In this edition
Dear Families
Our Mothers and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon tea was a wonderful way to celebrate important people in the children’s lives. There was an atmosphere of anticipation and excitement as the children and staff prepared to share this special experience. Creating a sense of welcome and building community is foundational for us at St Peter’s Girls ELC and it was wonderful to see this in action.
The Hallett Garden provides children with the opportunity to plant, nurture and harvest their own vegetables and plants. Drawing on their experiences in the Hallett Garden, children potted their own herbs for their special visitors at our afternoon tea. Our young learners also shared their portfolios with their family. Each child has their own portfolio that documents their individual learning journey through photos, works of art and text. It was wonderful to see the children talking about and sharing their learning with their loved ones.
We’d like to say a big thank you to Michelle Kouloukas and Karol Stolarski for their generous donation of flowers that we were able to share with our mothers and special friends. It was a lovely afternoon, filled with smiling faces and many special moments together.
Liz Schembri
Director of ELC
Important Dates
Monday 29 May: ELC Reconciliation Week Celebration
Monday 12 June: Public Holiday (ELC Closed)
Wednesday 14 June: New Family Welcome Evening
Monday 26 June: ELC Hat Ceremony
3–24 July: Vacation Care
Our Visit to Reggio Emilia
The Reggio Emilia Study tour was an incredible opportunity. We are now looking forward to sharing this experience within our ELC community. Next week we have a whole staff meeting to explore what we have learned and how we can use this to build on and improve our programs and provide the very best learning environment for our children and families. This will continue to be a great source of inspiration as we plan for the future and continue our journey as leaders in the early learning space.
Our New ELC Manager
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Wolita Harding into the position of ELC Manager. Wolita has a background in both management and administration, moving to Australia from South Africa in 2011. When she arrived in Australia Wolita completed her qualification in Early Childhood Education. Prior to commencing with St Peter’s Girls’ ELC she worked at Annesley College. Wolita has a strong understanding of our Centre and has developed close relationships with both children and families since she started working with us in 2019.
Wolita is passionate about working alongside children and loves the joy and excitement that they experience when they make new discoveries or achieve something new. She loves supporting children to express their thoughts, ideas and theories about the world around them and recognises the importance of creative expression. She is passionate about the ‘Rights of the Child’ and ensuring that all children are equally supported to reach their full potential. Wolita will be based in the Front Foyer so you will be able to see her when you arrive at the Centre and she will be able to assist with any questions that you have regarding to our day-to-day operations. We are thrilled that Wolita will be taking on this new role and look forward to working with her in this capacity.
Please Help Keep our Centre Infection Free
To minimise the spread of illness please keep your child at home if they have:
- received Panadol or Nurofen in the morning
- a fever of 38 or above. Children can return to the Centre 24 hours after their last elevated temperature
- swollen glands
- a continuous runny nose
- a sore throat
- a consistent cough without a doctor’s clearance
- been unusually tired or lethargic
- been vomiting or have diarrhoea. Children should be kept home until the these symptoms have been absent for at least 24 hours.
- an undiagnosed rash
We look forward to your child returning once their symptoms are cleared so they can be happy and engaged in learning.
Remember to cover coughs and sneezes with your elbow and wash hands regularly for at least 20 seconds.
来自ELC园长：
亲爱家长朋友们，
我们同母亲以及珍贵的家人朋友的“下午茶”是一个很好的庆祝方式，对那些在孩子成长生活中重要的人表达由衷的感谢。当孩子们和教师们准备分享这一特殊的经历时，气氛中充满了期待和兴奋。创造一种欢迎感和建立社区意识是我们圣彼得女校ELC的重要基础。看到这一切付诸实践是十分美好的。
Hallett社区花园为孩子们提供了种植、培育和收获蔬菜植物的机会。孩子们分享社区花园的经验。在我们的下午茶时刻，他们自己为特别访客种植了草本植物。我们的学生们也与家人朋友们分享了他们的学习文档。每个孩子都有自己的文档，通过照片、艺术作品和文字记录他们的个人学习之旅。看到孩子们谈论和分享他们的学习真是太棒了。
我们十分感谢Michelle Kouloukas和Karol Stolarski慷慨捐赠的鲜花，让我们能够与我们的母亲和特别的家人朋友分享。那是一个美好的下午，充满了欢声笑语，还有许多一起渡过的特别时刻。
Liz Schembri
园长
Emma Huang works in Learning Community 1 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9am – 5pm.
News from Learning Community 1
Sustainability is one of our core values at the ELC and one of the key principles of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).
“Sustainable practices are created with children and children are supported to take an active role in caring for the environment and to think about ways they can contribute to a sustainable future” – EYLF
Each day we strive to embed sustainable practices into our rituals, supporting the children to develop their ecological awareness. This term’s unit of inquiry, People can collaborate and learn together in our community, has provided us with an opportunity to explore the concept of function; the idea that everything has a purpose, a role, or a way of behaving that can be investigated. As we gathered evidence of children’s exisiting understandings, we observed how the children used the rubbish bin systems in the classrooms lead by the question ‘what do children already know about our bin systems and waste management?’ Children shared their wealth of knowledge as well as their questions and wonderings. These questions have formed the basis of this line of inquiry:
– why do we have different coloured bins?
– what waste goes in each bin?
– where does the waste go once it leaves the ELC?
– how can we reduce, reuse and recycle our waste?
Educators have been working alongside children, using research tools and strategies to answer these questions and develop our knowledge. Waste management posters have been used as a reference to what goes in each of the bins, we have explored a range of fiction texts to further extend our understandings and we have investigated different ways to reduce and reuse waste both at the ELC, and at home, through interactive games and songs.
This week we also welcomed industry expert Charlie Sykes from Australian Green Clean. She spoke to the children about bin systems, how they can reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and how effective waste management helps us to look after the environment.
Connections with home are key to the development of children’s understandings. We are sure the children would love to share their developing knowledge with you and explore the ways in which you can reduce, reuse and recycle at home.
Nell Tierney, Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1
News from Learning Community 2
Our inquiry this term has taken an exciting turn, capturing the interest of children and staff in Learning Community 2. Guided by our central idea of ‘people can collaborate and learn together in a community,’ we have been investigating the function and systems behind our mealtimes.
New rituals have been created across the learning community to promote healthier relationships with a variety of foods and for children to develop a deeper understanding of where their food originates from. These new rituals reflect the ways children are served their food at home. Instead of passing food in plastic containers around circles during afternoon and morning tea, our food is now served on ceramic platters, which the children share amongst themselves while seated at tables or in a picnic style setting. This revised system surrounding mealtimes is more intimate and fosters meaningful conversations surrounding food amongst children and educators.
Each day a new fruit or vegetable is introduced, giving children opportunities to taste something they haven’t tried before. These new fruits and vegetables not only provide children with daily excitement and anticipation, but are also used in still life drawing and scientific provocations.
Chloe Skoss and Laura Reiters
Learning Community 2
News from Our Pathway Room
As a part of our inquiry this term, we are looking at mealtimes and how we can involve the children to give them a voice in decision making. As a class we have been reflecting on our mealtimes. We have thought about where we sit, how we sit at the table, what’s on the table and who we sit with. One friend shared how they eat their dinner at home with their family members. This conversation sparked rich discussion and we began to draw detailed representations of our mealtimes at home. We shared our mealtime rituals and many elements from our home lives started to spark discussion. Many friends shared that they use a placemat at home at dinner time.
We have enhanced our mealtimes already in the Pathway Room by creating our own individual placemats to identify our personal eating space. The educators have been placing the placemats out on the tables and the children have been invited to sit where their placemat is positioned. This is promoting the children to sit with a wider range of peers and socialise with children they might not choose to on a regular basis. This experience supports our continued inquiry from last term, strengthening our group function and connections with each other.
Kirsty Porplycia and Kathy McCabe
Pathway Room
Important Allergy Information
Please remember allergy awareness when packing food for your child.
We kindly ask you to refrain from packing nuts or nut products in your child’s lunch box.
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.
If you have any questions, please see your child’s Room Teacher. We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our community safe.
COVID-19 Information
Please find the latest guidance from SA Health:
- It is strongly recommended that students stay home if they have cold or flu-like symptoms, and test for COVID-19.
- Whether they receive a positive or negative result, they should stay home until symptoms subside (usually five to seven days).
- It is strongly recommended that parents/guardians inform the School if a student is a close contact. For further advice regarding close contacts, click here
If your child tests positive to COVID-19, please notify the School. Please also notify the School each day of absence, or provide the expected period of absence.
You can notify us via one of the following methods. Please include the name of the ELC Room. If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well.
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Phone: 8334 2200
If children are displaying symptoms, it is mandatory that we send them home.
SA Health guidelines advise that symptoms include:
- Fever (a temperature of 37.5˚C or higher) or chills
- Cough
- Loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Tiredness (fatigue)
- Runny or blocked nose
- Shortness of breath (difficulty breathing)
- Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea
- Headache
- Muscle or joint pain
- Loss of appetite
For more SA Health information, click here
Please note that if your child is unwell, they should remain home until they have recovered, irrespective of the illness.
Find Out What Happens Throughout the Day at ELC
myLink is our School’s parent portal, where families have access to a range of resources including the ELC Home Page. Our ELC Home Page is a dynamic online sharing space that invites you to participate in our learning. We use this tool to house important information for families and provide a window into your child’s life at the ELC, with educators sharing documentation of teaching, specialist lessons and spontaneous moments.
This page can also be accessed through your smartphone, via the Canvas App.
Accessing myLink for the first time:
Each parent has an individual username to access our myLink Parent Portal. 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)
Accessing the Canvas Parent App for the first time:
- Ensure you have previously logged in to myLink on a PC
- Download the Canvas Parent App from your App Store
- Click the ‘Find School’ button
- Look up: stpetersgirls
- Log in using your parent username and password
- Tap on ‘ELC 2023’
- Click on ‘Front Page’ on the top right-hand side
- Here, you can navigate the page through the app
Please note: we do not use the message feature on this app, and ask families to contact their child’s teacher via email rather than this message feature.
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
If your child will not be attending ELC due to illness or otherwise, please notify the School via one of the following methods and include the name of the ELC Room.
If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well. Please also provide a reason for the absence as the School requires this for government reporting purposes.
Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Phone: 8334 2200
ELC Room Contacts
-
- Stonyfell – 8155 5778
- Bell Yett – 8155 5780
- Ferguson – 8155 5776
- Hallett – 8155 5775
- Pathway – 8334 2250
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
As part of our approach to prioritising health and safety, we implement effective hygiene practices and work to prevent and effectively deal with any infectious disease in line with the Education and Care Services National Regulations and the advice of health experts. If your child has one of the following, chickenpox, measles, rubella, meningococcal or tuberculosis or any other vaccine preventable diseases we ask that you inform the Centre as soon as possible.