Dear Families

As we farewell Term 1, I’d like to take the time to say how appreciative I am for our wonderful ELC community. With one of the smoothest starts to a school year, and children settling into their new environments quickly, we were able to give a greater focus to building rituals that helped the children to come together and become a group. This laid the foundation for rich learning and collaboration to occur across each Learning Community, which was truly incredible to witness on a daily basis.

This also had a flow on effect as our teachers and educators were able to maximise all learning opportunities this term from Ferguson Park, the ELC Community Garden and, in particular, literacy and mathematical inquiries.

We hope you enjoy our Term 1 snapshot video in lieu of updates from the learning communities. After a stellar start to 2021, our team is looking forward to continuing our learning journey together in Term 2.

Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning

Important Dates

April 2 – 5: Easter (ELC closed)
April 6 – 16: Vacation Care
Monday 19 April: Term 2 Commences
Monday 26 April: Public Holiday (ELC closed)

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Vacation Care Bookings Closed

Thank you to our families who utilised our new online booking system for Vacation Care. As bookings are now closed, and Vacation Care is staffed based on these bookings, any cancellations will now incur the full day’s fee.

Cancellations or changes must be communicated via the dedicated Vacation Care email address: ELCVacationCare@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au or by phone: 8334 2265.

During Vacation Care at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC, children are able to take their time to explore their environments and build a deeper connection with their space,  surroundings and co-educators. We also use this time to provide rich collaborative opportunities between our two Learning Communities through shared experiences and explorations, which allows our oldest children to act as leaders to their younger peers.

If you have booked your child into Vacation Care these holidays, you can expect us to continue our wonderful daily rituals which focus on numeracy, literacy and a foundation of deeply embedded Kaurna culture, along with our sustainable practices and a hands-on exploration of our ELC Community Garden and outdoor environment.

We will be sharing our holiday fun in the foyer displays, so be sure to take a look!

Henrietta Balnaves and Danniella Capaldo
Extended Hours Care Team

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ELC Enrolment Requirements

Thank you to those families who have let us know your requirement for days of enrolment moving forward. We are currently preparing our 2021 mid-year intake offers and need to ensure our current families have their allocated days in place.

Please notify me via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au if you require additional days moving forward in 2021.

Sarah Elliott
ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer

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Our End of Term Morning Tea

Thank you to our wonderful families who were able to attend our End of Term Morning Tea earlier today. The children love sharing their learning environment with their treasured friends, and our team enjoys having the chance to chat with you all.

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Thinking Like Mathematicians

For the past 12 months, the ELC teachers have been working closely with Lisa-Jane O’Connor. Lisa-Jane is an independent consultant who works alongside teachers as they build mathematical understandings with children. Her role as mentor has been pivotal in building a strong foundation for our students, who are learning to confidently ‘think like Mathematicians’.

Lisa-Jane is hosting an information session for our ELC families on Wednesday 21 April from 4.45-5.45pm. This will be an excellent opportunity for families to gain a deeper understanding into how we teach Mathematics in the ELC. Having Lisa-Jane’s expertise in our ELC will provide another wonderful bridge to Mathematics at our School.

Please register your interest on the sign-in sheet in the foyer of the ELC. Due to space restrictions, we encourage only one parent from each family to attend.

Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning

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来自黄老师的信息

亲爱的家长朋友们，

即将告别第一学期，我想借此机会感谢ELC这个大家庭。这一学年顺利开场，孩子们快速适应他们的新环境，使我们能够将更多重点放在聚集孩子，建立团队感上。 这为我们的每个学习团队的学习和合作打下了坚实基础，我们每天都能见证到点点滴滴。

这也映射到了我们的老师和教育工作者身上，她们能够最大化地利用各种教学机会，来进行各种教学，无论是在Fergunson公园，在ELC的社区菜地，还是每个读写和数学探究活动里。

在我们的各学习社区的更新之后，我们放上了我们的第一学期的精彩片段录像，希望大家喜欢。在2021年的优秀开端之后，我们的团队期待在第二学期能够继续保持着良好势头。

Emma Huang works in Learning Community 2 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.

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Staff Spotlight

With more than 10 years experience, Ellen has been part of Learning Community 1 for over a year and loves the warmth of our wonderful Centre. There isn’t a day where she walks in without an enormous smile on her face – as we’re sure our families have noticed!

What is your teaching background?

I have worked in early childhood education for over a decade, starting with four years at Precious Cargo before moving to Prince Alfred College’s ELC where I spent nearly six years in the 2 year old classroom. I’ve been happily settled at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC for over a year now. I can still remember walking into the Centre on my first day and feeling a great sense of warmth and welcoming.

What is your favourite part of working in St Peter’s Girls’ ELC?

My favourite part is the strong sense of community. Children are able to explore and investigate within their own community and connect with each of the staff members and their peers. This is something that is so important to me, coming from a very big Greek family!

Why are you passionate about working with children?

I love being able to see young children reach their full potential throughout their time in a classroom or learning environment. Witnessing the children in the ELC grow from the moment they start to when they finish and are off to school for their next chapter is such a heartwarming and rewarding experience.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I enjoy spending time and cooking with my family – as I mentioned, I’m from a big Greek family! I also love keeping fit and going for long walks on the beach. I do also have a very big sweet tooth (if you didn’t already know) so I enjoy going out for delicious treats.

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Save The Date – Family Yum Cha Lunch

Save the date for our upcoming Friends of the ELC event, a family yum cha lunch on Sunday 6 June from 10.30am – 12.15pm. Details will be released early next term and places will be limited, so be sure to book in early.

The Friends of the ELC

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Starting Reception at Saints Girls

Are you considering Reception or Mid-Year Reception for your daughter at Saints Girls? If so, we warmly invite you to our Reception Twilight Tour on Wednesday 28 April at 5pm.

Meet our Reception teachers, view our Junior School facilities and hear about the opportunities on offer for your daughter’s future education at St Peter’s Girls’ School.

Click here to book your place on the tour.

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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.

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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

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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

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Dear Families

I’d firstly like to say thank you to the many families who attended our Twilight Family Picnic on Friday evening, it was such a joy to be able to share that moment together as a community. Secondly, I’d like to thank The Friends of the ELC who did an outstanding job organising the food and beverages for our biggest community event. It is always special to see the children outside of their normal ELC day, interacting with their friends, families and the ELC staff. These events are pivotal in growing our strong community and we look forward to other events in the near future.

You may have heard from your children that we have had many visits from Kaurna elder Tamaru. For the past few weeks, he has been coming into the Centre once a week and is working across each room. One of our initial focus areas are visits to Ferguson Park and we are grateful our lovely weather has enabled these visits to occur. Tamaru teaches us the names of the plants and explains the cultural links and significance of each of our native species. This is very important as we build on our ecological awareness. Additionally, Tamaru has been sitting in on our Ban Ban Balyas and teaching us some more Kaurna language to deepen our rituals and cultural awareness.

At St Peter’s Girls’ ELC, we are continually looking to improve our systems, and one of our newest initiatives is with Vacation Care bookings. We are utilising TryBooking to take Vacation Care bookings online for you to secure the days you require care during the school holidays (6 – 16 April). Term 2 commences on Monday 19 April and your standard ELC bookings resume from that date. Please ensure you make your Vacation Care booking in the time allocated so you do not miss out. If families have any questions, we encourage you to seek assistance from your child’s educators.

Looking forward to the remaining two weeks of term with our wonderful community.

Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning

Important Dates

Thursday 1 April: End of Term Morning Tea, 8.30am
April 2 – 5: Easter (ELC closed)
April 6 – 16: Vacation Care
Monday 19 April: Term 2 Commences
Monday 26 April: Public Holiday (ELC closed)

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Vacation Care Bookings Open

In order to streamline bookings and make the process easier for our families, the ELC Vacation Care booking system is now online through TryBooking. Bookings close on Monday 29 March and can be accessed via https://www.trybooking.com/BOTFK

A booking instruction sheet has gone home with families. If you haven’t received it, you can download a copy here.

Henrietta Balnaves and Danniella Capaldo
Extended Hours Care Team

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The Significance of Healthy Social Skills

An important aspect of children belonging, being and becoming at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC involves them learning how their behaviour and actions affect themselves and others. This is better known to us adults as social skills.

We want children to build a solid foundation in self-reliance and so develop their self-confidence. Also, to learn skills to manage their own behaviour, make decisions and relate positively and effectively towards others.

We do this by developing and engaging in meaningful daily rituals. We foster positive relationships through creating spaces and a balance of experiences where children can explore comfortably their own social skills. We want to pull children together. We want to entice children to create a supportive community of learners.

We organise small groups throughout the day based on the children’s interests and daily rhythms as opposed to rigour and timetabling. By being flexible, we are adjusting to the children’s needs such as offering a continual inside and outside play program. Here, children can learn and practice these social skills in a safe and respected environment.

All these rituals support a strong social school program at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC. We encourage a range of communication strategies in these small group gatherings to equip all children to organise their own feelings. We know through research that being in control of one’s own feelings means we are on the path to great success.

One of the researchers all educators are following at the ELC is Dr Louise Porter who is a child psychologist. She has written a number of books for educators and for parents about how to guide young children’s behaviour. To quote Dr Porter, ‘When children act out, it is not to teach them the facts of how they should be acting but teach them how to manage their emotions.’

In the ELC, we take a collaborative approach to teaching these skills. All educators observe together, record together and we all plan together for the future of your child. This creates a strong teaching network within the learning environment.

Take a look at our video above to see how we are building these positive social skills in our Learning Communities.

Kathy McCabe
Learning Community 2

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ELC Enrolment Requirements

Thank you to those families who have let us know your requirement for days of enrolment moving forward. We are currently preparing our 2021 mid-year intake offers and need to ensure our current families have their allocated days in place.

Please notify me via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au if you require additional days moving forward in 2021.

Sarah Elliott
ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer

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Drop-off and Collection Procedures

Whilst we are enjoying having family members entering the Centre again, we must remind all adults to scan the QR code upon entry.

Please also be reminded that the 1.5 metre rule applies at all times, and we request that families be very aware of other adults already in the rooms they are about to enter.

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Join Us for Morning Tea!

You are invited to a morning tea to celebrate Easter and the end of Term 1 on Thursday 1 April from 8.30am in the ELC Garden.

A light morning tea of hot cross buns, tea and coffee will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you at this fantastic community event.

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来自黄老师的信息

亲爱的家长朋友们，

在上周五晚上，我们一同渡过了一个十分愉快暮光野餐会。感谢众多出席的家庭。也感谢我们ELC的家委会精心准备食物和饮料方面。在ELC平日的学习生活之外，能看到孩子们与他们的朋友和老师们互动总是很特别的。这些活动是形成我们紧密社区的关键，我们期待着在不久的将来，会有更多其他活动。

你们可能听说过，我们请来了土著老师Tamaru。他每周都到会来到ELC，和每个班级的小朋友一起工作学习。在过去的几周里，我们最重要的学习方面是参观 Ferguson公园。伴随着美好的天气，我们有机会走进公园。Tamaru教我们各种植物的名字，并向我们介绍每个本土物种的文化联系和意义。这对于我们建立生态意识非常重要。此外，Tamaru和孩子们老师们围坐一圈 （土著的Banbanbalyas仪式），来教我们土著语言，加深我们的仪式和文化意识。

我们一直在寻求机会来改进我们的管理系统。我们最新举措是假期日托班的网上预订。今年我们将利用Trybooking为您的孩子进行假期日托的预订。您可以按照提供的链接，来确定从复活节之后（从4月6日到4月16日）您需要预定的时间。第二学期将于4月19日星期一开始，恢复到正常的学期预定时间。每个家庭都会收到一份纸质和电子邮件的说明关于如何在网上进行预订。请点击这个链接https://www.trybooking.com/BOTFK。请确保您的预订时间安排，以免错过您的预订位置。如果家长们有任何疑问，可以向我们的老师们咨询。

在这里提前祝大家渡过一个美好的一周。

Emma Huang works in Learning Community 2 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.

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Building Community Within Learning Community 1

A key focus at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC is building a sense of community, and the development of relationships and social skills, particularly with our youngest friends in Learning Community 1. As early childhood educators, we know that when children feel safe and secure in their environment with a strong sense of belonging to a community, they will learn best.

The solid relationship between educators and children builds a firm foundation of trust with each child and family, enabling our educators to set personalised and differentiated goals and work at the pace of each child. Watch our video above to learn more.

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Sustainability in the ELC

Democracy in the Garden

As we think about what next to plant in our ELC Community Garden, the children have decided upon a democratic approach to make this decision. This started with a group of children who were unable to choose which vegetables they wanted to grow next, as each child had their own idea about what they wanted to plant. We realised we had a problem as there are not enough garden beds to accommodate everyone’s preferences.

“There’s not enough room for all of them.” – Mingzu
“We need to vote to make it fair!” – Ebi
“Everyone can!” – Nina
“Voting is how much people put on there and whatever gets the most votes wins.” – Emerson

Over the past two weeks, the children right across the Centre were able to vote for which vegetables they were wanting to grow next in the garden, with the most votes being for broccoli, eggplant, radishes and carrots!

“I voted for eggplant because I like it!” – Amelie
“I voted for broccoli. It’s crunchy and it makes you healthy. If you eat it every day, you will be strong!” – Chen Feng

The children are looking forward to planting and caring for their new seedlings which will arrive later this week.

If you have any tips or tricks on growing these vegetables, we would love you to share them with us!

Henrietta Balnaves

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Staff Spotlight

A fresh face to our ELC team in 2021, Courtenay is currently finishing a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education at Swinburne University. She brings with her almost a decade of early childhood experience and a passion for our tight-knit ELC community.

What is your teaching background?

I have worked in early childhood education for nine years, starting in a small child care centre at Woodville before moving to Prince Alfred College in 2016. I have recently started at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC this year, so if I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet, pop into Learning Community 1 and I’d love to introduce myself.

What is your favourite part of working in the St Peter’s Girls’ ELC? 

There are many things that I love about working at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC, I don’t know how to choose one or two. The ELC strives to build a strong community spirit. Coming from a small country town, I dearly loved our close community and believe it played a major role in who I am today. This is what I love about the ELC, everyone is made to feel as part of one big family. I find it outstanding how much the children and staff are involved in the life of the centre and know about the history and stories of Ferguson Park. It’s beautiful to witness how authentically Kaurna culture is embedded in our everyday practices.

Why are you passionate about working with children? 

I have always been passionate about making a difference in people’s lives, and I believe you can never have a greater impression on a person than when they are in their early childhood years. Working alongside children brings so many heartwarming rewards. It is a chance to see children flourish and overcome challenges, all the while exploring the world around them.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? 

Family and friends mean the world to me and I cherish every moment I get with them. When I can, I get back to my home town in Swan Reach where we have a small farm filled with horses and motorbikes. My husband plays football for Mt Barker Football Club and I’m excited for the season to begin again.

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Save The Date – Family Yum Cha Lunch

Save the date for our upcoming Friends of the ELC event, a family yum cha lunch on Sunday 6 June from 10.30am – 12.15pm. Details will be released early next term and places will be limited, so be sure to book in early.

The Friends of the ELC

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Starting Reception at Saints Girls

Are you considering Reception or Mid-Year Reception for your daughter at Saints Girls? If so, we warmly invite you to our Reception Twilight Tour on Wednesday 28 April at 5pm.

Meet our Reception teachers, view our Junior School facilities and hear about the opportunities on offer for your daughter’s future education at St Peter’s Girls’ School.

Click here to book your place on the tour.

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News from Learning Community 1

Fostering a love of reading is pivotal to the development of early literacy skills for young children. From a young age, children are developing their literacy skills as they learn about sounds, words and language.

One of our Learning Community rituals is our daily literacy group. Children are invited in small groups to share a story and explore ways to interpret and retell the story using different languages. This term, we have been focusing on the story, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. We have examined different aspects of texts, shared the story verbally, represented the story using drawing, explored rhythm and repetition through song and movement, and used drama to act out the story.

Through this shared story time, children are developing their key literacy skills and a love for reading. They are developing their phonetic awareness, expanding their vocabulary, using their imagination and creativity, creating connections between written and spoken language, and exploring the structure of texts. These literacy understandings form the foundation for future reading and writing skill development.

This shared small group ritual also provides rich opportunities for the development of social skills. Children are creating connections with others and building their sense of belonging to a group, engaging their listening, sharing and turn-taking skills, considering the ideas of others, and working towards a common goal.

Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1

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News from Learning Community 2

One of the fundamental skills children need to develop is a sense of belonging to groups and communities, and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active participation.

Within our Learning Community, we have been curating our indoor and outdoor environments to support this by engaging children in experiences to:

• Cooperate with others and negotiate roles and relationships in play episodes and group experiences
• Express an opinion in matters that affect them
• Contribute to fair decision-making
• Understand and explore what is right and wrong and why

This has led us to begin discussions in developing an essential agreement to use in our Learning Community. Essential agreements are not a set of rules and directions; instead, they are made in collaboration by teachers and children to establish an agreement of how the class will function effectively. Agreements are negotiated. Together, we will work out ‘What helps us learn and keeps us safe?’, and ‘How can we work best together as a group?’.

‘Do not run inside, it is not safe.’ – Edith
‘Listen to each other.’ – Olivia W
‘Do not push’. – Alessandro
‘Put your hand up.’ – Marissa

Once this is completed and agreed upon, everyone will be invited to sign it and acknowledge what was agreed upon. The agreement will then be a very important reference for the children as they become a valued member of the Learning Community. It becomes the compass that we work from to ensure that children have the skills and knowledge to participate in meaningful ways.

Nell Tierney, Laura Reiters and Kathy McCabe
Learning Community 2

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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.

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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

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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

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Dear Families

It is hard to believe we are over halfway through the term already! With a very settled community, we can delve into our learning opportunities both indoors and outdoors. In this last week, one of my highlights was visiting the ELC Community Garden with our Playgroup friends, accompanied by some Learning Community 1 friends. During this time I witnessed some incredible learning as our older children took the lead showing Playgroup children and families how they harvest many of the carrots and some cucumbers from the garden.

I paused and reflected on the importance of the outdoors as a vibrant learning space where mixed-age groups can come together for shared educational experiences, both intentional and spontaneously. It is during these moments that we discover who our experts are, what understandings the children have of the processes required to care for the garden and the patience to wait until the vegetables are ready for harvesting.

As a teaching team, we have been reflecting on the year so far, with one of our key goals being to have our learning community model functioning at a high level. We have some immediate evidence of this in both communities. I have been so amazed that our youngest children have been utilising their entire space, confidently going between rooms and working with a range of educators.

Our teachers are grouping children intentionally, providing opportunities for the older children in each learning community to be the leaders in those moments. Through these experiences, we have watched and discovered how much potential they have to contribute to the history of our rituals. The children confidently discuss their role in the welcoming of our newer friends and predict the pathway forward for us as a community.

These examples show we are already achieving our goal of enriching and deepening our Learning Community Model, and we are constantly looking for additional ways to integrate it within our wider ELC community. The strength of our unique model is that our children have gained the confidence to go beyond their rooms more freely. Our new staff have entered the centre knowing the objectives of our model and have embraced this, and watching the growth of both the children and the educators together has been wonderful.

Our intention to maximise all learning opportunities within the ELC can be met if we continue on this positive pathway, with intentional mixed-age groupings and maximising the use of all spaces within our beautiful centre. We look forward to sharing more with you as the year progresses.

Kate Mount
Director of Early Learning

Important Dates

Monday 8 March: Public Holiday – ELC Closed
Friday 12 March: ELC Twilight Family Picnic, 5pm
Thursday 1 April: End of Term Morning Tea, 8.30am
April 2 – 5: Easter (ELC closed)
April 6 – 16: Vacation Care

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Expanding Children’s Creativity with SOL

During this term, the Symphony of Languages (SOL) Team have been collaborating with children across the ELC to express themselves with different artistic techniques including dance, clay making and painting, and technology. Day by day the children have increased their familiarity with these new materials, creating endless new possibilities to express themselves.

Technology plays a crucial role in our modern society, and our SOL Team have been promoting the creative use of computers, projectors, cameras and lights. The children have been exploring creating shapes with digital led cables and then attempting to recreate those shapes with their bodies.

We have enjoyed our collaborative research with the children, and find special joys in watching their expressive languages develop throughout the term. Watch our video above to see some of the children’s wonderful work.

The SOL Team

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ELC Enrolment Requirements

Thank you to those families who have let us know your requirement for days of enrolment moving forward. We are currently preparing our 2021 mid-year intake offers and need to ensure our current families have their allocated days in place.

Please notify me via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au if you require additional days moving forward in 2021.

Sarah Elliott
ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer

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Drop-off and Collection Procedures

Whilst we are enjoying having family members entering the Centre again, we must remind all adults to scan the QR code upon entry.

Please also be reminded that the 1.5 metre rule applies at all times, and we request that families be very aware of other adults already in the rooms they are about to enter.

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Keeping Track of Belongings

We ask each family to ensure all items that come with their child into the ELC are clearly named. Already, we have many duplicate water bottles and lunch boxes.

We thank families in advance for supporting us to keep track of each child’s belongings.

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ELC Twilight Family Picnic

This event is fast approaching and we cannot wait to share a beautiful Autumn evening on our lovely grounds at St Peter’s Girls. The Friends of ELC have been busy planning for this event and will be hosting a sausage sizzle and bar.

For space and catering purposes, families will need to register their attendance and can pre-order food and drinks via: www.trybooking.com/BOWQM

Families are welcome to bring a picnic basket or purchase food at the event. A sausage sizzle and cupcakes will be sold on the night as well as beer, wine and bubbles.

The Twilight Family Picnic is an ELC community event and a wonderful opportunity to meet new families and chat to the ELC educators.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Friends of the ELC, Kate Mount and the ELC Team

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来自黄老师的信息

亲爱的家长朋友，

时光如梭，转眼已经学期过半。在一个十分稳定的社区环境下，在室内外，孩子们也进入了进一步学习。在过去的一周，一大亮点是，每周二的“婴幼儿活动小组”，在学习第一社区的孩子们的陪同下，一起参观了我们的社区花园，一同见证了我们的学习成果，大一点的孩子们带头向“小小朋友们”和他们的家庭展示我们菜园里的蔬菜，并共同收获了许多胡萝卜和黄瓜。“户外活动”对于一个充满活力的学习空间至关重要，在这里，不同年龄的孩子们可以一起分享有意或者自发的学习瞬间。孩子们化身为专家，展示了对蔬菜的生长过程的理解，如何照顾菜园，以及何时可以采摘收获我们的蔬菜。

作为一个教学团队，我们一直在反思如何把学习社区模式发挥在一个更高水平上。我们在这两个社区都有一些直接的印证实践。令我们惊讶的是，我们最小的孩子们利用了整个空间，自信地在房间之间走动，并与我们的教师团队一起工作学习。我们的老师将孩子分组，使我们的孩子们在各自的学习社区里更有效有方向的进行学习。通过这些讨论，我们发现他们对我们“仪式感的形成”和“小组有效学习”有巨大贡献。孩子们和老师们一同探讨，如何欢迎新朋友们，自己所扮演的角色以及未来的学习道路。

这些例子给了我们极大的希望，我们分析原因并相信，通过一些员工的混合，孩子们获得了信心，可以更自由地走出自己的房间。我们的新员工已经了解并欣然接受了这种模式。我们将继续通过这种积极的交叉分组方式，并最大限度地利用我们美丽的ELC内的所有空间，来实现丰富和深化ELC社区学习模式最大化的目标。我们期待着随着学期的进展与您分享更多。

Emma Huang works in Learning Community 2 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.

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Vacation Care Bookings Opening Soon

In order to streamline bookings and make the process easier for our families, the ELC Vacation Care booking system will now be online through TryBooking. Bookings will be open on Monday 15 March, and they will close on Monday 29 March.

A booking instruction sheet will go home with families next week, and instructions will also be included in the next ELC News.

Henrietta Balnaves and Danniella Capaldo
Extended Hours Care Team

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Welcome to our Newest Staff Member

This week we welcomed Valentina Fernandas to Learning Community 1. Valentina joins the Stonyfell team and will be the friendly face that welcomes families for early drop offs. Partnering with Danni Capaldo, Valentina brings a wealth of experience and has a warm, caring nature that already has enabled her to form beautiful relationships with our children and educators. We are delighted to have Val on the team!

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Sustainability in the ELC

As the seasons are beginning to change, so is the course of our ELC Community Garden. We are making the most of what is left of our summer produce with the children from Learning Community 1 harvesting the last of our carrots!

With these funny shaped carrots, the children brainstormed many ideas about what we should do with them:

“We can make carrot cake!”

“Lets make lots and share.”

“Carrot cake is for the friends.”

“I never made the carrot cake before.”

With the help of Miss Redmond and Miss Balnaves, a group of children from Learning Community 1 engaged in a cooking experience to create enough carrot cake to share with the entire ELC community!

By engaging in these large group harvesting and cooking experiences, the children are developing their social skills, turn-taking and fine motor skills, as well as strengthening their understanding of our environment. The ELC Community Garden is a place where children can experience the joy of sharing, creating, connecting to place and contributing to the community – further enhancing their sense of belonging.

Henrietta Balnaves

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Staff Spotlight

Kathy McCabe has joined our ELC for Term 1 this year while Kirsty Porplycia is on long service leave. She brings a wealth of knowledge about early childhood education, and we’re thrilled to have her in our community.

What is your teaching background?

I hold a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education from the University of South Australia and have been teaching for almost 15 years. My teaching background includes working within a number of independent schools and across different areas of schooling including Reception and Year 1 classrooms. I have also taught within Early Learning Centres for a number of years both in a 2 year old room and in a Kindy room.  I have held leadership positions as Lead Play Based Reception teacher.

What is your favourite part of working in the St Peter’s Girls’ ELC?

My favourite part of working at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC is the joy I see in all the children as they play freely throughout the day. Right from the moment they walk in the door the children are welcomed so warmly that the ELC must feel just like home. This really helps the children settle easily into their daily rituals. It is great to be part of such a welcoming community.

What does a typical day look like in your Learning Community?

During any typical day in Learning Community 2 we focus on building rich relationships with children and their families. We will provide children with a wonderful connection to the Kaurna culture and Australian Native plants and wildlife where we will often visit Ferguson Park. We emphasise strengthening social skills and leadership qualities during small group gatherings. Children will be provided with a range of stunning spaces and unique learning experiences that flow on throughout the day.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I enjoy spending time with my family and my two young sons who all keep me very busy. I am passionate about outdoor exploration, playing sport and going on the occasional mini holiday.

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News from Learning Community 1

Parents, grandparents, educators and other significant adults in a young child’s life inherently role model social skills in a range of different contexts, every day. We do this with the desire that it will help them to establish positive relationships and interactions with those around them.

For many young children, the ELC environment – and Learning Community 1 in particular – is one of the first encounters they will have with a dynamic social environment. It is an environment full of completely new interactions, expectations and challenges. With a holistic approach that considers the wellbeing of the “whole child”, our educators support our youngest children to develop the social skills necessary to coexist harmoniously in this setting. This helps to lay the foundation for positive relationships throughout their educational journey.

Our educators are mindful of what social skills are developmentally appropriate for each of the children in Learning Community 1. For our youngest learners, we support them in developing an awareness for those around them in a new social setting and help build their capacity to join and participate in a group setting. We intentionally utilise small group experiences to focus on greeting and acknowledging one another and joining in an experience together. As children grow a little older, we build on these group-based skills and focus on developing sharing and turn-taking, listening and responding.

For our oldest children who have been in Learning Community 1 for over a year, strong emphasis is placed on supporting the ability to cooperate and negotiate and to problem solve in their interactions with their peers. Educators promote opportunities for older children to lead group times and transitions, enabling them to take action and assist their younger peers to participate in a social group effectively.

Opportunities to develop social skills are present in every part of the day at ELC; in rituals, play, group times and storytimes. The importance placed on social skills for our youngest children is helping to support positive relationships and a joyful experience at ELC.

Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1

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News from Learning Community 2

Social skills are important because they are the foundation for having positive relationships with others, and will enable our children to connect with other people on various levels in their future. Once we know what are the appropriate social skills in various social settings, we can grow in our relationships and connect positively and comfortably with others.

In Learning Community 2 we emphasise upskilling our children in the areas of cooperation, good communication, problem-solving and empathy. We do this daily through small group games, role plays, group discussions and mini-stories. Children in Learning Community 2 are guided in their learning of emotional intelligence in a supportive and nurturing environment.

Our focus is firstly on building a community that is aware of each other and know each other by name. From here we can begin to learn new ways of meeting friends and gaining new skills to keep friendships. A large focus of this term has been questioning ‘what is a friend?’ and ‘how do we make friends?’ The children have used this provocation to discover that we need to be kind, caring and happy to one another to make a friend.  The challenge then is to discover what is a friendship, and how do we maintain the relationship? Through this lens of friendship, we began to curate new spaces for children to meet and play.

We set up spaces like a home corner, drawing tables, reading nooks and classic board games like Connect Four to encourage small group gatherings. We have curated spaces outside for children such as the Mud Kitchen, or opportunities to create their own ball games as a community and meet new friends with different interests.

Learning social skills in early childhood are the building blocks for a positive, well-rounded future. We look forward to nurturing these skills in our children throughout the year and are excited to see the deep and meaningful connections they make with each other.

Nell Tierney, Laura Reiters and Kathy McCabe
Learning Community 2

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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.

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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

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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

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