Thanks to Coal&Allied’s ongoing support Jerrys Plains Public School can continue their ‘Ready 4 School Program’.
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The unique learning experience allows pre-school aged students to spend one day-a-week at the small school for the entire year.
Unlike most orientation programs that only run for a term at the end of the school year. It was devised by principal, Regina Stoltenberg, upon her arrival at the small school back in 2014.
With no pre-school in the village, and her extensive background in early intervention, the passionate educator saw the pressing need to offer this type of service.
Initially, Ms Stoltenberg only had the resources to run the program for one term.
The next year she managed to offer it to the community in both terms one and two, and then, in 2016 Coal&Allied got on board.
At this stage the merits of the program became evident with great results achieved in the NSW Department of Education and Training’s Best Start Kindergarten Assessments.
The aim of ‘Ready 4 School’ is, of course, to prepare children for Kindergarten.
It does this by involving them in a developmentally appropriate program of targeted learning activities, coordinated by a qualified and experienced early childhood practitioner.
When The Argus sat in on a session the students were concentrating on learning sounds, in particularly the letter ‘A’.
Mr Stoltenberg explained every subject for that day would focus on this, and they would even be making apple muffins.
The program has been designed to incorporate optimum early childhood practice provided by the Early Years Learning Framework – and the teaching and learning experiences that the Department of Education requires for Kindergarten readiness.
The school is also excited about being included in phase two of the department’s ‘Early Action for Success’ initiative.
They have been provided with an additional teacher allocation to deliver tailored interventions in literacy and numeracy as well as a training allocation to strengthen personalised learning for K-2 students. This means they now have an instructional leader coming to the school who works directly with teachers, and is often present in the classroom.
