Nurturing the future | Little Scholars May 2024
Little Scholars School of Early Learning
When you walk through the doors at Little Scholars, your perception of early education and care will change forever.
Can you believe we're just about halfway into 2024? May saw lots of action for our little scholars, from welcoming Little Scholars Stapylton's new campus manager to celebrating World Bee Day and Outdoor Classroom Day! Our founder Jae went on a road trip to share details about Free Kindy, and we're taking part in Baby Give Back's biggest day of the year, Giving Day 2024. Check it out!
New family member
We'd like to extend a warm welcome to one of the newest members of our Little Scholars family, Jessica Connors , who's joined us to take the reins at our Stapylton campus!
Jess, who says she’s excited to support and foster a community at Little Scholars Stapylton, has worked in early education for 13 years and counting, and is so passionate about early education she will soon graduate with her Bachelor of Early Education! She believes in supporting children to be lifelong learners, and work in partnership with families to allow children to become confident, capable human beings! She’s also very happy to lead the dedicated team who share her values?and beliefs around early childhood education and care. Jess’s vast experience in mentoring and leading teams makes her the perfect addition to our Stapylton campus, which she already adores.
Welcome to the family, Jess!
World Bee Day
Across our campuses, our little scholars celebrated World Bee Day ??.
Each of our campuses have a home for stingless bees, which are great tools to teach children not only about the incredible bee, but in turn lifecycles, the conservation of native bees, the impact of human activity on the environment, and the interdependence of living things.
Here's some bee facts:
Outdoor Classroom Day
Our campuses all celebrated Outdoor Classroom Day in their own ways, though getting outside is something we do every day at Little Scholars!
Our little scholars marked the day by getting out for bush kinder (a weekly practice!), playing sport, learning outside and some of our littlest ones even napped outdoors!
A lot of research supports dedicated time to heading outdoors for children. As a natural and compelling activity, play promotes cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being, offering the necessary conditions for children to thrive and learn. Through play, the child can experiment, solve problems, think creatively, cooperate with others, etc., gaining a deeper knowledge about his/herself and the world. From an early age, the possibility to experience several opportunities for unstructured play, in which the child can decide what to do, with whom and how, promotes positive self-esteem, autonomy, and confidence.
Jae's road trip
You know Jae as a passionate educator as well as founder of Little Scholars, The Scholars Group and the Fraser Foundation, but did you know he's also vice-president of the Australian Childcare Alliance Queensland Inc ? He went on an incredible road trip through Western Queensland through his role with the ACA Queensland, in partnership with the Queensland Department of Education. Along with Brent Stokes, ACA QLD management committee member, Jae took a a three-day journey to early childhood education services right across South West Queensland including Gympie, Cherbourg, Dalby, Kingaroy, and Warwick.
"It was wonderful to get out to the regions and support early learning services in delivering the Queensland Government Free Kindy initiative.
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"We spent time sitting with the service leaders, updating them on the Free Kindy initiatives and new programs available to them, and supporting them making the most of the funding ensuring that as many Queensland children as possible are accessing Free Kindy," Jae said.
Jae and Brent were inspired connecting with these communities and seeing firsthand the dedication and passion of our early childhood educators.
"We're making a real difference in providing accessible, high-quality early education to all Queensland children," says Jae.
Support Baby Give Back!
Once again, Little Scholars is supporting Baby Give Back 's annual Giving Day on 4 June! This year's theme is 'Give a little, change a LOT'. We're tripling all donations generously given to Baby Give Back. Last year, with the help of our Little Scholars community, we raised more than $67,000 to help local children get the best possible start in life.
If you'd like to donate and have your donation tripled, click here: Baby Give Back Giving Day 2024.
How early learning benefits everyone
Finally, have you thought about all the far-reaching benefits of early childhood education? Excellent early learning and care supports a happier, healthier workforce, boosts the economy, and fosters essential life skills in children. At Little Scholars, we support families with initiatives like our Family Time program, which includes haircuts, take-home meals, and specialist appointments on-site. We have a blog post on all the benefits early childhood education provides the family, the community, the government and society as a whole. Check it out!
Finally, we all know domestic and family abuse is at a crisis point. In fact, 1 in 4 women have experienced violence from an intimate partner since the age of 15.
Our friends at The Sector - Early Education News have shared an article that discusses how we actually have a lot of power to stop violence through how we teach and talk to children while they're young. As the article by Nicole Talarico states, early childhood is the most effective time for infusing cultures of respect and is the peak time to develop children’s self-awareness. We have the capacity to respond to community concern and to advance change.?Please take a few minutes to read: Mind the empathy gap: When it comes to preventing violence against women, children are the future
And if you need Family and domestic violence support services:
That's all for this month. We look forward to seeing you next month!
For more information on Little Scholars, visit our website and book a tour!
Campus Manager
9 个月Thank you for the warm welcome, excited to be a part of the Little Scholars family!