The Early Learning Centre at CGGS is home to our youngest learners. It is a place filled with hope, imagination and innate curiosity, where questioning, wondering and playful learning live. While in the ELC I am at times mistaken for Father Chris or the owner of the world-famous golden arches restaurant chain. Like me, everyone who visits the ELC on Grey Street undoubtedly leaves buoyed by the energy of the wonderful three- and four-year old boys and girls who call this part of the School home.
CGGS ELC students enjoy a purpose-built early years educational school-based setting. More importantly, however, they are a cherished part of our CGGS Reception to Year 12 community. As special members of our school, the boys and girls of the ELC, despite their age and stage, uniquely contribute to our school’s story. It should not be misunderstood, however; the ELC is also a place of intentional learning and rigorous education. Teachers in the ELC curate a curriculum under the IB PYP framework that excites and engages, where students actively participate, discover, play and explore as they lay the essential foundational language, mathematical and social skills required for the next steps of their education at CGGS.
Crucially, students who attend the ELC at CGGS are "preparing for school at school". This was no more evident than earlier this week when a number of Pre-Prep classes attended the Year 1 Animal Expert Expo in the Junior School Clements Hall. It was wonderful to see the Pre-Prep children and their teachers learning alongside and from the older students. Experiences such as this, as well as their weekly library, French, Music and PE lessons across the Kavanagh Oval in the Junior School support our ELC students in their transition to Prep at CGGS in 2023, avoiding a stop-start transition or any unsettled beginning to their primary years education in the new year.
This week our ELC students have engaged in diverse and meaningful learning. Seeing our Pre-Prep classes create class-sized cardboard box planes complete with Captain and passengers (PPFD – Kangaroos), exploring animal habitats and geography (PPO – Blue Tongue Lizards), and building and solving number bonds calculations (PPH - Koalas) has been wonderful! Similarly, witnessing our Reception aged students collaborate to create playdough (RC – Platypuses) and a group of boys in Mrs O’Sullivan’s class (RO – Turtles) carefully observe, notice and then paint images of Goldie and Spiderman, their class goldfish, has been lovely.
Our Pre-Prep ELC students enter Prep in 2023 highly prepared, having gained school-like experience in a setting that is familiar in routine, environment, and staff, delivering the ideal transition into a lifelong love of learning at CGGS.
Peter McDonald
Head of Junior School
Photos
RC Platypuses using playdough, PPO Blue Tongue Lizards creating an arctic adventure and bushwalking, PPFD Kangaroos building planes, RO Turtles painting, PPH Koalas solving maths puzzles