Launching into Learning

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Australian Education Ministers' 2010 Biennial Forum

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Launching into Learning is a State funded innovative program which recognises, supports and develops parents as their child’s first and most influential teacher. Teacher and support staff in 120 schools create quality environments and deliver programs that respond to the learning and developmental needs of young children birth to four years, and their families. There is a strong focus on vulnerable families and children, early literacy and school preparedness, early intervention and partnerships with other early childhood services. Launching into Learning schools are strongly networked and support each other through professional learning, sharing of research, and celebrations of achievements and success strategies.

Launching into Learning is a State Government initiative and commitment to the years prior to formal school. Under this initiative 120 Tasmanian schools are currently offering learning opportunities for families with young children from birth to four years. This initiative acknowledges that parents and families are the first and most powerful influence on childrens’ early learning and development, and that supporting families during this time helps their children achieve success, and can improve quality of outcomes for those living in more vulnerable circumstances. The initiative recognises the research that tells us that 75% of a child’s brain develops during the first five years of their life, and half of all intellectual development potential of a child is established by age four. All Launching into Learning schools are implementing strategies and programs to support early literacy and school readiness as a priority.

With the start of our birth to five programs back in 2001, and the main reason we started, well we were really concerned about our literacy outcomes, particularly in the early years. So the following year we started what we call our LIFT Program, and that stands for Learning is Fun Together, and that’s for three year olds and their parents. We know that parents are the most important teacher in a child’s life, and we really need to make a difference in those years before they even reach our doors. We were so thrilled in 2006 when the State Government gave us the Launching into Learning funding, and that enabled us to actually extend our programs, and offer many more programs through the week. From then we saw a really significant difference in our school outcomes.

Some schools offer programs specifically for dads. That might be a playgroup in a school, or an excursion going outside of the school. Most of the excursions are aimed at trying to give families experiences that they wouldn’t normally have and that’s why, for example, we’ve come to the farm today.

It’s just a good way to integrate him into next year, into the next year’s school, because he starts kindergarten next year. So it’s just a good way to put him through to the first steps and get him into that process of going to school, regularly attending and mixing with the kids.

It’s a great stepping stone for when they’re starting school isn’t it. They’re already growing in confidence, and they’re hanging out with children that they’ll be going to school with.

In the previous years, the few kids I’ve seen in the programs who’ve gone already on to kindergarten now actually seem to have coped a lot better.

It’s been wonderful, being the current kindergarten teacher here at Mt Faulkner, because the last year I took the pre-kinder children and then have them now in my current kinder class. Those children have come into kinder having confidence, about knowing what school’s all about. The first day they arrived in kinder they knew the school, they were familiar with myself, who was the pre-kinder teacher. Also in Tasmania we have the Kindergarten Developmental Check which is done twice a year. All of my children that were in the pre-kinder last year, in the Launching into Learning last year, have done wonderfully well.

So Nicki, we were talking about the benefits of Launching into Learning.

Well there’s a couple of benefits. The main one would be my relationship within the school. I started off feeling that I wasn’t a part of anything, I’d just drop Elise, my eldest daughter, off and off we’d go. Then once we started into the Launching into Learning programs, then I felt more comfortable to become more involved. Now I’m actually feeling very much a part of the school, of a family I would say.

Is Launching into Learning making a difference? The latest results from an analysis of the Launching into Learning program demonstrate the program’s continued effectiveness in boosting the educational outcomes of participating students.

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