Member in the Spotlight: Perfect Beginnings Bush Kindy to the Beach

Member in the Spotlight:

Perfect Beginnings Bush Kindy to the Beach

Liz Pennings > Perfect Beginnings Eight Mile Plains

Perfect Beginnings Eight Mile Plains began their Bush Kindy adventure after the 2019 ACA Qld National Conference. Sharon Mumford (Centre Director) attended the Forest School Workshop and was inspired to extend our program to include “Bush kindy”.

She believed visits to a local park area would be beneficial for the children in her care. After collaborating with her team, families, and the local community the Bush Kindy program was up and running. Our program started with our Kindergarten children at a council park across the road from the centre. After embedding our program and practices we extended the program through the centre and even had our Nursery children attending. In 2020 we felt confident to move the program down to a larger area in the community that had a running creek, higher trees and established flora and fauna to extend the children’s learning. It did not take long for the children to build fishing rods, crab traps, cubbies and enjoy exploring the natural water source and the treasures that come with it. The team critically reflected on the program and the children’s interests and approached a local business ‘Two Bent Rods’ to see if they could support us in taking the Bush Kindy program to the beach and extend the children’s interests in learning more about our waterways. The program is typically for school age children; however, they were excited to give our Kindergarten children the experience. We spent the day pumping for yabbies, net fishing for bait, fishing, learning about the sea life in our area and how to keep them and ourselves safe.

Bush Kindy is a fantastic way to educate children about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and customs. Our program always starts with a yarning circle to connect us with the land and acknowledge our first nations people. During our play we have meaningful conversations about the land and the different items and places as well as the people who had been here before us. Uncle Rob supports us by sharing his knowledge and stories of his people, allowing us to extend on this during our program. Bush Kindy is a program designed to promote holistic development of children, supporting their emerging resilience, wellbeing, and confidence. We believe that giving children the opportunity to engage in risky play and allowing the child to lead their learning via enquiry

Bush Kindy is a program designed to promote holistic development.

builds a bridge to higher order learning. During our program we allow children to gauge their own risk, trusting them with their ideas and concepts about their capabilities and allowing the children to be in control of their own limitations. Educators may question children in play to prompt them to think about how high they are in the tree, or how close they are to the shore and allow the child to determine when they are unsafe. The children become creative, curious and confident learners as well as being able to problem solve and understand consequences. We are excited to see where our learning takes us with our Bush and Beach kindy sessions this year.

Early learning services Traineeships & Apprenticeships

Requirements

Commitment to providing the trainee with 15 hours of paid employment per week and release them for regular paid study time. This can be negotiated at the sign up between the service, the student and the college. CAECE recommends 1-2 hours study time per week for satisfactory progression.

Wage support for apprentices and trainees

To assist with the COVID-19 recovery, the Australian Government has announced the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy to support employers engaging new apprentices and trainees. Early childhood education and care services may be eligible to receive a wage subsidy of 50% of gross wages paid for an apprentice or trainee. The subsidy is available for a maximum of $7,000 per quarter for wages paid from 5 October 2020 to 30 September 2021.

You may be eligible if:

 You engage an Australian apprentice or trainee between 5 October 2020 and 30 September 2021, and the apprentice or trainee:

 is undertaking a Certificate II or higher qualification, including

Certificate III or Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care, and

 has a training contract that is formally approved by the state training authority.

Enrol a Trainee or Apprentice Today!

For more information visit caece.com.au or contact the College for Australian Early Childhood Educators (CAECE) on (07) 3299 5784 or info@caece.com.au.

Employing a trainee or apprentice is an excellent opportunity to:

 Engage with the next generation of early childhood educators,  Get some generous incentive payments from the Australian Government to support the wages of the trainee/ apprentice and,  Start the training process of your future educators at an early stage of their career.

Incentives

 Up to $4,000 in incentives (more for mature and aged educators)

 You may be eligible for the 50% wage subsidy

 Trainee/apprentices who are under 25 years of age can receive fee free training - saving up to $3,180. (Australian

Apprenticeships)

For more information visit dese.gov.au/ boosting-apprenticeship-commencements

Industry Partner of Australian Childcare Alliance Queensland