In this edition
Dear Families
Welcome to 2022, we look forward to a wonderful year together.
A special welcome to our new families who have chosen to embark on their journey at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC this year. We hope you are feeling connected to our community. We look forward to supporting you and your children as we continue to provide the best early childhood experience, rich learning opportunities and strong relationships.
We are extremely proud of the children; they have shown such bravery settling into their new environments, reconnecting with the ELC, and beginning the year embracing new rituals and procedures.
It is an honour for me this year to be the ELC Educational Leader and to work alongside such a qualified team. We hope we can soon invite our ELC families back into the Centre to connect further with our team and enjoy our curated learning spaces.
Our Term 1 Central Idea is:
A welcoming community can strengthen connections.
The teachers have been busy curating the ELC spaces creating learning contexts able to inspire a sense of community and connections. We are continuing to research and support our communication with families during this time of social distance, hoping to sustain and strengthen our relationships.
We are looking forward to celebrating together children’s learning experiences during the year ahead.
Kind regards
Caterina Pennestri
ELC Educational Leader
Important Dates
Friday 11 February: ELC Coffee Van, 8am
Wednesday 16 February: ELC Virtual Information Evening
Monday 14 March: Public Holiday (ELC closed)
Friday 18 March: ELC Twilight Family Picnic (TBC)
April 4, 5, 11: Parent-Teacher Conversations
Welcome From Our Head of Junior School
Dear Families
It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the 2022 school year. I offer an especially warm welcome to all of our new families to the ELC and I hope that you very quickly feel a strong sense of connection with the Saints Girls’ community.
As a centre of educational excellence and research, the ELC values thoughtful collaboration between teachers, co-educators, educational leaders, external mentors and families. As such, our team spent considerable time prior to term planning together and working with our consultants in preparation for the year ahead. While the practicalities of overseeing the physical environment, procedures and practices to optimise the health and safety of our children and staff have been paramount, so too has been the focus on continual improvement of the learning programs and our ongoing research. We look forward to sharing aspects of this with you throughout the year.
It has been delightful observing connections being formed across the ELC during the first week of term. Our youngest members of the Saints Girls’ community have been building relationships with their educators, peers and their environment as they have transitioned from home to ELC, from one Learning Community to the next, or simply back to their ELC teachers after a lengthy summer break. These are significant milestones in a child’s life and the children are being beautifully and sensitively supported by our teachers and co-educators to make these transitions smoothly and positively.
Relationships and connections are central to the work of educators. I look forward to working with the ELC Team this year, further strengthening connections across the School, and supporting the programs and practices that so greatly impact the foundational years of our children’s lives.
I look forward to seeing some of you on Friday morning where we will be pleased to offer you a coffee or tea to start your day, in place of our Welcome Morning Tea.
Suzanne Haddy
Head of Junior School
Enjoy a Coffee on Us!
In lieu of our Welcome Morning Tea, we would like to show our gratitude to families during these unique times. Our coffee van will be at the Hallett Road entrance from 8am tomorrow morning, ready to take your order as your drop off your children. Please wear a mask and practise social distancing.
We look forward to being able to welcome families into the Centre in the near future.
Henrietta Balnaves
ELC Manager
Vacation Care Reflections
This past holiday period proved to be an adjustment for us all, and whilst our situations were constantly changing, ELC Vacation Care continued to be place of collaboration, compassion, kindness, connection and joy. Our wonderful co-educators recently reflected on how grateful we are to have experienced this special opportunity to be together with the children, especially in such a time of social isolation.
Coming into 2022, we pondered to ourselves…
‘What does this pandemic mean to children?’
We wondered what it is that children might be seeking after a holiday period where many families stayed home, some with periods of isolation. Perhaps without an extra playground visit or the chance to engage with other children in social settings, we anticipated they may be seeking out connection. As educators, it is our responsibility to acknowledge our reality and take action towards providing quality learning experiences that extend children’s needs and interests.
It was evident the children were not only seeking it, but craving this connection too. As children tested the boundaries of social skills and group dynamics once more, we observed such exciting imaginative play that occurred between large groups of children, along with constant invitations for collaboration between other children being offered in everyday exploration and play.
‘Here, you can have a turn, and then give it on and share it with everybody’ – Austen, when smelling herbs from our garden
‘I know…if we all help to build the city, we can make it really big and then it will be all of ours!’ – Elena, when building a city from block construction
We responded to our observations by curating our spaces to ensure we were not without collaboration and joy, for what is joy if not shared with others? Whether it was gardening and cooking experiences in small groups, light room transformations with construction materials, imaginative play in our Hallett Garden, or enjoying picnics on the shady grass up in the School, both the children and the educators had such a wonderful time this Vacation Care period, finding the joy in being together.
Henrietta Balnaves and Danniella Capaldo
Extended Hours Care Team
Let’s Be ‘Allergy Aware’ Together
Families will start seeing these posters around the Centre. We have members of our community across the centre with severe food allergies to the following:
- Nuts
- Dairy
- Sesame
- Fish and Shellfish
- Egg
- Banana
Due to the severity of these allergies, we are asking that you be mindful of this when packing food for your child. Please ensure food is safely packaged and or contained.
We kindly ask you to refrain from packing nuts or nut products in your child’s lunch box.
If you have any questions, please see your child’s Room Teacher. We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our community safe.
Henrietta Balnaves
ELC Manager
Online Information Evening
In an exciting and innovative turn of events, we are taking our ELC Information Evening online this semester!
An email will be sent to families in each Learning Community which includes a presentation from the ELC educators detailing the significant elements of the teaching and learning strategies for the semester ahead.
As always, we welcome involvement from our families. If you have specific questions after watching the presentations, you can contact your child’s teacher.
Henrietta Balnaves
ELC Manager
Digital Permission Forms
This year, as we continue our Centre’s sustainability journey, we will be moving our procedures and forms online. This includes our annual permission forms which need to be signed by families.
In the coming week, you will receive an email directing you to the myLink parent portal, where you will find two ELC permission forms. We require permission to bring your child into our neighbouring Ferguson Park on our daily excursions, and also into any specialist lessons and gross motor experiences that occur on the School grounds.
We ask that if you are wanting your child to engage in these experiences, that you fill out the online permission form at your earliest convenience.
Henrietta Balnaves
ELC Manager
Sustainability in the ELC
‘We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it’s our garden that is really nurturing us.’ – Jenny Uglow
As we finished up at the ELC in 2021, we left behind two garden beds full of young tomato bushes and cucumber vines, crossing our fingers in the hopes they would survive the two week break.
It was to the children’s great delight what we discovered coming back this year…
‘I see red everywhere!’ – Caleb
‘Look at all these tomatoes! We could make soup for everybody!’ – Leonardo
We were gifted with such an abundance of tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs that fuelled many sensory experiences and culinary explorations throughout the Vacation Care period.
The children in Learning Community 1 thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the entire garden-to-plate process, exploring the different fresh produce from our ELC Community Garden with Miss Capaldo and Mrs Fernandes, smelling and feeling the garlic and the herbs, and comparing the size of the tomatoes together.
The children shared how they eat tomatoes at home, making wonderful connections with one another and celebrating similarities and differences.
Henrietta Balnaves
ELC Manager
来自黄老师的信息
亲爱的家长们，
大家新年好！恭祝大家新春快乐！我们期待和大家共同度过美好的2022年！
特别欢迎今年圣彼得女校早教中心新生的家长们。希望我们早教中心能与各位家长们保持紧密的联系。我们将真诚地为家长和孩子们提供优质的服务，并为孩子们提供丰富的学习机会以及最优的早教体验。我们也将一如既往地努力构建稳固和谐的师生关系和家校关系。
在新学年的开端，孩子们表现得非常勇敢，很快适应了新的环境，并开始努力养成新的生活习惯，遵守新的秩序和规则。我们真的为她们感到骄傲！
我很荣幸能在新的学年中担任早教中心的教务主任，跟各位优秀的老师们一起致力于教学和服务。我们希望能尽早邀请家长来到早教中心，前来参观我们精心布置的学习环境。我们也希望能借此机会让老师和家长们进行面对面的沟通，进一步加强家校联系。
我们早教中心第1小学期的核心理念是：
一个温暖的集体可以凝聚人心。
为了营造温馨的大家庭氛围，我们的老师们对早教中心的学习环境进行了精心的布置。在当前要求保持社交距离的特殊时期，我们也在不断研究如何保持家长、孩子和老师之间的亲密关系，增强凝聚力。
期待在新的一年里，我们可以和各位家长一起见证孩子们的学习和成长。
早教中心教务主任
Emma Huang works in Learning Community 2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
News from Learning Community 1
A very warm welcome to Term 1 in Learning Community 1! Welcome to our new families embarking on a new journey with us at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC, and welcome back to our families continuing with us in both the Bell Yett and Stonyfell Rooms. We begin the year in Learning Community 1 with an open mind and excitement for what the year ahead has in store for our community of learners.
The summer break gives us time and space to consider the year ahead and the range of emotions this brings. Cinzia Innerti, an early childhood teacher from Reggio Emilia in Italy, tells us that arriving in a new place is complex – you need to refine your heart and mind. As we begin this new year, we acknowledge the emotions of our new families as they experience many ‘firsts’. The first goodbye, the first full day apart, the first few weeks in a brand new space with many new faces.
A strong sense of community underpins every aspect of our ELC lives, and a sense of belonging felt by all in our community is at the forefront of our practice as educators as we welcome young children and their families into our community. We treasure that school is a place where people live a portion of their lives together, and we hope for our youngest learners that it begins to feel like an extension of the home.
This term, our learning and interactions are being guided by the Central Idea that ‘A welcoming community can strengthen connections.’ We will be looking at how children form connections through:
- Interactions with each other in daily rituals
- Exploration of indoor and outdoor spaces across the ELC
- Interaction with resources in the environment
Over the coming weeks, we will share our learning with you through conversation, documentation in the rooms, our online Home Page and in your child’s individual portfolio.
Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
The learning environment is the mix of spaces and learning contexts in which a child grows and learns. An early childhood environment is often referred to as the ‘third teacher’, together with the child and adults, due to its influence on children’s learning and development.
The layout of the environment promotes relationships, communication, collaboration and exploration through play. Materials are thoughtfully chosen to promote creativity, problem-solving, questions, experimentation and open-ended play.
As a teaching team, we spend many hours reflecting on and planning effective learning environments, and we ensure our spaces are ready each day to welcome our community of learners.
We ask ourselves:
- Does the learning context support connections, collaborative learning and social skills development?
- Does the physical environment support the inclusion of all children in learning opportunities, and encourage safe risk-taking?
- Does our environment encourage curiosity, problem-solving, and opportunities for children to form questions and share theories?
Our intention is to provide contexts that are welcoming, provoke thinking and inspire learning opportunities. Over the coming weeks, we invite you to engage in conversation with your children about the places they have explored and discovered in Learning Community 2. We have provided photo documentation in the Foyer and on our Canvas Page/Home Page as a starting point for dialogue. Please contact your key teacher if you have any questions on accessing our Canvas Page/Home Page.
We are looking forward to sharing with you our ELC spaces and the stories they hold.
Nell Tierney, Kathy McCabe and Laura Reiters
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:
Each parent has an individual username to access our myLink parent portal.
Your username is {ID+}@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Please note that the username is your ID number followed by @stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Your ID number has been provided to you in an email from the School
If you have not accessed myLink before or have forgotten your password, please follow these steps:
- Visit https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
- Sign in with your parent username
- Click on ‘Forgot my password’
- Make sure the ‘email’ address is your parent username, type in the code, then click the blue ‘Next’ button
- Enter your mobile number registered with the School, with the area code (Australia is +61), dropping the 0 at the beginning (e.g. +61 400000000). Then select ‘Text’
- Enter the security code sent to your mobile number
- Enter the password you would like to use and click ‘Finish’
- Return to the login screen at https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au to access myLink
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 our IT Hub 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