Page 647 - Week 02 - Thursday, 6 March 2008
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continuity of learning and ensure that children can access an integrated education curriculum. This also means that preschool teachers are given more opportunities for professional development and more professional support through their principal and fellow teachers.
The government has been supported in this policy and works in partnership with the Canberra Preschool Society, an organisation that welcomed the change and recognised the great benefits that can come from streamlining educational pathways. Society president Carolyn Harkeness, said at the time that students “need to be able to have continuity of education” and that the “Canberra Preschool Society is quite in favour of bringing preschool into primary”.
We also announced that from 2009 the government will establish four new early childhood schools at Southern Cross, Lyons, Isabella Plains and Narrabundah. These new schools will join the very successful and popular O’Connor Cooperative School, which already offers a dedicated focus on early childhood education. These new schools ensure that we can offer this focus across all areas of Canberra. The focus will be on quality learning, student wellbeing and family participation in a purpose-built environment. Services will vary from site to site and will be available from a number of government and community agencies, including education, childcare, health, parenting, early intervention and preschool programs. The schools will also have links to the University of Canberra and the CIT early childhood courses.
These new initiatives are supported by the new curriculum framework which is being implemented in all schools across Canberra this year. The framework has a strong focus on teaching and learning in the early years through a band of development covering students from preschool to year 2. This framework supports the academic, social and personal development of our students.
These are just the latest in a series of initiatives shown by the Stanhope government to support young students and their families, and there are many others. Since 2001 we have reduced class sizes in the early years of schooling to ensure that no class from kindergarten to year 3 has more than 21 students. The government has also invested nearly $8 million in 2005 to increase preschool hours from 10.5 hours a week to 12 hours a week. This extension of preschool hours supports choice for families. The government recognised research showing not only the importance of education in the early years but also that family structures and support needs have changed significantly with increased workforce participation and single parent families.
The increase in workforce participation also impacts on the demand for full-day childcare places. Longer preschool hours will assist young families by providing more accessible and affordable early childhood programs for a longer duration. This policy means that ACT families with young children have access to increased service provision, increased early intervention options, greater choice and more affordable options for prior to school programs, longer day preschool programs which will assist them to use government preschools and release spaces at childcare centres to other families and a more attractive option for those parents and carers of young children with special needs.
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