Continuous Improvement and Contemporary Curriculum
Diamond Creek Memorial Kindergarten and its community are committed to the continuous improvement of services, curriculum and the learning environments at both the Collins Street and Coniston Street campuses and from 2023 Panton Hill. It is important to ensure all voices are heard; community, management, families, educators and children.
COMMUNITY- We also look outside to understand the community challenges, passions and ways of living. We believe regular reflection on the service’s Strategic Plan is necessary to acknowledge our successes and the journey already travelled as well as critically reflecting on where we need to go in the future…
In 2016, the kinder community developed a strategic plan where the financial, educational and community direction of the kindergarten is planned for and goals set for the next 5 years. Of course we then had a couple of years of Covid19 and now with acquiring Panton Hill Preschool to prevent its closure, 2023 was the perfect time to update our Strategic Plan for the next 5 years.
ADVOCACY FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION- We have an Educational Leader teaching in each group of children and we collectively engage in pedagogical reflection as an embedded practice. With a highly experienced and dedicated educating team, we are always engaging with the education community and focusing on advocacy for early childhood education as a right for all children.
We have been part of the EDGE project with Melbourne University, a pilot program supporting child safe standards implementation with the University of Southern Queensland and have our pedagogical work included by Anne Houghton and Kelly Goodsir in their book 'Documenting Children's Learning: Disrupting the Myths. Anne's upcoming review of 'Intentional Teaching' will also include some of our practices. We are/were part of the Play Australia's "Play Today" campaign with our Service Director interviewed as part of the project and footage of our Collins Street campus used as part of the video vignette.
We are also part of the Australian Early Childhood Sustainability Alliance's (AECSA) inaugural conference as Speakers, Panel Members and hosts of Field Trips which will embrace early childhood educators across Australia to visit all three of our campuses as we showcase our embedding of sustainable practices withing curriculum also meeting requirements of the updated Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) for Australian (v2, 2023).
5241