Preschool News: Term 3 Week 8

Hello everyone,

What a lovely start to the week we had with our Father’s Day Breakfast on Monday morning. It was wonderful to see so many dads, grandads and special people join us for breakfast and spend some time in preschool. Thank you also to the families who very kindly offered to help out and bring food along. We really appreciated the offers.

With children in preschool who have life-threatening allergies, however, we do need to carefully manage the food that is provided at events such as these, in line with individual risk minimisation plans. This is also a practical example of the paramount consideration, which requires us to place children’s safety, rights and best interests at the centre of the decisions we make. Sometimes this means we need to do things a little differently, even when there are lots of lovely offers of help, and we really appreciate everyone’s understanding and support.

Safety has been a big focus this week, particularly as National Child Protection Week runs from 6–12September. We have continued our protective behaviours discussions with the children, including talking about body alarms, how our bodies can tell us when something doesn’t feel right, and the importance of recognising these feelings, moving away if we can and seeking help from a trusted adult.

We also had a very real opportunity to put our emergency procedures into practice during Wednesday’s visit to Lane Cove Library when the library needed to be evacuated. The children did an amazing job of listening, staying together and following directions. Having an agreed meeting place meant we could quickly account for everyone and remain together while we waited.

As a staff team, we reflected on the evacuation afterwards, including our roles, communication, headcounts and meeting place. Experiences like this are a valuable reminder that emergency procedures are not just something we practise, they need to work when we actually need them.

Lots of play, conversations, problem solving and learning have continued around all of this, making for another very full week in preschool!

That’s a wrap for week 8, we hope you’ve enjoyed a lovely weekend.

Warmly.
Katrina, Lisa, Lida and Meeta