Holy Name Primary School, Forster

Holy Name at Forster was excited to welcome 43 Kindergarten students and their families to our school community on Friday 31 January. The transition process for our newest students began almost 12 months ago, when families and early childhood educators where invited to visit our Open Day during Catholic Schools Week in March 2019.

During Terms 2 and 3, our Kindergarten teachers Mrs Monks and Mrs Praschinger visited students in their early childhood centres and began establishing the critical positive relationship between student and teacher. Late in Term 3, our transition class received a special package in the mail — a transition t-shirt with the words “I'm a future Holy Namer” to wear during the five transition visits planned for Term 4. The new students visited our Kindergarten classroom and Learning Hub each week and were gently encouraged to feel comfortable in their new environment, develop new friendships and understand the routines of school. They also met key staff members each week, including our principal, Mrs Stephens, who plays an active role in the transition weeks and can often be seen knee-deep in Lego chatting with the transition students. 

Our Kindergarten students are participating in Successful Foundations, which has been designed to facilitate the implementation of the CSO Early Learning Policy. Our Kindergarten students will be supported to engage in active play for the first hour of every day in Term 1. The intention of Successful Foundations is to encourage children to build meaningful and responsive relationships, to investigate and learn through collaborative play and to stimulate the use of oral language and reciprocal conversations. It provides an opportunity for educators to observe, listen, document and analyse general capabilities and to learn about their students’ dispositions, skills and knowledge. We have joined the system-wide commitment to Early Learning to build successful foundations so our students flourish.  

St Joseph’s Primary School, Gloucester

St Joseph's at Gloucester is excited to welcome six Kindergarten students to our school community in 2020; Mason Abraham, Remi Ashby, Leon Blanch, Isabelle Eager, Eli Fenning and Jesse Volley. Miss Teegan Rowsell is leading the Kindergartens into a settled and enjoyable first week back.

With the help of their fantastic Year 6 buddies, the Kindergarten students have already transitioned smoothly into school, partaking in a number of activities including swimming lessons and reading.

A strong focus is placed on wellbeing, building friendships, social skills and good communication, to ensure the smooth transition into the early years of learning.

We look forward to helping our new students grow socially, emotionally and academically in a nurturing, supportive and fun community.

St Joseph’s Primary School, Taree

St Joseph’s at Taree welcomed two new Kindergarten classes on Monday 4 February.

After a very successful Early Birds program in Term 4 last year, which gave the new students nine full days at the school to become familiar with surroundings, staff and their peers, the first day was a breeze.

All the teachers were extremely impressed with the new students who all went home on Monday afternoon very happy. They were even happier when they returned on Tuesday.

St Joseph’s has a variety of outdoor learning spaces that our new and existing students can use for daily play-based learning. The area enables the classrooms to flow from indoors to outdoors and the big open spaces allow for the set-up of various provocations and investigations to help students study a variety of topics.

We look forward to working with our new and existing families throughout the year.

St Joseph’s Primary School, Wingham

We would like to welcome our 13 Kindergarten students and their families, including four new families to St Joseph’s at Wingham.

Our Early Bird transition program helped our Kindergarten students feel confident and ready for their first day. Our Year 6 student leaders have done a fantastic job as buddies welcoming and helping our Kinders get used to life at big school.

Our Kinders are participating in Successful Foundations, which provide a series of open-ended play experiences for learning and wellbeing in the first hour of the day over the first five weeks of term. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to build relationships with their peers as they transition to big school.

We look forward to partnering with our parents to share in our new Kinders’ educational journey and look forward to watching them grow into confident and faith-filled learners.