What does your Pre School / Kinder do?

After talking to some friends with kids the same age as Alexzander I've come to realise that there aren't many actual Pre Schools around. Most of them are child care centres, day care or early learning centres. An actual pre school (from waht my sister tells me, she's a preschool teacher) has a structured program with specific outcomes for each term. For example, listed in the info pack we got are the following developmental areas they work on:

1) Gross Motor Development
2) Social Emotional Development
3) Fine Motor Development
4) Intellectual Development
5) Language Development
6) Creative Artistic Devleopment

Then within these are examples of what they do. So for gross motor they learn climbing, balancing, throwing & catching. Then for intellectual they have things like learning smaller/bigger, tall/short and learning about the environment (my sister taught about "under the sea" last term.

The kids must be 2 years 6 months to go to the preschool & preference is given to 3-5 year olds. All children must be toilet trained by the time they are three (though they accept pull-ups on younger ones). There are two classes, one for 3-4 year olds and one for 4-5 years olds that are going to school the next year.

The day is very structured and set out like a school day.

9.00 .......... Outdoor Free Play
10.00 ......... Group Time (stories, picture talks, finger plays, poems, discussions)
10.45 ......... Little Lunch
11.00 ......... Puzzles
11.20 ......... Outdoor Play / Games
12.15 ......... Music / Games / Story
12.30 ......... Big Lunch
1.00 .......... Indoor Activities
2.15 .......... Pack Up Indoor
2.30 .......... Pack Belongings / Singing
2.50 .......... Home

So what does everyone else's preschools or kinders do? Is this sort of thing as unusual as it seems to be? No-one I know has heard of anything quite so structured for before school....

That's exactly what our Preschool does Sarah - even the daily timetable is nearly identical to ours. Some of the day care/childcare centres do have a structured Preschool program too. I think you'll find that most "Pre-Schools" are just like this too. I know some boarding schools that have a preschool attached/affiliated do an even more rigid program.

ETA - I forgot to say that you usually do one year in the 3yo program and then 1 yr in the 4yo program for the two years prior to them starting school. So Zander being a March bub could start school in 2010 when he wont be quite yet 5, (Paige will start school in 2010 too) or you have the flexiblity to hold him back another year and start him in 2011 when he will be turning 6.

ETA again - you should also get a folio of their work through the year too and it basically shows you things they have done to meet what the developmental outcomes are, like they will have a sample of cutting, pasting, ordering numbers from 1 -10 etc and how your child did, just like a school report.

Thanks for that Sherie :) I just found that the few friends I've asked have said their kids are going to pre school, but they have sleeps in the middle of the day & there is no structured learnign so to speak.

Ours is like that too except they are a child care and a pre-school. There is a room for 0-3 year olds which is the childcare part and a room for 3-5 year olds which is the pre-school part. The pre-school room is set out like you have mentioned and the childcare one is kinda like that but more simpler and free-er if that makes sence. Its not so structured. The preschool room also have different things they learn about each term or so. Like last xmas they learnt about xmas in australia and they have learnt things like the enviroment and different cultures is a main one too.

For the first few weeks in the 3yo class, we did take a pillow and towel for them to lay on and they have quiet time after lunch where they lay on the towel and the teacher reads a story and they just listen. Some will go to sleep though, but the majority don't. Once they are used to having a full day of it, they ask you not to bring the pillow etc anymore.

Alot of the time a 'propper' pre school is often run by the dept of ed. and are attached to primary schools. They are open from 9-3 like a school and have a very structured day like Sarah mentioned. They employ early childhood teachers and are 'pre' school, meaning that the set up and structure is made to get kids ready for school. You might find that alot of places that are called preschools are not actual 'propper' pre schools, but are set up how the owner/director would like the program to be. Although long day care centres and other styles of childcare centres must document all of the developmental areas you mentioned above, they are more free in their programs, often still meeting the same outcomes for children going to school, but not actually teaching them like pre school would. Does that make sense?? They also employ teachers, but not all staff members are trained, some are untrained and some are tafe trained, some uni trained.
HTH :)

Sounds pretty similar to our Kindy which is from age 4

Love

Sounds very similar to our pre school Sarah - and ours is just a pre school (they do before and after school care too during other hours) for 3-5 year olds, as opposed to a day care centre. Our daily structure is very similar to yours. They also don't have a sleep during the day, luckily DD just dropped her day sleep before she started!

They do however accept children who are not tt'd, DD is but I noticed a tt chart and change table in the bathroom.

Same as ours, even our playgroup is like that, although the mum's just do it with them ;) Only difference is we have 5 hours a week (in 2 blocks) for 3 y.o. Kinder, 10 hours a week (in 2 blocks) for 4 y.o. kinder and playgroup is only for 1.5 hrs :)

The terminoloy can be confusing to parents. In victoria pre-school or kindergarten are names used to describe a government funded educational program that must be implemented by degree early childhood qualified staff. The centre must have a certificate saying this is a government funded program. The government funds 10hrs a week for 4-5year old children, but hours and days vary greatly with many centres offering more hours. Childcare/early learning centres use many different names for their programs, some do incorporate kindergarten into a childcare program, but this can be very confusing. The main differences between kindergarten/pre-school and childcare are the staff qualifications and the time allowance the teachers have to prepare the program without children in the room. Each government funded pre-school/kindergarten across all states of Australia will differ slighly in their philosophical approach to children's learning. So some may be more sturctured or less structured, what most have in common is hands on play based learning. Learning through exploring, experimenting and doing. I am an early childhood teacher in victoria and have also observed programs in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and Scotland.