Starting Kindergarten is an exciting milestone for your child. It is the first step in their educational journey, and we consider it the greatest privilege to nurture your curious little learner.
We have an Early Learning Centre (ELC) at both of our campuses, which offers a registered Queensland Kindergarten Program to children from 3.5 to 5 years old based on the Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guidelines. Children enrolled in the TAS Kindergarten Program benefit from the extensive resources of the integrated primary school, which allows them to explore vast learning opportunities.
Our curriculum is underpinned by five key areas of essential learning:
- IDENTITY: Children build a strong sense of identity through connections.
- CONNECTEDNESS: Children feel connected to the world around them and actively seek to contribute to their world.
- WELLBEING: Children have a positive sense of wellbeing, including physical and mental health, personal safety and successful social functioning.
- ACTIVE LEARNING: Encouraging children to be confident, engaged and involved.
- COMMUNICATING: Building fundamental skills for communication.
Our team of dedicated, qualified educators view school readiness as a holistic objective, and the early years are seen as a valuable opportunity to instil a lifelong love of learning.
Our Kindergarten program is predominantly led by teachers who are responsible for integrating the Australian Government–approved curriculum into learning contexts. Supporting the teachers are full-time educators whose role is to work collaboratively with the Kindergarten teacher and the children.
Our team sees their role as being an extension of your family, working in partnership with you to ensure your child is not only a confident learner but also ready for their transition to Prep.
The Kindy is very well organised and established and knows how to get the best with different rotations of resources and new activities all the time to keep the kids so interested and engaged. It’s amazing to see the kids’ growth over the year.
Children participate in an exciting range of Co-Curricular Programs during their day, including:
- LIBRARY: Weekly visits to the school library where they learn how the library operates, listen to stories and have the chance to borrow a book for the week.
- BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS: Our educators ensure each child gets the opportunity to share the excitement of their birthday with their friends and teachers.
- SPORTS: Children turning five within the year are encouraged to explore their athletic capabilities by joining entry-level TAS Sports clubs such as Aquatics, Football, Netball and Hockey.
- INCURSIONS AND EXCURSIONS: Incursions and excursions are an extra learning tool to enhance the curriculum by allowing children to better grasp and retain concepts – learning by doing. They also promote engagement levels, build confidence, encourage teamwork and create connections.
Our Centre honours an open-door policy that invites parents to discuss their child’s learning progression, challenges or worries whenever necessary. Here are three ways we communicate with families:
- Families participate in parent-teacher interviews regularly.
- Kindergarten teachers and educators log a story each day on a mobile app called ‘Story Park’. This is where parents can monitor the progression of their child’s learning and understand what their child does each day.
- Our Centre provides a portfolio for each child that contains their unique work, progression of learning, goals, observations and evaluations from Kindergarten educators. Parents are encouraged to reflect on their child’s portfolio, make comments and contribute recommendations.
