Belonging, Being and Becoming

At Alive ELC, we are committed to the enacting of the Early Years Learning Framework and strive to uphold the vision for children’s learning which is opitimised by the notions of Belonging, Being and Becoming.

We appreciate children’s identities and their experiences of belonging to their family, culture groups, neighbourhoods and the wider community. Recently, we have focused on individual and family portraiture, as well as community and cultural events, such as the mid-autumn festival where children created their own moon lanterns for the Holy Family School celebration. Furthermore, our continual promotion of relationships between children, educators and families are seen as fundamental to who children are and who they can become.

We celebrate the here and now in children’s lives and honour their time to be, to seek and to make meaning of their world. Recently, this has included role-play and imaginative explorations, as well as creating racetracks to explore identity and take on the roles of e.g. track marshal and traffic light attendant. Thus, promoting the collaboration, co-operation and sense of beingĀ as part of our early learning community.

In accordance to our Alive vision, we are committed to being a learning environment where futures begin. Our practices therefore, reflect and respond to the significant changes that contribute to who the children are becoming as valued members of society. This includes providing children with opportunities to develop their own unique identities, knowledge, understandings, capacities, skills and relationships. We value our connection to Holy Family School and use this partnership to provide meaningful opportunities for children to actively participate in experiences on offer in the school. Recently, this has included Buddy class visits, Dining Hall, Library visits and Whole School assemblies.

Caring for our World – Ecological understandings and choices

This week, something unfortunate occurred when the head of the tap burst off shooting water off into a large puddle in the playground. When this occurred, the children were given the provocation, “I wonder what we can do with the water?”

Mason – “It could go on the plants.”

Ryder – “They (the plants) drink the water.”

Xavier – “It makes them (the plants) grow so we don’t waste water.”

Tavae – “It drinks them (the water) and the sun helps them (the plants) grow too.”

The children made made further ecological connections to the term inquiry and our ongoing focus on spirituality.

Imogen – “The plants are God’s creation. If we don’t look after them they would die and he would be sad.”

Olivia F – “God also created the water so we can’t waste that either. That’s why we use it to water the plants. It makes them grow.”

The children demonstrated their problem-solving abilities whilst suggesting creative and innovative solutions which turned a problem to a success. We are proud of the children and the way they were able to use their own evolving knowledge to care for aspects of our natural world.