REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL
LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER 24th February 2023
Principal’s Message
By Christine Irwin
Dear Parents, The team has been busy working with the children throughout the week researching, questioning and experimenting thoughts and ideas. You will have also received through tapestry wonderful learning stories about the program and the learning that is occurring daily. Our intent is to make the learning visible to our families and children so that interest can be discussed at home or followed up with experiences and activities on the weekend. We use these learning stories to also support our program. The team is also sending through individual observations of the children. This could include a learning story of the child by themselves or in a group, an anecdotal record, jotting stye observations or photo observations. The team document what they observe in preparedness for the mid-year report, parent teacher meetings that occur in June /July and for the child’s end of year portfolio which includes a developmental summary. Observing children is paramount in informing our program. The educators are careful to do that real looking and listening to understand children’s developmental level, their interests and emerging skills. Part of the observation process includes an analysis of learning. Within the analysis of learning the educators review the observation and document what learning they believe is occurring and how this links to development, theory and the Early Years Leaning Framework. Linking to theory is an imperative part of this process as it supports the next step of what to provide the child in their quest to master skills. It provides a formal aspect to the observation and links to theorists who have done extensive research and study into child development. As Kearns (2014) states “ Formal theories of development inform and guide our thinking about how children grow learn and develop. Each theory may contain elements that may be similar, but not exactly the same as, another theory. Conversely, theories may show fundamental differences in their beliefs about human development. Most educators take parts from many different theories to assist them in understanding children’s development in order to design appropriate programs for children. Exploring different theoretical perspectives provides the opportunity to think deeply about how development occurs, the factors that influence development and importantly how early childhood professionals can support and enhance development”