The Fraser Preschool philosophy builds upon our school's purpose and vision statements and the principles from the Early Years Learning Framework. We create a safe, warm welcoming environment, where children feel secure and supported in their explorations as learners. Our role as educators is to respond to children's ideas and play and use intentional teaching to scaffold and extend each child's learning. We adopt holistic practices which value the cultural and social contexts of children and their families. We develop and work to maintain reciprocal, respectful relationships between all members of our preschool community.
Secure, respectful and reciprocal relationships
At Fraser Preschool, the educators:
- Provide a welcoming and secure environment where children are valued and supported as individuals.
- Respect the views and feelings of each child.
- Adopt holistic practices to ensure that the interests, abilities and culture of every child and their family are understood, valued and respected.
- Initiate warm, trusting and reciprocal relationships with children.
- Provide safe and stimulating environments for children.
- Build on children's prior learning and experiences to build continuity for their learning and development. Encourage children as active participants for sustainability, influencing the quality of life now, and for future generations.
Partnerships
At Fraser Preschool, the educators:
- Recognise that families are the child's first educators and build positive, respectful relationships with the whole family.
- Value and provide opportunities to involve families and the local community, scaffolding children in their learning at home and in the wider community
- Create a warm, welcoming and culturally inclusive environment where all families are encouraged to participate in and contribute to children's learning and developmental experiences
- Are transparent and objective, and provide families with information about their children's learning and educational development, and about what they can do to further support their children
- Work collaboratively to share information and plan to ensure holistic approaches to children's learning and development
- Actively engage families and children in planning children's learning and development
- Acknowledge the significance of transitions within and across early childhood services and schools, and ensure that children understand the process and have an active role in preparing for these transitions
- We actively work with other professionals, such as physiotherapists, speech pathologists, to optimise children's developmental progress.
High expectations and equity
At Fraser Preschool, the educators:
- Establish high expectations for all children's learning and development
- Support children's learning and development through a combination of child-led and adult-led play based learning, as well as active teacher-led learning.
- Ensure that every child experiences success in their learning and development
- Recognise that every child can learn, but some children require quite different opportunities and supports to do this
- Maximise learning opportunities for every child
- Create social and physical learning environments that has a positive impact on children's learning , both indoors and outdoors
- Encourage children to explore, solve problems, communicate, think, create and construct
- Use child-centred approaches to explicitly teach particular knowledge and skills
Respect for diversity
At Fraser Preschool, the educators:
- We establish and model relationships that are based on care, empathy and respect for one another.
- Recognise bi and multilingualism as an asset and support these children to maintain their first language and learn English as an additional language.
- Promote cultural awareness in all children, including an understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing and being
- Support children to develop a sense of place, identify and a connection to the land
- Build on children's interests, abilities, cultures and previous learning experiences to extend their thinking, learning and development
- Recognise the connections between aspects of children's learning and developmental stages.
Ongoing learning and reflective practice
At Fraser Preschool, the educators:
- Gather information that supports, informs, assesses and enriches decision-making about appropriate professional practices
- Continually develop their professional knowledge and skills to enabling them to provide the best possible learning and development opportunities for all children
- Promote practices that have been shown to be successful in supporting children's learning and development
- Assess children's learning in ways that inform their practice
- Use evidence to inform planning for early childhood experiences and practice.