Dear Families
As I prepare my presentation for the Australian Reconciliation Convention, I was asked to reflect on a statement about what I wish for children. I found this to be an enormous question to answer, but such an important one. I turned to my team and asked them, ‘What drives our education to ensure we are fulfilling our hopes and dreams for children both now and for the future?’ I wonder what your wishes would be if you were to ask yourselves this same question.
There is no doubt happiness and wellbeing featured highly on our list, but so did many other areas. We spoke of a safe childhood; one where relationships form the foundation of safety, providing children with strong connections and the ability to trust others. A strong relationship with the land is also pivotal for us as we wish for our children to have a solid connection to land and nature. We also spoke with emphasis on the need to take time to enjoy childhood and not rush through it, allowing children the time to just be children.
We spoke of fairness; for children to have an equal opportunity in life to participate, and access to education through positive and responsive learning contexts. We want their voices to be heard and valued, and for them to be seen for all their strengths and competencies. We know this comes with adults understanding who children are and ensuring they share our positive image of children.
We wish for children to not have to endure adult issues before they are ready, that childhood provides a right to innocence which we believe children deserve. We hope that this can be rightfully positioned and understood in our complex world.
As we write these significant points down, we are reflecting on our important role in the lives of children and how we are contributing to their happiness, wellbeing and nourishment as human beings every day. We know we must remain the biggest advocates for children to ensure these wishes can be fulfilled. We take on this role with pride, grateful for the trust you as parents place in us every day.
With all of this in mind, we look forward to reflecting upon our 2021 journey at our End of Year Celebration on Friday 19 November at 5pm.
Kind regards
Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning
Important Dates
Monday 8 November: Reception Transition Visits Commence
Friday 19 November: ELC End of Year Celebration, 5pm
Monday 29 November: ELC Hat Ceremony, 12.15pm
Thursday 2 December: Learning Community 2 Farewell Afternoon Tea, 2pm
Friday 3 December: Last day of Term 4
The Power of Storytelling for Our Youngest Minds
ELC End of Year Celebration!
We invite you to join us on Friday 19 November on the School’s Chiverton Lawns at 5pm for the ELC End of Year Celebration.
We encourage families to bring a picnic rug and basket, and set up your space on the lawns. Singing will commence at 5.30pm. The children are invited to wear their party clothes and/or a touch of Christmas.
A sausage sizzle, drinks and cupcakes can be preordered upon registration. Register your family by Monday 15 November by clicking here.
ELC FUNdamentals Sport Program
Keep Unwell Children Home
The ELC is appealing to families to please be vigilant following incidences of children arriving at the Centre with symptoms of illness.
It is absolutely imperative to keep unwell children at home until they have recovered, even if symptoms are only mild. This is not only for their own health and safety, but for that of all families and staff.
Common signs of illness include sore throat, cough, runny nose, congestion, green/yellow discharge, fever, stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea.
If your child will not be attending ELC, please notify the School via one of the following methods:
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
(If sending via email, please include the relevant room teacher)
Phone: 8334 2200 or phone the relevant room as per the contact list below
ELC Rooms:
Bell Yett – 8155 5777
Ferguson – 8155 5776
Hallett – 8155 5775
Stonyfell – 8155 5778
Thank you for your cooperation.
Keeping Sun Safe in the ELC
As the weather warms up, we ask families to please bring their children to ELC with sunscreen, a named, broad-brimmed hat and appropriate footwear for play.
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.
We also 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.
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.
Sports Lunch 2021 – Book Now
St Peter’s Girls’ Foundation is thrilled to present the 2021 Sports Lunch on Friday 12 November from 12 – 4pm at the Alma Tavern, Norwood.
Enjoy an exclusive afternoon of sporting insights and a sports panel discussion with football icon Mark Ricciuto, Olympic and World Champion Rower Olympia Aldersey (Kennion 2011), and Executive Director of Events SA Hitaf Rasheed (Selwyn 1986).
The afternoon includes a delicious 3-course meal and drinks package, and funds raised will go towards our new Gym!
Be quick to secure your tickets via: www.trybooking.com/BTYKD
来自黄老师的信息
亲爱的家长朋友们，
当我在为澳大利亚和解大会准备演讲内容时，有人希望我能够讲讲我给孩子们的期望。这是一个很大的问题，但也是一个非常重要的问题。我问我团队的老师们，是什么来推动我们的教育能确保我们现在和未来都能满足孩子们的希望和梦想?我们也想知道如果你们被问到同样的问题，你们的答案会是什么。
毫无疑问的是，快乐和身心健康本是我们最为重视的，但是还有一些重要的领域。我们谈到了提供一个安全的童年;这种关系是建立安全感的基础，为孩子们提供了稳固的联系和信任他人的能力。与土地的紧密联系对我们来说也是至关重要的。我们希望我们的孩子与土地和自然有紧密联系。我们还强调了让孩子尽情地享受童年，而不是匆忙过，允许他们有时间度过作为一个“孩子”的童年时光。
我们同样谈到了公平;使儿童在生活中有平等的参与机会，并通过积极响应的学习环境获得教育。我们希望他们的声音被听到和重视，他们所有的优势和能力被看到。我们知道，这是因为我们理解孩子是怎样的，并确保孩子们跟我们一样认知孩子的积极“形象“。
我们希望孩子们在他们准备好之前不用去面对成人世界的问题。我们相信孩子们应该拥有“纯真无邪的童年”的权利。我们希望，在我们这个复杂的世界中，这一点能被大家所正确的定位和理解。
当我们写下这些重要的观点时，我们也在反思我们在孩子生活中的重要角色，以及我们作为成年人每天如何为他们的快乐和身心健康作出的贡献。我们知道，我们必须继续全力支持孩子们，以确保这些愿望能够实现。我们自豪地承担起这一角色，感谢家长们对我们的信任。
我们期待能在11月19日周五下午5点的年终庆祝活动上看到大家。
园长 Kate Mount
Emma Huang works in Learning Community 2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
Sustainability in the ELC
Senses in the Garden
Our ELC Community Garden is a place where children can experience the pleasure of discovery…a place where they can engage all their senses in various experiences.
Spring is a magical time in our garden as we are sure it is too in yours! The biodiversity of a garden brings beauty to all the senses and creates curious, observant young explorers. Whilst our plants have been busy growing, changing, and blossoming, they have also been attracting all kinds of friendly visitors. The children have discovered many different bugs and insects that are making their homes in the garden, and have been eager to share with others their exciting discoveries!
As children engage in these experiences and use their senses to discover the natural world around them, it also gives them the opportunity to communicate their knowledge about the world to their peers. These experiences support children in their development of:
- Conveying meaning
- Conveying and learning to process and manage their emotions
- Developing initiative through discovery
- Developing self-confidence and independence
- Deepening their skills of literacy, mathematics and science through counting, describing and comparing what they find with others
How might you be able to support your child’s exploration of senses at home?
Do you have any recommendations for sensory herbs and plants we could put in our garden?
Over this term, we are hoping to form a stronger connection around our ELC Community Garden, sharing our experiences and joys, and involving families and our wider community. You are welcome to email through any photos or comments via hbalnaves@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au so we can share them within our ELC community!
Thank you, and happy gardening!
Henrietta Balnaves
News from Learning Community 1
‘The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages. A hundred hands. A hundred thoughts. A hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.’ – Loris Malaguzzi, excerpt from The Hundred Languages
Across the ELC, educators curate literacy-rich spaces and experiences to support children’s early development and learning. Storytelling is one of the key aspects of our literacy program in Learning Community 1. Through story reading and storytelling in the early years, children begin to develop fundamental literacy skills including listening and comprehension, using their imagination, increasing vocabulary, enhancing their critical thinking skills, making connections between spoken and written text, and extending their verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
This term, our unit of inquiry is focused on storytelling as a way to share knowledge and understanding. Our youngest learners are not yet able to read and write their own stories, yet they are developing strong foundational literacy skills through exploring storytelling in a range of ways. Using the Reggio Emilia concept of The Hundred Languages, we have intentionally curated spaces to provide children with opportunities to share, recount and imagine stories. Children have explored storytelling using clay, loose parts, graphic language, paint, food, verbal language, story props, light and shadow, and drama-based experiences.
Using these creative languages, children have been working individually and in small and large groups to read and retell familiar stories, create collaborative stories and share stories from their own imaginations.
Within all of these experiences, educators differentiate the learning, working across a range of ages and abilities to scaffold learning. This allows children to explore and develop their literacy skills at an individual level whilst allowing for extension of skills and understandings. As children move through the ELC into Learning Community 2, these skills are built upon to support the continued development of literacy skills as a foundation for formalised schooling from Reception and beyond.
Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
Creating and Maintaining a Literacy-Rich Environment: A Learning Community 2 Perspective
Child: ‘Can you please help me write the word ‘Mum’? I want this letter to be for my Mum.’
Educator: ‘Of course, I can! We need to begin with a capital M, watch how I write the letter…up, down, up and down, a lower case u and then, lower case m. I will write it here and you can write it underneath.’
Child: ‘I want to write, ‘I love you’. Can you write that for me?’
Educator: ‘Yes, of course. What else shall we write in the letter?’
Currently across our Learning Community, this is a common conversation being held between the children and educators. Many of the children have delighted in exploring their emerging writing skills through our ongoing inquiry work. This is the key developmental area we are focusing on this term. We have many children preparing to take their next step in their learning journey, and to best support and prepare these children, we want to ensure they have the skills and abilities necessary to confidently engage in their new classroom environment. We have worked hard to merge our literacy explorations with our ongoing social skill development.
To further support the children’s ability to engage positively with each other and with their environment, we have been working on understanding the word ‘respect’. One way we are exploring what respect means and how it looks for a 3 to 5 year old is through letter writing. The children have been working in small groups to write letters to each other, highlighting what makes them a respectful and kind friend. We want the children to think about their peers and what makes each of them special and important. We want them to think about how this might feel when they receive this letter, and we want them to begin to enact these attributes in their play.
These letters have sparked the desire in the children to want to write letters, and over the term, our spaces have evolved to enrich this desire in the children. We have been observing many excited conversations around who they can write letters to, exploring the alphabet and correct letter formation, identifying each other’s names as well as identifying words in their environment.
We are looking forward to sharing more of this learning with you as the term progresses, and many examples will be available for you in your child’s individual portfolio.
Nell Tierney, Laura Reiters and Kirsty Porplycia
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:
You have an individual user name to access our myLink Parent Portal which has been provided to you. To set up your myLink access you will need your user name and access to your mobile phone to setup your recovery details. Please note that your user name requires your ID number followed by @stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
- Visit https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
- To set your password, click the link provided
- Enter your user name and click ‘Next’
- Click on ‘Forgot my password’ in blue under the password field
- Enter the characters in the picture and click and click the blue ‘Next’ button
- Select ‘Text my mobile phone’ radial button
- Enter your phone number in the following format +61 0400 000 000 (if you are in another country, please use the correct country code) and click the Blue ‘Text’ button
- You will be texted a code
- Enter the code and click the Blue ‘Next’ button
- You will then be taken to a screen to set a new password for your parent account
Please note: If you forget your password in the future, you can use this method to reset it. Please return to the login screen at https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au to access myLink and use the username from above with the password you just set up.
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