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June 2016
Preschool or Kindy Is there a difference? Does my child need to go? Where should they go?
In Australia preschool is the name used by the Commonwealth Government for education programs in
the year before children commence school. In South Australia this has historically been called Kindy
and many parents continue to use this term. However Kindergarten or Kindy is the first year of formal
school in NSW so this can be a bit confusing, especially to those born and schooled in NSW.
Preschool in Australia is not compulsory but is promoted by governments.
Since 2012 all children have been entitled to an early education program delivered by a degree
qualified early childhood teacher for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks of the year in the year before the
commence formal schooling. The same year marked the beginning of single entry intake to school with
children able to commence school if they are five before May 1st. However, school is not compulsory
until children are 6 years old.
Preschool services are offered in a range of settings public, private and community based preschools
and childcare; they can be in ‘stand alone’ services or integrated into long day care programs as is the
case at WCCC. All are delivered by registered early childhood teachers.
The most obvious difference between ‘stand alone’ preschool and the more integrated model offered by
LDC are hours of operation and sources of funding. Stand alone preschools operate usually the same as
school hours and are funded by State Governments. LDC has longer opening hours and higher costs
with some subsidies to families provided by the Commonwealth Government. There has been no
Australian research as to which setting offers a higher quality program. Children can access all 15
hours of preschool at one service or across multiple services.
Families attending WCCC must maintain a minimum of 2 full days attendance at the Centre throughout
their child’s enrolment (exception only for families where one parent is on parenting leave).
Families today are able to make a variety of choices with respect to the education of their children. The
Universal Access to preschool program has changed the way preschool hours are offered by services
and ensures that most services now offer between 6 and 7.5 hours per day providing greater flexibility
and choice for families. Every family’s needs are different, and there is no right or wrong choice
At WCCC the preschool program integrates seamlessly with our existing Room 3 program.
Our early childhood teachers (Dani and Penny) oversee a range of programmed experiences for all the
four and five year old children including group times and excursions away from the Centre. Programs
are focused on the whole child and build on children’s strengths and interests to scaffold their skills and
knowledge. The early childhood teachers are also responsible for transition to school summative
reports and, if needed, transition to school visits. All preschool age children have an early childhood
teacher as their primary educator. Our program meets the requirements of National Quality Standard
(NQS) and the National Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). All four and five year old children
in Room 3 access the same program. Children continue to participate in Mandarin Immersion (and
now (ELLA) and Education for Sustainability (EfS), which are focus programs at WCCC. .
Transitions and enrolments There will be some changes to enrolments in July with several Room 2 and 3 families going on
sabbatical or changing work location. This will provide the opportunity for some transition between
rooms. Unfortunately we have still some days that are fully booked so all transitions will be
negotiated with respect to children’s attendance days, friendship groups and vacancies in the new
room.
PARENT NEWSLETTER
AUCS Board 2016 The Adelaide University Childcare Services Inc (AUCS) Board continues it work on the 2016-17
budget with delays due to our EB negotiations. New fees will be implemented from 1st August.
The AUCS Board is currently recruiting a new Director for ACCC in the interim Kaarin will be working
across both Campuses on some days.
Board meetings during winter are held at Nth Tce. The Board will next meet on Monday July 25th.
Please remember your bedding: From February 2014 WCCC children were requested to bring their own sheets and in cooler months a
small blanket for sleep time. This was initially requested of all new families and children in Room 1.
Most of these children have now moved through the Centre and the majority of children are using their
own bedding.
From 1st August all children will be expected to bring their own labelled sheets and blanket.
Families who have not provided any bed linen will be invoiced for second hand Centre sheets at a fee of
$10 per sheet. These will be labelled with the child’s name and sent home for washing.
Clear labelling
Bedding should be clearly labelled to prevent the occasionally issues of sheets being misplaced.
Initials on the product label are not sufficient. Each child’s name needs to be clearly visible to
educators and to older when they are making and unmaking beds for rest and sleep time.
The simplest way to do this is using a laundry marker to clearly write the child’s name at the foot of the
sheet. Those who are creative could embroider or applique the child’s name or initials.
Looking back on parenting practices with Kay Fenlon The article in the June news about why it is important for everyone to get fresh air even in the cold, wet
winter months and childrearing in Scandinavia facilitated lots of discussion, including discussions about
how we were parented and how our grandparents raised their children.
Karen from Room 1 had long discussions with her mum Kay.
Kay reflected back on her childhood and her time as a young mother in London:
“I was born in the 1940’s with two brothers and a sister coming after me. We lived in a suburb of
London, so the winters were long and very cold. We were all healthy children, but all had the usual
seasonal colds and coughs. My Mother’s way of keeping us all healthy in the winter months was to give
cod liver oil to the babies and the older children would have malt.
Every morning in the winter months my mother would wrapped up the younger children and put them
out in the garden in their pram for fresh air and the older would be wrapped up to walk to school.
All the others mothers we knew did the same thing and I did the same with my two children in the late
1960’s and the early 1970’s.
My children’s colds and coughs didn’t seem to last as long as children’s colds and coughs last these
days, I feel this is due to the fact that my children went out in the fresh cold air which cleared their nasal
passages. Going out in the cold fresh air made my siblings and I and my two children resilient and robust
to children’s ailments.
(Of course I would not have put my children out in the fresh air if they had temperature)
I found that my children were always happy being out in the fresh air. They would go down easy for
their sleep after been out in the cold fresh air but on the days when it was raining and just too hard for
me to be able to put them outside, it was much harder to get them to go down for a sleep.
As well as being healthy for my children being outside meant they could watch the different birds flying
around and see the trees moving the wind and listening to all the different sounds around them. Of
course I would go to the garden to check that my child was still happy and listen out if they cried, but if
for some reason I did not hear them cry and the neighbour did, they would call over the fence to you and
you would do the same for them.”
The power of strength-based parenting By: Lea Waters in Opinion, Top Stories June 15, 2015 0 As parents, we all hope to raise happy kids. Yet
this simple goal has become increasingly complex in today’s world and there are unprecedented levels of
youth depression and anxiety in Australia. Parents need to do as much as they can to build strengths and
wellbeing in their children to help combat stress and help their sons and daughters make the most of their
lives during the good times. But how do we do this?
A new research program on strength-based parenting from Centre for Positive Psychology at the
University of Melbourne is giving some promising answers. In strength-based parenting, parents
consciously identify and cultivate positive states, processes and qualities in their children.
The strength-based parenting research program is based on three key principles:
Every child has strengths and the inherent ability to learn and grow.
When parents and children work together through a strength-based approach, a child’s capacity to
achieve their potential and experience wellbeing is increased.
A strength-based approach helps children be more resourceful and persistent when dealing with stress.
In a study published recently in the Journal Psychology, research from the Centre of Positive Psychology
showed that primary school children who rated their parents as providing high levels of strength-based
parenting reported less stress than those who rated their parents as providing lower levels of strength-
based parenting.
In addition, strength-based parenting was a factor in how children coped with stress. Children who had
strength-based parents were more likely to use positive, strength-based coping responses. This is because
strength-based parenting adds a positive filter to the way a child reacts to stress. While parents accept the
importance of providing love and emotional support , the need to deliberately identify and build strengths
in children does not seem to be as valued by parents. Some parents are concerned that giving too much
praise to their children will create selfishness and entitlement. However, a strength-based approach does
not advocate for false or excessive praise. Instead, it asks parents to identify and validate a child’s
strengths realistically and give an equal focus to strengths as weaknesses. Parents can become aware of
their children’s strengths through strength spotting, which is a process of observation that looks to
identify strengths in oneself and others. We can spot strengths in our sons and daughters by looking at
their energy levels, which will be higher when they are using a strength. Other clues to look for include
levels of engagement, fast learning curves and behaviour that is beyond above age-appropriate levels in a
skill or personality aspect. For example, they could be wiser, kinder or quicker than you would expect for
their years. If parents truly want to raise well-adjusted, happy kids, I urge them to think about adopting a
strength-based approach. The new research program from the Centre of Positive Psychology will provide
meaningful science over the next few years to help parents and children thrive.
Professor Lea Waters is the Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology at the Melbourne Graduate
School of Education, University of Melbourne.
Coming Events Yoga classes are continuing on Fr idays for all groups. Claire has been providing age appropr iate
experiences to all age groups including mindful experiences with her stretching and yoga.
Photos are being posted on the slide show screen in the reception area .
August 20th –26th Childrens Book Week we will host a Little Big Book Swap all week. This years
theme is Australia Story Country.
Saturday 20th August Advanced Backyard Vegie Gardening— a joint event for the Waite
Community Garden and the Childrens Centre. We will start the day at the Childrens Centre with
information on site selection, soils overview, propagation & crop planning, soil preparation and irrigation.
We will then move to the Waite Community Garden where Nat and Steve will build a wicking bed. Q&A
across the day. This informative day cost only $65 including lunch and is be invitation only. Families
were emailed an invite via Eventbrite. We will re-send the invitation every few weeks.
Monday 26th September 7-9pm - Parent Evening with Mark Le Messurier; Building young children’s
resilience and optimism
WCCC Green Page
Plastic Free July The challenge is simple. Or is it? ……attempt to refuse single-use plastic during July.
Plastic Free July aims to raise awareness of the problems and amount of single-use disposable plastic in
our lives and challenges people to do something about it. You can sign up for a day, a week or the
whole month and try to refuse ALL single-use plastic. The TOP 4 are listed as plastic bags, water bot-
tles, takeaway coffee cups and straws.
Just thinking about this and what we purchase on a regular basis highlights how much plastic we use
every day. Think about, biscuits, chips, cheese, cereals and even flour and sugar…. Just about anything
we buy in a supermarket today comes in plastic. Even if the outer packaging is cardboard the packaging
inside is most likely plastic.
By 2050 its estimated there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans. Most comes from land
and was once in our hands. Refuse single-use plastic and together we can keep our oceans clean. Join
over 40,000 people, schools and organisations from 90 countries and let those same hands be part of the
solution.
http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/
Is your life too plastic? Some Facts about Plastic
Plastics are made from non-renewable natural resources such as crude oil, gas and coal. According to
the 2002 Nolan ITU Report for Environment Australia on Plastic Shopping Bags - Analysis of Levies
and Environmental Impacts; just 8.7 plastic checkout bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy
to drive a car 1 kilometre.
Plastic bags are recyclable. If plastic is not recycled, this embodied energy is lost from the resource
chain
Australians are the second highest producers of waste, per person, in the world with each of us send-
ing over 690 kilograms of waste to landfill each year (the United States is the highest waste producer).
The amount of waste placed in landfill each year in Australia is enough to cover the state of Victoria
How does plastic litter harm the environment?
Many thousands of marine mammals and seabirds die every year around the world as a result of plastic
litter. When the animal dies and decays the plastic is free again to repeat the deadly cycle. There are 2
major reasons that plastic bags are particularly problematic in the litter stream:
1. They last from 20 - 1000 years
2. They escape and float easily in air and water, travelling long distances References
(1) Worldwide Home Environmentalists Network home.vicnet.net.au/~when/plastic.htm (2) Environ-
ment Australia, Plastic Shopping Bags - Analysis of Levies and Environmental Impacts (Nolan ITU,
2002) www.deh.gov.au/industry/waste/plastic-bags/bags-analysis.html
Green development WCCC was successful in receiving $5000 from the University’s Green fund. This money will be used
to fund the Odyssey energy efficient cooling system which is a part of our ‘patches of green’ project.
The other areas of our project were more water efficient soft touch taps to replace the leaver taps and a
heat condenser A+++ energy efficient dryer. We have had one of the soft touch taps installed in Room 3
as a trial and this is proving, as hoped, easier for children to use. Our new dryer is on order and should
arrive in the next few weeks.
On Monday July 4th Adelaide Green Clean took up the contract for cleaning the Centre each night. This
means all cleaning products used in the Centre are certified environmentally safe.
Sustainability, ensuring the future of life on Earth, is an infinite game,
the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all.
Paul Hawken
Eroni and Ollie’s chooks:
Our 3 Isobrown chooks live in the sleepy Hills town of Kanmantoo with Eroni
and Ollie Vakaci. The chooks are called "Little My' (named by Eroni), 'Kariel'
and 'Alby' (who has chest plumage like a Wandering Albatross). They live in a
wonderful coop that was made by a friend. The coop is made of 100%
recycled materials (except nails and screws). The fox proof chicken run is also
made from another friend's recycled front picket fence. The chooks roam our
whole yard on most days when someone is home. The 3 plucky chooks
regularly have territory battles with the local magpie family which is
humorous to watch. They are very friendly and follow us around,
always hoping for kitchen scraps, especially on childcare days! Eroni enjoys
patting and talking to them, but he has to chase them out of his sandpit at
times. Ollie chuckles at their antics and is fascinated. Eroni stands on a couple
of bricks to reach the nest box lid to check for eggs. He helps his
parents collect 3 brown eggs each day and he carefully carries them
in his little bucket back to the kitchen. He always thanks the chooks
by name for their eggs.
On lazy Saturday mornings, we make bright yellow omelettes with
spinach, parsley, onion, mushrooms, bacon and cheese. We collect
20 eggs each week, which is more than we need, so we regularly
give eggs to staff at WCCC and to our friends. Its a great way to
give something back for all the amazing food scraps we bring home
from WCCC! We also get to peek at the diverse, nutritious and
Joseph’s chooks:
Our chooks are Edna, Polly and
Pandora. Edna is Daniel's chook and
she is a bit of a hard one to catch.
Polly is really nice and always ready for
a cuddle. Pandora is the black chook
and belongs to mum. She is our oldest
and usually lays a lot but is moulting at
the moment.
Waite CCC family’s chooks
Recycling of food waste at WCCC follows several paths.
We use our worm farm, bokashi, and Jeffries for composting which includes soft paper and green waste.
Grace also collects the leftovers from lunch each day with some selected green vegie and fruit scraps in
our ‘chook’ buckets for the Waite CCC family chooks. Thank you to all the families who have provided
these stories of our chooks:
Cathy’s chooks
Our girls are very special to us their names are Yoghurt,
Lighty and Darkie they are three years old and are Isa
Browns. Henry and I are their main carers they have layer
crumble, wheat and sunflower seeds as a treat. They love
the white bucket from Waite and they run to the fence
wings out and cackling.
We get three eggs
a day mainly laid
in the box in their
shed, but they have
a habit of
hiding them in the
wood heap in their
yard.
Eggs are scrambled on Sunday for breakfast. Henry has
spent many an afternoon chatting to the “girls” carrying
them around and hand feeding them treats before locking
them up so they are safe at night.
Euan and Kira’s chooks:
Built from a repurposed cubby house and other items
scavenged from the hard rubbish, our fox-proof chook run
houses a handsome rooster called Angus (formally known as
Agnes), a 7 year old Barnevelder called Geraldine who still
lays eggs, two black Australorps (Hattie and Winifred) and two
blue Australorps (Olive and Violet).
Euan and Kira love interacting with the chooks and introducing
their friends to the feathered members of the family. We have
a treadle feeder which means we don’t get little critters stealing
their grain and we can go away for multiple days. The combination of the chooks, worm farms and
compost pile means kitchen scraps in our household never go to waste, and the eggs are amazing.
Hugo’s chooks:
Hugo (Room 3) is the proud
owner of 8 chooks. They are a
mixed bunch, but his favourite
is "Slinky Malinky" the laven-
der coloured Araucana hen.
She's beautiful. He also has
"Pumpkin" the Rhode Island
Red, "Sparkles" the Australorp
and a cute little Belgium ban-
tam with spotty feathers, cur-
rently nameless.
Hugo's chickens often are the target of foxes, even
during the day time, so they have a large enclosure
that has been fortified against such invasions! They
have the best view of any chicken run and are given
loads of greens and of course, the fabulous left over
food from WCCC! Their favourite foods are pasta,
cake and cockroaches.
Kaarin’s chooks:
After a house extension we were left lots of 2nd hand materials Following several
months of planning my son and nephew recycled these materials into a hen house
and run. My now seven year old granddaughter Fynnley spends hours with her
chook friends when she visits and is a great help when it is time to clean and refresh
their yard. The chook run is also home to a pink lady apple tree which produced
some very delicious apples the first year after planting.
On the weekends the chook run is extended with some portable fencing so Abby
and Rosie get more space to search for earwigs and worms and occasionally they
are let free to roam the whole back yard!
These two highlighter hens enjoy feasting on WCCC kitchen scraps. I am sure they
recognize the white bucket when I take one home,
eagerly awaiting to see if they will get some of
their favourite leftovers - pasta!
The best egg dish I have made recently is impossible quiche with
chorizo and zucchini, yummy and spicy on a cold winters night and,
most importantly for me, very easy to make!
More about our chooks
Ethan and Charlotte’s chooks:
The Cotton family has two chooks called
Molly and Polly. Ethan loves chasing them
around the backyard and trying to catch them.
Although egg production has slowed recently,
they still enjoy leftover food from childcare.
Our favourite dish using eggs is of course
poached eggs on toast, but also made into lem-
on meringue pie.