March 2017

Building Partnerships between Families and Educators While we have relationships with many people in our lives we do not always develop partnerships with all of them. Relationships become partnerships when the people involved share a common goal, for example supporting the health and wellbeing of children, and share the responsibility for reaching that goal. Young children flourish when the adults caring for them work well together. Families know their child’s strengths, personality, moods and behaviours very well. Educators get to know a child well through their daily experiences. Family/educator discussions about how children are going and how best to meet their needs allows educators to support their development. Partnerships between families and educators also allow children to see important people in their lives working well together. When children see positive communication between their parents and educators, they begin to learn it is important to build healthy relationships.. Children can trust and feel safe with educators who are respected and supported by their family and who respect and support their family in return. Communication is the key to building partnerships between families and educators. Honest, respectful communication and a genuine interest in one another helps to build trust. Trust allows people to be open about their thoughts and feelings. When information is shared, families and educators are able to gain a deeper understanding of: how to work together to support children; children’s behaviour at home and at the early childhood service; the most effective ways to support children’s learning; what children enjoy and what their strengths are; to see things from other people’s perspectives and have more opportunities to discuss child development and benefit from shared decision-making. (Ref https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/early-childhood) Building and maintaining partnerships takes time and effort. Personal conversations during enrolments and transition and at the beginning and end of the day is a key time for sharing. However finding time for extended conversations at the beginning or end of the day can be difficult for both parents and educators. At WCCC we aim to have a range of strategies for sharing information and building partnerships. Most of these require a written response from families. Families can discuss together at home and respond by email at any time. The information families provide allows educators to have documentation that they can read and reflect on when they have non-contact planning time. Our strategies for building understandings about your child include: Portfolios that document children’s learning at the Centre are available for you to read at the

Centre or to take home overnight to read at home The digital side show in the reception area to share pictures of the day Child profiles – provide the opportunity for families to write about their child’s current interests

at home Individual development plans outline the focus learning and development areas for your child

( this is always revised in relation to the child’s responses and interests) Room term goals – each term you will receive notice of the Room goals and your feedback allows

your ideas and thoughts to be considered Family books – to share our diversity All parents are welcome to arrange a time to speak to educators away from children Parent and program evenings Please remember that all these build the partnership between families and educators to foster and support children’s wellbeing.

PARENT NEWSLETTER

Board and PAG Matters 2017 Adelaide University Childcare Services Inc (AUCS) meets on the last Monday of the month. WCCC is still seeking a parent member for this group. The Parent Advisory Group (PAG) meets monthly. The first meeting for 2017 on Friday10th February reviewed the responses to the 2016 parent review and we are drafting key outcomes for 2017. Please speak to Kaarin if you are interested in joining this group.

2016 Program and service review Our 2016 parent review has been analysed using the survey monkey program (please see hallway display for graphs). The Parent Advisory Group and educators have been reviewing our feedback and we aim to provide answers to some of your questions and queries in newsletters and conversation across the year. This feedback has also contributed to the key outcomes for 2017. Some of the questions and suggestions are difficult to respond to we have quite divergent opinions expressed by different families. Communication is one area where there is high success for the majority of families. Hopefully our newsletter articles both this one and future expend your understandings. Good communication is a two way process of active listening, questioning and sharing. Please remember we do not always know what you want to know until you ask. Every family is different.

Welcome to the following children and their families

Elena and Ruoshui to Room 2 James, Annika, Felicity, Mathilde, Isabelle

Spencer, Isaac, Lachlan and Lucas

Family books We are still waiting for many entries for our family story books. We all come from a diversity of family and cultural backgrounds and sharing this at WCCC supports children’s sense of belonging and their growing understanding of diversity. Educators have an A3 sheet for each family. Please tells us about your child at home in photos and words. Photos printed on copy paper may make it easier to collate and glue. Please join us in gathering these stories so that by the end of March we have a story about every child in the Centre. If you would like too to see an example please ask the educators.

New Babes Congratulations

to Sally, Ashley and Henry R2 on the birth of Alice 6/3/17

Staffing 2017 The recruitment process has now been completed for the Room 1 position left vacant when Lucy left to take up full time study. On Monday March 20th we will welcome Emily Xu to the Room 1 team. When educators have planned annual or training leave we are usually able to adjust our roster using our current team as well as regular educators. However, when staff need to take sick leave we may not always have educators who are known to all parents in the room available to work. We aim to maintain a pool of regular relief educators and will need to grow this team in 2017. This may be past students who are now available to do relief work or past educators like Lucy who are available during University vacation times or non lecture days or new educators.

Helping Children Cope with Separation distress With the start of a new year there are many changes that will cause children to experience separation distress in the mornings. It may be the first experience of being away from family for an extended time; long holidays and changes at home, older siblings commencing school, transition between rooms, changes in group dynamics and a change to the parent doing the drop off or pick will all impact on how your child responds at drop off time each day. There are several things that families and educators can do to help this: Working together Share information about what is going on in your child’s home with educators Develop a positive goodbye routine together (e.g., sharing a ‘high-five’, a special goodbye hug, or some funny or loving gestures such as ‘bear hugs’ or finger hugs) Connect your child with educators your child knows well and are available to greet them. Building trust Always say ‘goodbye’ to your child and let them know when you will be back Try to be reliable and on time when you return to your child. Building safety Be calm, warm and friendly Avoid lengthy goodbyes as they may increase separation distress Support the child to become engaged in an enjoyable experience before leaving

Growing Positive Education at Waite Campus Childrens Centre The movement for positive psychology was founded in the 1990’s by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who were concerned with the study of what makes us happy. Positive psychology is a preventative approach to improve wellbeing and strengthen against mental health problems by giving us the tools and resources to deal with challenges . Positive psychology tells us that if we focus on our problems they can look bigger than they really are and they can grow due to our anxiety and worry. On the other hand if we focus on what is good in the rest of our life the bad doesn’t go away but it gets smaller. By looking at our strengths what we can do well and what is good in our life the problem may no longer be a problem. The goal of positive psychology, says Seligman “is to increase flourishing in your own life and on the planet.” Positive education (Pos Ed) is the application of the science of positive psychology in an educational setting. It promotes the holistic wellbeing of children, educators, staff, families and the wider community . Positive education is one of the fastest growing applications of positive psychology. There are two main reasons for this: 1.increase in childhood and adolescent depression 2.developing the skills of wellbeing in children, parents and educators is supported by empirical validations Positive Education recognizes wellbeing is equally fundamental as the cognitive development of children and that these work in unity in all walks of life. Positive education is about the application of positive psychology in an educational setting to promote flourishing within the education/care commu-nity. It has outcomes across all levels, the child, the educator, the group and the community. In SA the focus for introducing positive education has been in schools, however educators at WCCC have been inspired to rededicate ourselves to supporting and strengthening wellbeing. In 2017 we established a Pos Ed focus group of parents and educators to plan a program for growing Pos Ed at WCCC. This included parent evenings and newsletter articles and a series of yoga sessions for children. Educators and staff completed the PERMAH workplace survey and the VIA Strengths Survey in early 2016 and 2017. Our team strengths are displayed via wordless. In 2017 are focusing on tow key areas of PERMAH, positive relationships and positive emotions and our parent evenings will be focused on these.

WCCC Green Page

Harmony Day Harmony Day is celebrated on 21 March each year. The continuing message of Harmony Day is everyone belongs. It's about community participation, inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. This gives you the opportunity to share with others the importance of diversity in your workplace, school and community through action, performance, fashion and food. Orange is the colour chosen to represent Harmony Day. Traditionally, orange signifies social communication and meaningful conversations. We want you to express yourself on Tuesday 21st March and encourage all families, if they are able to celebrate their families diversity in the way they and their children dress. We would also love any parents or grandparents who can share their traditional dancing or music with us to speak to the educators in their child’s room. Show how diversity makes our community stronger wear orange. http://www.harmony.gov.au/

Wiping out Waste at WCCC The Wipe Out Waste program (WOW) operates through KESAB to support children and staff on education sites across Souh Australia to understand that there is no such place as ‘away’. What is often referred to as waste includes a range of items that can be recycled or reused. Only a very small amount is actual landfill waste. Since our first strategic plan for Sustainability was drafted in 2007 WCCC has worked actively to reduce the amount of waste to landfill. In 2016 WCCC won an award for the greatest reduction in waste to landfill for an early years site. A quick audit in 2017 shows our waste is only 15% of the average volume for children’s centres!

Earth Hour 2017 Remember to turn off you lights This year Earth Hour celebrates 10 years. Earth Hour was launched in Sydney in 2007 as a lights-off event to raise awareness about climate change. It is now a global movement that engages more than 172 countries and 7000 cities and towns around the world. Earth hours calls for homes businesses and governments to turn off their lights for 1 hour. This is a good time to reflect on what we are each doing to reduce the effects on climate change and what more we could do. Remember each journey starts with a single step. On Saturday March 25th 8.30pm and 9.30 pm switch off to support progress for the next generation. To learn more go to: http://earthhour.org.au/home/

WCCC

Average of all SA

Sites (n=13)

Recyclables stream 0.0008 0.2797 Compostables stream 0.0008 0.3688 Reusables stream 0.0000 0.0296 Landfill stream 0.3239 1.4184 Total Material Audited 0.3255 2.0965

Our Home Thank you to all the families who attended the book launch on Wednesday 22nd February. A wonderful chorus of voices from Room 3 and a great time for networking. Sophie Thomson the well-known gardener, presenter on Gardening Australia and author, officially launched Our Home applauding it for its ‘green’ themes.

The book is available from Sue at suecoad@adam.com.au for $20.