All About Shine

Preparation for School is important

Preparing for school is an integral part of Shine’s philosophy to ensure all children are prepared holistically for their transition to school life. 

We endeavour to provide your child with an environment that will nurture and facilitate growth and development and provide supportive, safe, and stimulating learning experience that will foster solid foundations for every child’s lifelong success. 

We provide daily School Readiness and Kinder Programs and at the end of each year, a Transition to School program. 

These programs have been created in conjunction with the National Quality Framework, capturing a holistic approach to development including elements of creativity, exercise, science, movement, language, literacy, numeracy and socialisation. 

Our programs will,

• Support development, confidence and independence skills that a child will need prior to starting school to help build a solid foundation for later learning
• Promote interests; assist children in becoming active learners and provide opportunities for them to develop to their full potential whilst having fun at the same time
• Help children learn through relevant and meaningful experiences that lead to growth and development
• Provide rich and stimulating learning environments
• Assist children recognise their strengths and weaknesses and build on these
• Assist all children be actively involved and ensure their active collaboration in their learning
• Help children make decisions about their learning and experience positives outcomes
• Educate children about respecting individual capacities and diversity in learning
• Use every day practices such as writing shopping lists, identifying numbers on car number plates or on houses to help children develop their literacy and numeracy skills
• Support children who come from diverse families, including culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• Progressively and simply introduce children to some aspects of Primary School including homework. School leavers can partake in a Homework program that includes individual homework kits.

The programs focus on,  

• Physical Learning
• Literacy Learning and Language Skills
• The Arts
• Numeracy
• Social Skills and Self Awareness
• Understand the world around us
• Fine Motor Skills
• Classroom Behaviour
• Letterland

Letter land is a unique, phonics-based approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling to 3-5-year olds. The Letter land characters transform plain black letter shapes into child-friendly pictograms and they all live in an imaginary place called Letter land. Simple stories about the Letter land characters, explain the full range of dry phonics facts so that children are motivated to listen, to think and to learn. These stories explain letter sounds & shapes, allowing children to progress quickly to word building, reading and writing.

Transition to School

 Starting school is a significant milestone in the life of every child. Our transition to school program aims to support children to:

• feel happy to be going to school
• feel confident about being there
• have trust in the adults at the school
• make a positive start to their school experience

At the end of each year, school leavers engage in an intensive end of year Transition to School Program. Some topics covered include: healthy lunchbox choices; library book borrowing; PALS social skills program; health, hygiene and grooming; literacy and numeracy revision; safety and self-help skills. Excursions to local primary schools are organised so that the children can share “big” school experiences with their preschool friends.

Environmental Sustainability

As an education and care community, we encourage and increase awareness of environmental responsibilities and implement practices that contribute to a sustainable future.

Children are supported to become environmentally responsible through embedded practices of respect that lead to a safe, clean and well-maintained environment.

Children’s awareness of the environment is promoted through daily practices, resources and interactions with educators and families with a common vision to advocate for a sustainable future.

We encourage educators, families and children to engage in innovative practices and appreciate the wonder of the natural world while protecting the planet for future generations.

Sustainable practices a part of our daily routine and include recycling; gardening; energy conservation; water conservation and the use of sustainable equipment, resources and furniture.

We role model,

Sustainable practices and discuss these with the children and families as part of our education and care curriculum. This includes the use of a worm farm to reduce food waste in the service and children are encouraged to place food scraps into separate containers for use in the worm farm.

Energy and water conservation practices by turning off lights and air-conditioning when a room is not in use; emptying water play containers into garden areas; use solar panels for energy conservation and rain water tanks for water conservation.

The concepts of “reduce, re-use and recycle” are a part of everyday practice for both children and educators to build lifelong attitudes towards sustainable practices.