Instead of the uncertainty and/or fear that usually comes with starting your first day of big school, the students are greeted by friends and familiar faces who they have spent the last year getting to know.
The Kindy Fun Club (aka KFC), was established in 2005 by the school to help potential students transition to Kindergarten.
“Numbers were usually around five or six with our largest intake of nine in 2017. This has allowed our current Kindergarten to reach eleven students – the largest intake for the past twelve years,” says Principal Peter Bowen.
Students attend the club for a few hours every Wednesday from the age of four to get to know the school and make friends.
“In the initial years it was for a morning only every fortnight but the need for an extended program soon became evident as a large percentage of children didn’t attend preschool,” says Mr Bowen.
In Term 4, the students are integrated into the ‘Purple Room’, where teachers, Georgia Woodley and Tina Casolari teach the combined Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 class.
On the first day of Kindergarten, students participate in story time, music and settling in to the routine of school life.
“Students are paired with a student from Year 6 through a buddy system where they are introduced to the school community and are shown the playground and their surrounding,” says Miss Woodley.
With the theme for Kindergarten this term being, ‘living things and families’, students will learn about the world around them and the communities in which they belong. In addition to the stage themes, each term the entire school focuses on a particular value - this term the school focus is ‘responsibility’.
All students participate in a rewards-based system where those students who demonstrate responsibility are awarded and the students can use the points to purchase prizes.
While some of the prizes are tangible items like pencils and paper to use in class, those who choose to save up their points can choose to use them for rewards such as sitting on the teacher’s chair for a class.
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