Criterion 1

Theme 3
Inclusive partnerships with children and families

Excellence is evident in how Lansvale promotes authentic and inclusive partnerships with children and families through planning and communication, inclusivity for all children and our transition to school program. Lansvale Public School Preschool has a culture of respectful and responsive relationships with children and families. It is our determined investment in establishing respectful and reciprocal relationships with our families that make Lansvale excellent.


Goal setting

To initiate family partnerships, Lansvale educators and families meet prior to the start of the preschool year to discuss and share information about the dreams and aspirations parents and caregivers hold for their child as well as cultural, religious beliefs and family values. Throughout this meeting, families have the opportunity to share insightful knowledge and information about children’s interests, needs and strengths and collaboratively set future goals for their child. “…in order to support children’s learning we need to know them in the context of their family, culture and community. It is difficult to imagine really knowing a child without knowing the child’s family” (ECA, 2012). It is for this reason that Lansvale will always welcome, listen to, learn from, respect and support families as partners in the educational process (Preschool Philosophy, 2016). Additionally, our children also set goals at the start of the preschool year. Their goals are displayed around the room to remind the children and educators what the children are working towards.

In Semester 2, goals are reviewed with educators and families choose to establish new and more challenging goals for their child. Our children also go through the same process of review in Semester 2. We believe the children’s voices should lie at the heart of all decisions. By giving our children a voice, their sense of belonging deepens as they see themselves as important and capable learners that are able to make decisions that affect their lives.

Parent committees

At Lansvale we offer an array of opportunities for our families to authentically participate. Our parent garden committee helped create a fairy garden for the preschool by researching plants that were appropriate for the preschool. Our parent garden committee shared their vision with the rest of our families and it was very heartwarming to see that every so often a parent will find some fairies to add to the fairy garden, a new pot plant, new turf, new stumps or some statues that fit perfectly. Little by little our parents have added to our fairy garden and it is now a lovely learning space for our children to explore. Our parents valued children’s independence and came up with the idea of instilling a sense of responsibility in their children by asking the children to bring in and take care of their own pot plant at preschool which sit seamlessly with the space created wholly by parents.

Curiosity Centre Committee

Our Curiosity Centre parent committee is another example of how Lansvale Preschool welcomes and empowers our families to make valuable contributions to the preschool program. The Curiosity Centre was a new space in the preschool and the educators felt it was important to share their aims and goals with their families. Educators shared research and the importance of promoting higher order thinking skills within the children. This goal became a shared goal between educators and families. Parents were extremely excited about a new learning space and actively contributed to the design and resourcing of it. Through sharing insights and information about the importance of developing curiosity within our children, our families now appreciate their children’s curiosity and apply their newfound knowledge at home. One of our parents commented “Now she starts to ask me many questions started with ‘why’ and ‘can you explain…….’! Through that I can see her curiosity growing each day from Preschool!” We had another parent sharing with us a lava lamp experiment she had conducted with her child at home, with her assistance we were also able to replicate this in our Curiosity Centre. One of our parents remembered a childhood experience of using a string telephone to communicate. We soon had a group of parents outside our preschool experimenting with a string phone made from 2 cups and a string. It is this culture of trust and open sharing of perspectives that makes our partnerships with families at Lansvale excellent.

Parent Working Bees

Our parent working bees build and extend our partnerships with our children and families. These informal activities create a non intimidating opportunity for our community to, not only contribute to the maintenance of our preschool, but more importantly, it creates a meeting hub for our community to connect, collaborate and create. The creation of networks amongst our parents from different cultural backgrounds has resulted in our parents overcoming their shyness and assisting other parents who may not be confident in their communication. This function also builds ownership over our resources and site in general. Many individuals and groups have authentically contributed to the vibrancy and beauty of the preschool.

Shared Expertise

Due to encouragement and shared culture of learning, our parents often volunteer to share a talent or expertise with our children. We have had baby bath demonstrations, hairdressing, Samoan dances, cooking demonstrations, art lessons, storytelling and singing. These experiences expose our children to different cultures and knowledge of different ways of being. They have also enabled our parents to develop confidence when sharing their skills and expertise. They are more willing to be involved within the preschool and the children have learnt to be open to differences and similarities with our families They have learnt about what makes us unique and educators have shared what it means to have a skill, talent or passion to share with others. We have all learnt from each other during these experiences. These collective voices demonstrate genuine interest in children’s learning and are invaluable. We recognise and celebrate this rich source of information and expertise because it helps build the Home School-Partnership that create a caring community around our children.

Our Parents Sharing their Talents
PaTCH

Our preschool families actively participate in our Parents as Teacher Classroom Helpers (PaTCH) Program. This program is aimed at maximising the benefits of a working alliance among home, school and community. It involves six, two hour workshops exploring the vital progressions around how children learn to read, write, speak, listen, develop numeracy skills and acquire the competencies needed to be a future focused learner. One of our preschool parents have referred PaTCH as “A program that has allowed me to gain insight into how our little learners are supposed to learn. Pens and paper are no longer enough but interactive educational games, problem solving activities are the way to go because they are more fun and therefore engaging”. Our PaTCH program gives our preschool parents more confidence in supporting children’s reading, writing and mathematical skills in the early years of schooling and provides a supported pathway for parents to actively involve them in the school setting for the benefits of children, parents, educators and the wider school. Research indicates that when parents get involved early in their child’s education, the results are more pronounced and long lasting. PaTCH provides a non intimidating way for preschool parents to be involved in the wider school community. PaTCH is an example of excellence in cultivating authentic participatory partnerships at Lansvale.

P & C

Lansvale’s Parent and Citizens (P&C) Association is another example of authentic partnerships with our families. This committee focuses on parent voice and their vision on how they can collectively contribute to the running of the school. P&C influence policies, contribute to school resources and guide school management in its financial planning. Three of the current P&C executive positions are held by Preschool parents and numerous others participate in the P&C regularly. Preschool educators attend and present at P&C meetings, often sharing their learning and listening to, questioning and reflecting on the way we do things within the preschool and school setting. This valuable and genuine input is significant for all stakeholders in future planning and decision making.

It is Lansvale Preschool’s commitment in engaging our parents in reciprocal relationships that empowers our parents to be decision makers within our school learning community.

Lansvale’s P&C has assisted the preschool in creating a more beautiful space for the families, preschool children and educators through it’s advocacy. A shared vision was created for an extensive redesign and renovation for an enhanced learning environment at preschool.

Schools as Community Centres Coordinator (SaCC)

Inclusive partnerships with our children and families is promoted through Lansvale’s Schools as Community Centres (SaCC) Coordinator. This program supports families and is an early intervention, prevention and cross agency initiative. Through this program the school supports a variety of initiatives to increase parent participation and collaboration including parenting programs, return to work programs, workshops, play groups, swimming scholarships for adults and children. Our SaCC organises school holiday programs, within our school grounds, so that our families can participate in affordable recreational activities and be in a familiar place to meet with others. In 2017, the SACC worked in partnership with preschool educators to campaign for a grant to secure free swimming lessons for our preschool children through CabraVale Leisure Centre to build confidence and learn about water safety, an identified community focus.

Additionally, the SaCC Coordinator links preschool families with health, housing, social workers and council services to support those in need as identified through authentic relationships with educators. The SACC supports families in their role as a parent and as a member of the wider community.

Parent Transition to School Statements

To ensure that there is a continuity of learning from Preschool to Kindergarten, we facilitate a comprehensive transition process for both children and their parents, recognising the expertise of families. We value that parents are our children’s first and most consistent teachers. We actively promote parent inclusion and harness opportunities for a collaborative relationship so that Parent Transition Statements are authentic, rich and powerful documents. To do this we collaborate with our parents and families in completing the Transition to School Statement for Parents. We guide and support our parents and families to reflect on their child’s approach to learning and expectations around starting school. We identify childrens’ interests at home and at preschool and together we develop strategies to support children’s learning. Our bilingual educators support our parents by explaining and translating the statement, so that all our families are empowered to have a voice in contributing to their child’s learning. Through this inclusive approach our parents have an opportunity to contribute to a comprhensive understanding of their child’s needs and strengths.

Kindergarten teachers use this information to ensure that the classroom environment and program meets the interests and needs of the children in their class, resulting in a smooth transition for each individual.

Community Liaison Officer

Through the provision of bilingual support, possible barriers to communication are overcome. We actively harness the multilingual talents of our Vietnamese and Khmer/Laotian Community Liaison Officer (CLO) to support inclusive partnerships with our culturally diverse families. Our CLO’s organise outings and workshops for our families to make connections and build relationships with other families. We do this because we recognise that many of our families may not have a wide support network of friends and family. For example, we had a preschool family who felt isolated because their family and support network were in Laos. After speaking to our Laotian CLO, she was able to support this family by organising social gatherings to introduce the family to other Laotian families from the school community. The Community Liaison Officers go beyond, by working with individual families to support them with their unique needs such as attending specialist appointments to translate important information to support student’s social, emotional, physical and academic needs.

Effective Communication

We use a range of effective communication methods to support meaningful participation with our children and families. We use a variety of communication methods - verbal, written and electronic.

Some of these communication methods include translated notes in different languages, signage and learning stories around the room written in the children’s home language. We ensure that our resources are inclusive and culturally diverse. Our intentional teaching statements are displayed on our activities so our families can understand and be involved as partners of their children’s learning. Our educators are multi lingual and regularly speak to our children and families in their home language. Where there is a language that our educators have difficulty in communicating with our families, we readily utilise our multilingual staff from the primary school to help with translation or we organise translation services allowing all families to be actively engaged in preschool. Dedicated educators actively seek to learn some key words in Vietnamese, Chinese and Khmer to support our children who come to preschool with little to no English. We have pamphlets to assist our families in making links to their community resources in conjunction with the SACC. Many of these are available in community languages and where possible are interpreted.

Seesaw

Excellence is also evident in Lansvale‘s substantial investment into using technology as a tool to support inclusive partnerships with our families. We purchased and methodically use the SeeSaw App to create a digital portfolio for each child. Educators post learning stories, videos, photos, drawings, voice recordings and text. Parents get immediate notification when there is a new post on their child. This communication method actively involves families in the learning process by inviting them to view updates of their child’s SeeSaw journal. This visual update supports our inclusive family connections allowing them to engage in real time and provide comments or feedback about their children’s learning in home language. This digital portfolio allows our parents to reflect on their child’s learning progress and growth. Seesaw also increases accessibility to our working families. Consequently, school/home barriers are overcome as working families no longer need to visit the preschool to see their child’s learning in action. Seesaw also provides a platform for educators and parents to exchange educational communication.

Seesaw gives me great insight to what Lachlan is learning and enables me to continue the learning and discussions that happened at school, at home also.Parent

I love the regular communication on seesaw and informal communication before or after school with the teachers so that I know what my son interests are and where to next.Parent

Involving our CALD families

Planned activities and strategies encourage partnership, however it is our everyday interactions and conversations with our culturally diverse parents that truly fosters a strong relationship with our families. “To get to know each child well, educators build positive, interactive partnerships with the child and with the people in the child’s life, such as their family, community and other professionals or support people who work with them”. (Owens, A, 2012)

At Lansvale, we recognise that our families come from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds including Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, Indian, Lebanese, Anglo-Australian and many more. Our demonstrated engagement and partnership with this diverse group of families is what makes Lansvale preschool exceptional. One example we have chosen to share in this submission is how an incidental conversation with a parent led to a joint partnership in teaching the preschool children how to write and read numbers in Arabic.

Our exceptional educators always ensure we greet and initiate conversations with our families on arrival and at the end of the day. It is during this conversation that a parent spoke about how she would like to encourage her son to speak and learn more Arabic. Upon reflection of this conversation, educators decided to invite the parent to write numbers to ten in Arabic and then recorded her reading the numbers in Arabic to be shared with all preschool children. The parent also helped us source appropriate songs from YouTube and is looking to borrow more resources from her local library to further engage our preschool children in the Lebanese culture. We encouraged her child and a fellow classmate, also fluent in Arabic, to learn how to say the words correctly. “The parent-teacher relationship can be defined as working together to support children’s development and building upon the children’s functional skills that can be used in multiple environments." (Turnbull & Turnbull, 2001)

This example not only pinpoints how Lansvale educators are experts in highlighting diversity in a positive way, but also how educators are aware and respectful of the culture, values and concerns of our families. Being responsive to all families and implementing planned programs that both reflect and invite parental participation is part of the underpinning of Lansvale’s excellence. The EYLF states that partnerships are based on the foundations of understanding each other's expectation and attitudes, and build on the strength of each other’s knowledge (EYLF, 2009). Helping our children understand and respect similarities and differences, helps our children realise their own uniqueness among many other wonderfully unique people in this world. We work by the motto that the more unique we are, the more similar we are and we consciously celebrate the uniqueness yet connectedness of our students and their families.

Documentation

At Lansvale, we use a variety of documentation such as learning stories, videos, photos, our daily blog and ongoing reflection to drive the curriculum. We effectively, thoughtfully foster an inclusive and authentic partnership with our children and their families. “A positive and strong parent-teacher relationship has a positive effect on the teacher-child relationship” (Chung, Marvin, & Churchill, 2005). We believe that early childhood is a special time in life and through documentation we strive to capture the essence of our children at this momentous stage of their development. The story of our children’s learning is written with honesty, much detail but more importantly it is written with heart. It is the heart in our documentation that makes Lansvale excellent.

An example of inclusive partnerships that we have chosen to share in this submission are learning stories documenting Toby’s learning at preschool and how the voice of the child, the educator and the parent combine to bring out the best learning outcomes for children. The learning stories illustrate how our educators are encouraging, being welcoming, have a deep respect and belief that families have their child’s best interests at heart. It is evident that the educators and families both value each other’s knowledge of the child and share insights about Toby’s learning. It is also evident that Toby’s voice documented in these learning stories is at the heart of all our planning and decision making for and with him.

This reflective process enables our educators to examine children’s progress and invite others to contribute perspectives on their learning. Our educators use this holistic approach to deeply analyse children’s learning with their expert knowledge of child development, the EYLF and the connections between theory and practice. “Providers who have extensive knowledge about child development have a more positive relationship with parents” (Swartz & Esterbrooks, 2014).

Children’s learning stories are purposefully written from the perspective of the observer to the child. This is our way of connecting with children and making them feel valued, included and proud of their achievements. Our learning stories are first and foremost shared with our children. This conveys to them that there is someone who cares and is listening closely to what they are thinking, feeling, saying and doing. That they are important and what they do is worthy and valued. Capturing the teachable moments is what makes Lansvale excellent. “I’ve come to realise not only that a picture is worth a thousand words, as the eastern expression goes, but that the picture created in the heart and mind of a person by a story is worth ten thousand” (Covey, 1999). Our learning stories illustrate how Lansvale Public School Preschool promotes a love of learning in our young learners.




“All the detailed notes you’ve made in Lucas’s portfolio makes me feel as if I was there with him each day”. Preschool Parent