Families contributing to curriculum planning is encouraged at our Centres
Building a partnership with our families is hugely important to us. The more we know about a child’s interests, talents and challenges, the more we can incorporate that into our curriculum planning.
When families share their knowledge, understanding, culture and strengths with our Educators, we all benefit – families, children and Educators.
Here we provide ideas on some of the ways families can share with our Educators to help our understanding of each family and your child:
Values and Beliefs
Bring photos or share stories of your family’s special occasions, festivals or rituals. Understanding what is important to your family and how you celebrate or mark occasions is very valuable.
Special Interests
If your child has developed a particular interest in something at home or in their social interactions, it’s great for our Educators to know that. We will then look for ways to weave that into our activities or discussions in your child’s room.
This helps to encourage your child to explore their interests and to share them with their peers and Educators.
Family Activities
If your family recently shared a fun experience together or went on a holiday, we’d love to hear about it! You can share photos, videos or stories about your experience.
Our Educators can look for ways to explore the key themes of that experience in a way that supports your child’s development and that of their peers.
Sharing Your Skills
If you have a particular skill or knowledge set that you think could contribute to children’s learning, let us know. This could be a certain craft activity that you could teach the children or a special recipe you could share.
Extending Learning at Home
As well as contributing to curriculum planning, your family can also extend on what your child learns at the Centre:
- Read the Daily Reflection to know what your child has been learning each day.
- Think about ways you could further explore each learning topic in your family routine or leisure time.
Examples to get your ideas flowing:
- If the children have been learning numbers or colours, play a game on the way home where you count or point out all the red cars or all the blue houses.
- Ask your child what their favourite activity was and explore how you could do something similar at home.
- If they’ve been learning categories, make a game of ‘pick the odd one out’ from household items.