Jan/Feb Newsletter 2023

Welcome to 2023

Hello everyone and welcome to our first newsletter of 2023. We have hit the ground running this year with lots of new children and families joining us.

Our children are in the settling stage of the year and are learning about their new environments, peers, and educators. Your input in helping us help them is particularly important so please come to us with any ideas or strategies you think may assist.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS.

Our calendar of events was sent out last week through you XAP emails. Please check your spam folder if it has not arrived in your inbox. We have a couple of upcoming events in February.

24th February: Loud Shirt Day. This was in support of hearing-impaired children. Rather than gather money from parents in centre we encourage you to support Hear and Say Queensland and donate if you can for the wonderful work that they do. How To Help - Hear and Say. to everyone who dressed their little one in bold colours and patterns or the day- thankyou for your support.

March 2nd: Dr Seuss Day- feel free to bring along your favourite Dr Suess tory to share.

March 8th: Holi celebrations

March 15th Crazy hair Day(worlds greatest shave)

15th-21st March-Harmony week

17th: St Patricks Day-wear your green!

21st: Harmony Day Banquet

27th March: Purple day for Epilepsy Awareness

Curriculum and Documentation

Our main focus at the centre is to educate and care for our children. We value the connections our educators make with the children in order for them to become comfortable in the environment, learn and experiment with new skills.  Photographs are just a small part of our curriculum. They are used to gather evidence for some observations and learning milestones. 

We cannot guarantee that we will send photographs of your children to you every day that they attend. This is not always possible. The rooms are very busy, and we have many children to tend to. Our staff do endeavour to send through learning stories and observations on a regular basis. These learning stories outline the learning that has occurred throughout the week and are generally done in the quieter times of the day and also. You may not receive these stories and observations on the exact day of your child's attendance as our staff are required to be on the floor and hands on with the children rather than have their heads in technology. We do not just want to send through to families "clickable moments" of their child but rather capture your children in the in the true context of their learning and development. This may not always be through photographs but also through anecdotal records, narratives and various other forms of observation.

Your child's wellbeing charts are completed on a daily basis. So you can always see how they have eaten, slept, had nappy changes etc. Also for daily activities please view our program displays which are located in every room. The program outlines the activities and experiences that have happened throughout the day. 

Please see below link for some additional information

Digital documentation for families – quality or quantity? | ACECQA

Drop Offs and Pick Ups 

As we have had many children transitioning to new rooms over the past weeks we would like to ensure that children are being dropped off in the correct room or yard for their age group. It is a really important part of the children settling into their new environment. We have noted that some of our older children have been dropped in the Nursery and Toddler area. Unfortunately, at this point we are unable to have this happen due to the number of children in the younger end and ratio counts. We also still have many of the babies and toddlers settling into their new environment and we need to ensure that educators are available to them to assist in the settling process. 

On the other side of the scale we also are having younger children dropped off in the big yard. Please ensure that your nursery and Toddler children are being taken down to the small yard and younger rooms for drop off in the morning. 

The exception to this of course is when their are very few children in the centre and age groups are combined. 

It is healthy for the children to start forming connections with other educators in all rooms as this allows them to feel comfortable with the different staff on shift when they arrive or are here in the late afternoon, or even when their regular educator is away. 

Staffing

We have recently welcomed two new staff members to our team. 

Miss Lisa comes to us as a multi aged Lead educator with years of experience in the industry. Lisa is currently in charge of creating our outdoor program.

Miss Tamika has recently joined our team and holds her Certificate 3 and will be working primarily in the Junior Kindy room.

We would like to wish the best of luck and all the love in the world to Miss Naomi who officially begun her maternity leave last Friday. We hope she is relaxing and preparing for the upcoming arrival of her little girl. We cannot wait to meet her. 

Friendly Reminders

Room doors: We please request that all parents latch the room doors behind them when moving in and out of rooms. This deters the children from running into and out of rooms where educators are not present. 

Sign in and Outs: Please use the front kiosks to sign your children in and out very day they attend. If you have any issues with the kiosks please let our staff know. 

Breakfast: Please do not bring breakfast in for your child after 7.30am as we cannot serve it after this time. We have requested this multiple times before and we are still seeing children coming in after this time with breakfast. We have many children on premises after this time and we simply do not have the time and capacity to be serving breakfast after 7.30am. Any breakfast bought in after 7.30am will unfortunately not be served.