From the Director of Early Learning
Dear Families,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for providing support throughout 2016 to our ELC. The strength of our community is something that we treasure and recognise the essential impact this has on the education of all children that attend our centre. Our relationships with you all makes our work so enjoyable, and it is what makes the partnership between home and ELC so strong.
Seeing our community gather as an entire group on the night of our ELC Celebration was quite overwhelming and special – it also made us realise just how big we have grown! It is the only time in the whole year that the community gathers as one. We thank you all for supporting us, the children and the occasion. It is a night that we will continue to smile and talk about!
Our successes this year have been plentiful and we have reported on each and every one of them throughout the year. For me the greatest success is the stability and consistent quality of the centre, with my incredible staff and beautiful children and families. People often refer to the highs and lows of life but I am just so grateful for the evenness and consistency! Every day the centre opens and closes in such a beautiful rhythm, different combinations of children come and special things happen throughout, but the hum is there all the time. It is for this that I want to say thank you and feel blessed to have it in my life.
You may have heard us talking about gratitude over the past weeks. It is because I think it is essential that we teach the children to appreciate what we have and say thank you to those who have made positive impacts on us. Miss Reiters, her team and children have designed a beautiful card that represents this, it is so beautiful and was created with special materials by our two year olds. I hope as we finish up the year, you can find time to ask your children who they are appreciative of and why. We could not function without those around us that support our centre. From Property Services, to Tuck, our cleaners, to Friends of ELC, to my team, the wider school personnel, staff and students – the list goes on but please accept our sincere gratitude for what you have done for us this year.
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a safe, blessed and special time together with your loved ones as we conclude 2016. We farewell many families and hope that the foundation they have experienced from our ELC stays with them as they journey forward. For returning families, I look forward to welcoming you back in 2017.
With my fond regards,
Kate Mount
Have you read your child’s ePorfolios?
We are currently uploading your child’s latest pieces on their ePortfolios. By Wednesday 16 December, you will be able to read pieces about recent learning. It has been a joy for me to read all of their Individual Learning Plans and see just how far the children have come, growing in confidence, skill, concept development and knowledge. Please view ePortfolio’s by clicking here.
In addition to these significant pieces there are also beautiful memories captured. For example the Magic Moments and the Christmas Celebration photos can be found on the ePortfolios. The specialist teachers have also taken the time to provide a piece for each room that has been uploaded for your information.
Please provide feedback to us how accessible you find the ePortfolios and how regularly you log on to them. They have new items uploaded every few weeks and the teachers and educators place a huge amount of time and effort into them. Without your valuable feedback we are unable to determine how effective this method of communication is to each family. Please email me with your comments: kmount@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Thank you,
Kate
Vacation Care Bookings Close this Week!
With next week being Vacation Care, we are rapidly trying to finalise numbers and staffing. Please can all families ensure they have filled out their booking forms for both the December and January times.
Please download the booking form
Dates to remember
Vacation Care commences on Monday December 12, 2016
Centre Closure: Saturday December 24, 2016
Centre Reopens: Monday January 9, 2017
Term 1, 2017 Commences: Monday January 30, 2017
Friends of ELC Giving Tree
Thank you to all of the families who have supported our Giving Tree. We have loved sharing the time with you as gifts have been tenderly placed under the tree. The conversations about these gifts and who they might go to have been so precious and this supports our thinking about gratitude and appreciation. The gifts will be collected next week and taken to be distributed.
Staff Farewells
As we celebrate another wonderful year in the ELC we thank the dedicated and passionate educators that work across the centre. We have travelled a remarkable journey together as a staff team and this has been evident through the rigorous learning projects that have been ongoing throughout the year.
We would like to take this opportunity to farewell an amazing group of educators that will be finishing up with us at the end of 2016.
Each playroom has been enriched with these unique and dynamic members of staff. They have shared their creativity and passion for early years’ education and have been actively involved in ELC life. We are extremely appreciative of everything that these educators have given to the centre and we wish them all the very best with the next step in their journey.
News from the Stonyfell Room
A reflection on 2016 in the Stonyfell Room
As the year comes to an end and we take the moment to reflect on our journey, I want to take the time to think about where we started and how we have ended up.
Teaching is such a wonderful and rewarding profession! Every day I feel truly grateful to be a part of your lives and to have the privilege of working alongside your children. We all work hard to build trusting relationships over the year, as we learn side by side and we laugh and share moments of joy together.
In the early parts of the year there are often tears and emotions as the children find their place and feel comfortable being in this environment. We learn the routine, what to expect, as we learn and watch each other grow. We mark milestones in our lives and take the time to celebrate the small things like trying new food, putting our own shoes on, or even wear big girl/boy underwear!
The year always goes by too fast and we are amazed at the pace it takes. The children change so much in such a short time. The Stonyfell educators have been taking the time to reflect with the children about how far they have come and how much they have grown. This week we have been reliving some of these stories with the children and they love to hear about their first days and what they may have did or said. This brings us all great joy and often much laughter too. From those early tentative days to the confident wave goodbye, we watch some of our children moving across the ELC. This always warms my heart and brings me such a sense of pride. I am also excited to keep on our journey with many of our existing children and look forward to meeting and welcoming a large group of new children into the Stonyfell Room.
Thank you too all our amazing families and children, we love that you are part of our community and from all the educators in the Stonyfell Room we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.
Laura Reiters
News from the Bell Yett Room
The Bell Yett Team would like to wish all families and friends a very Happy Christmas and a Joyous New Year. We would also like to thank everyone for their wonderful attendance to our Christmas Celebration Concert. Your children did the most amazing job, standing proudly on the stage, singing and dancing with such joy on their face. It was a lovely opportunity to catch up with many of you and celebrate our time together.
As we begin the last week of school, we have been reflecting on the wonderful year we have had in the Bell Yett Room. As a team, we have shared in the joy of your children developing into competent and confident learners, who strive to acquire knowledge through engaging learning environments.
We have provided many opportunities for growth this term and have been delighted in the enthusiasm and engagement of your children and their learning. The children have been involved in creating an iMovie reflecting our inquiry, recognising, following and recording systems in the ELC, participating in the Christmas Concert, transition visits to the Ferguson Room and evolving leadership skills in the friends who are staying in the Bell Yett Room in 2017.
We would like to remind families that the ePortfolios are an amazing place for you to share your children’s learning journey. Please view ePortfolio’s by clicking here. It allows us to share documentation and learning experiences as they are happening. It provides a window into your child’s life at the ELC as we share intentional teaching, specialist lessons and magic moments. It’s worth a look!
Happy holidays
Nell Tierney and Leanne Williams
News from the Ferguson Room
As we are fast approaching the end of term, I would like to express the joy we are all feeling with your children, their learning, their friendships and the growth that we have seen throughout the year. We are always delighted by their engagement with the inquiry and their enthusiasm for learning.
Over the past few weeks the children have been thinking about systems, which has linked nicely with their transition visits to their new learning environment for 2017. During this time the children have been engaging in conversations about new expectations, developing independence and sharing information between others. The children have been working on a letter that they were eager for me to include in this edition of the newsletter. They feel that this important information will support those children moving to the Hallett Room next year and also those who remain in the Ferguson Room.
Dear all the Mums and Dads,
We need to bring our hats, spare shorts, spare leggings and not teddies (if you need a teddy at rest time you can get one from the box). And you need to bring your bags, drink bottles and lunchboxes. If you don’t have a lunchbox, get a lunch order from the basket at the front of the ELC inside.
We need these things because:
- In case your trousers get wet
- If you get a little bit dirty and wet with mud
- When you go into the mud the socks get wet in the boots, or you have holes in your pants
- If you get hot you could put a T-shirt or shorts on
- If you’re not cold you could take your long sleeves off
- If you don’t have a hat you stay under the veranda or stay in shade, or stay inside so bring a spare hat. It is so sad if you have to stay inside
No toys because it can get lost as another person could take it home if they liked it.
From the Ferguson Room and the (soon) Hallett Room Friends.
Thank you all for another beautiful term, we wish you an amazing Christmas and an exciting 2017.
Pam Foden
News from the Hallett Room
What a perfect way to end our year in the Hallett Room! The ‘Shared Lunch’ was a special occasion (becoming an annual event) to mark the end of our ELC journey for many of the Hallett children. It was informal and fun, with a few of the Hallett children’s favourite songs followed by a buffet style lunch, which was provided by all the families who brought along a plate of food to share with everyone. The buffet looked delicious, filled with a multitude of colours and flavours. It was wonderful to see so many cultures represented in the variety of food that was offered. I would like to thank all the families for their scrumptious contributions. We were lucky that the weather was so perfect too!
The community spirit that is nurtured along from when families begin at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC was certainly evident in the relaxed conversation and in the effort that people put into their platters of food. What those who attended will have really noticed though, was the confidence and sense of belonging that our Hallett children radiate. The children going off to school soon were leading the way followed closely by the children that are staying to be ‘the big leader friends’ in the Hallett Room. This cycle of opportunity for leadership is an important aspect of the Hallett Room children’s development. They are able to see that they are valued and have a very important place in the ELC as role models for our younger ELC children. The leadership position of the Hallett children gives them rights, the right to be heard, the right to express themselves in a multitude of ways, the right to be independent, the right to make decisions and the right to be their own unique selves. However, with rights come responsibilities and being part of a community of learners, means we have a number of responsibilities. The children are responsible to ensure everyone has an opportunity to contribute, to care for our environment and belongings, to care for each other, to show our younger ELC children how we use our belongings and care for our ELC, to listen to each other, to allow others to be unique, to value this uniqueness and to recognise the rights of others as well as our own rights. From the beginning of Term 1 this year we have been building these values in the Hallett children through our Units of Inquiry. We have been on a journey from understanding our citizenship to taking action to care for our planet. These are big ideas for four and five year olds, but as they have shown, concepts that they are quite capable of comprehending!
Sarah Croston-Melling
Stop Press
Today we had the Hat Ceremony for the girls continuing on from our ELC to Reception at St Peter’s Girls’ School. This is a very special event in which our girls are welcomed into the School community at a full school assembly. The children were filled with pride as Mrs Mount read out their name, as they walked across the stage with a 2017 prefect, shook hands with the Head of Junior School, Ms Haddy and received their special school hat and bag. It always brings a tear to my eye as I think about each child’s journey in the time that they have been with us, and I too feel pride, knowing that the children are ready for their next adventure in life….school.
Sarah Croston-Melling
Magic Moment
