fertilise our garden.
The children were given a ‘homework’ question:
What should we grow in our ELC garden this summer season?
“The tomatoes grew so tall and filled the garden bed.” – Harriett
“We are planting sweetcorn in our garden.” – Maia
“Carrots, we grow them at home.” – Sophia M
“Capsicum and cucumber.” – Asha
If you have any spare time this week, we invite anyone to help us plant and tend to the garden.
Green and Clean Question of the Day: What should we grow in our ELC garden this summer season?
Staff Spotlight
Sera Boccaccio has been a part of our community since she was 10 years old, coming down to the ELC to volunteer when she was a student at St Peter’s Girls’ School. Over the years, Sera developed a passion for working with young children and consequently chose this area as a career pathway. We are extremely honoured to have a Saints’ Old Scholar on our team and feel very proud of the young professional that Sera has become.
What is your teaching background?
Whilst studying Year 11 and 12 at St Peter’s Girls, I completed a Certificate III in Children Services. After finishing school, I furthered my studies and completed a Diploma in Early Childhood and Care. In my first year out of school, I gained a relief position at St Peter’s Girls’ Early Learners’ Centre until I was accepted for a permanent, full-time position in 2015.
Why are you passionate about working with children?
From a young age, I always enjoyed being around children. Particularly coming from a large family, I loved spending time with my younger cousins and watching them grow. Being part of their early childhood development and seeing their characters emerge was rewarding and inspiring.
What makes the St Peter’s Girls’ ELC special?
Since I started at Saints in Year 4 and during my time at school, I would visit the ELC and always thought how wonderful it would be to work in such a vibrant environment and with such a passionate team. I maintained a strong connection with the ELC through my placements and relief work once I finished school. Given it was always my dream to work at the ELC, it was very special to be accepted for a position.
As an Old Scholar, I have seen the pride and drive that teachers have to provide best practice and care for children. This is shown not only at the ELC but also within the School, and to be part of this is a privilege.
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I enjoy spending quality time with family, friends and walking along the beach and being outdoors.
News from Learning Community 1
At the end of each ELC term, we excitedly welcome the period of Vacation Care with many of the children and educators in our Centre. We not only see this period as a time to slow down and rejuvenate after a busy term, but a time to experience joy by connecting with all of our senses and continuing a learning journey with the children.
As every holiday period approaches, we look forward to creating meaningful spaces and learning environments for the children, each inspired by their interests, their joys and our natural world.
Throughout our days in Learning Community 1, we often observe children deeply engaged in imaginative play in the ‘home corner and kitchen’ environment. In this play, we notice rich and respectful dialogue, role-playing, social skills and collaboration with one another.
In our most recent Vacation Care period, we used such observations to plan for intentional experiences ignited by the children’s love of food and being in the kitchen. We chose to explore the concept of cooking more deeply and more realistically with the children by asking ourselves, ‘What produce grows in the springtime?’, and, ‘What produce is currently growing in our ELC Community Garden?’
We observed the colours, shapes and sizes of different produce and we discovered how this produce could be manipulated into something edible for us to prepare, cook and share together. In these moments, the children seemed to always have a fond memory to share about cooking at home with their families, bringing such a beautiful connection from home life to our Vacation Care days.
Collaboratively, we created wholesome meals together such as spring vegetable pasta, spring vegetable dip and spring fruit smoothies. Together, we practised fine motor skills such as:
- Washing and drying produce
- Chopping
- Pouring
- Mixing
- Turn-taking
After preparing these meals, we reflected, recounted and recorded the children’s thoughts and understanding about what was created, to which a recipe made up of an ingredients list and method was formed in the children’s own words (see picture below). Throughout these experiences, we noticed and felt a huge amount of joy and laughter coming from the kitchen table. We observed lengthy participation, care for one another, engagement, conversation and respectful relationships.
We are so looking forward to seeing such skills, dispositions and learning transferred into Term 4 where the teachers and educators will continue to share in the joy of cooking, Christmas baking and ingredient exploration with the children.
Danniella Capaldo
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
Vacation Care is a special time within the ELC, a time for us all to slow down and appreciate the little moments, finding joy in our surroundings. For Learning Community 2, we took these two weeks to reset, reconnecting with one other and with our spaces, along with strengthening our relationships.
As we were welcomed by the warm weather and sunshine, we spent our days following the children’s interests outside, especially in our ELC Community Garden. The children expressed their curiosity in our broad beans which were ready to harvest.
“There’s so many beans…we’ll be eating beans for days!” – Zoe
As much as we enjoyed eating the broad beans fresh off the stalk, the children wanted to create something together, with some suggesting we create a salad or a dip. With the main goal in mind of being able to share our creation amongst the community, we decided on a dip, researched some recipes and tested it out a few times across the two weeks! This experience highlights the values of community and participation that the children are developing throughout these collaborative cooking experiences.
“Yummy! I want to take this home!” – Emerson
“We need to make another recipe!” – Dora
“I want to draw a recipe!” – Chen Feng
The children experienced the joys of sharing their dip with the rest of the community, and explored creating recipe cards to take home. Below is our newest recipe from Learning Community 2, we hope you enjoy!
Music
During Vacation Care, our beloved music teacher Courtney Sandford worked alongside Miss Capaldo and Miss Balnaves as she hosted some very exciting musical instrument-making workshops!
The children were able to source their own recycled materials and have a go at creating different instruments which we would then use in our music lessons. These included spin drums created from recycled cardboard, string and beads, and wind chimes from old cutlery and work tools.
The children had such an amazing time working alongside Miss Sandford and were able to take their creations home with them. As for our wind chimes, they’re catching the breeze out in our mud kitchen. We can’t wait to see what Miss Sandford comes up with next!
Henrietta Balnaves
Learning Community 2
Find Out What Happens Throughout
the Day at ELC
The ELC Learning Community Home Page is a dynamic online sharing space that invites you to participate in the communities’ learning as it happens. We use this tool to communicate important information with families and provide a window into the children’s life at the ELC, as educators share documentation of 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’
- Enter the security code 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 issues 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 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
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
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