Goodstart Early Learning Shepparton - Bourchier Street

Hey Dee Ho Music Program 🎶

On Friday’s our service offers the wonderful Hey Dee Ho program!

Hey Dee Ho provides engaging, play-based early learning experiences in music, yoga, fitness, and drama, all designed to support children’s development in fun and meaningful ways.

These sessions help build confidence, strengthen social skills, and support children’s physical, emotional, and cognitive growth.

Through this program, children are developing:
• Fine and gross motor skills
• Cognitive learning and memory
• Language, literacy, and communication skills
• Mindfulness, resilience, and emotional regulation
• Social skills, confidence, and self-esteem
• Creativity and imagination

With over 35 years of experience and programs delivered in hundreds of early learning centres, Hey Dee Ho brings high-quality, joyful learning experiences that children genuinely love.

We are so fortunate to have this wonderful program as part of our routine, and we love seeing the excitement and engagement it brings on Friday!

https://heydeeho.com.au/

This week, the children explored feelings and ways to be kind to each other. We also connected our learning to an important moment in Australia's history, the National Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples, which was about saying sorry for past unfairness and showing care for everyone.

We started by talking about feelings. We looked at pictures of happy, sad, angry, scared, and loved faces. The children shared times when they feel happy or safe, like playing with friends or spending time with family. They also talked about what helps them feel better when they are sad.

Next, we explored families and belonging. Children drew pictures of their families or the people who care for them and shared stories about who helps them when they feel sad and what makes them feel loved. This helped them understand that, just like families and communities, need care and kindness too.

We then discussed what sorry means. We talked about times we might need to say sorry, such as when we accidentally hurt someone or their feelings.

Children drew pictures of saying sorry or helping a friend. We connected this to the National Apology, explaining that sometimes saying sorry is important not only for our friends or family, but also to show fairness and care for groups of people who have been hurt in the past.

After that, we created our Kindness Tree. Each child drew one kind thing they could do, such as Sharing, helping a friend, or giving a smile. Adding our ideas to the tree reminded us that small acts of kindness can help people feel included and cared for.

The children were thoughtful, engaged, and excited to share their ideas. They are beginning to understand how feelings, saying sorry, and kindness help everyone feel safe, loved, and included.

This expereice helped children build empathy, understanding, and strong friendships, and also introduced them to the idea that saying sorry and showing kindness can make a difference not just in our classroom, but in the world around us.

What a wonderful week we have had celebrating Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea! ☕💛

Throughout the week, our children have been actively engaged in a range of meaningful experiences including baking delicious treats, creating decorations, preparing invitations, and working together to help organise our special morning tea event. The children showed incredible creativity, teamwork, and enthusiasm as they collaborated with one another and contributed their own unique ideas and skills.

Children have been building confidence, strengthen social connections, develop communication and problem-solving skills, and learning the value of kindness, community, and helping others. It has been beautiful to see everyone come together for such a meaningful cause.

A huge thank you to our amazing educators, wonderful children, and supportive families for your generosity and participation.

Together, we have raised $58 for this incredible cause!!! 🎉

Thank you for helping make our Biggest Morning Tea such a special and successful event! 💛
If you would still like to donate, you can donate below on this link:

https://www.biggestmorningtea.com.au/fundraisers/aprilthackeray/biggest-morning-tea-vic?ref=ch_3TZgQzCKshs1Bx4v1qH8ISg4

Our Philosophy in review 🤍

At Goodstart Early Learning Bourchier St, we review, reflect on, and update our Centre Philosophy each year to ensure it continues to represent who we are, what we value, and how we support our children, families, educators, and community.

This year, our children, families, and educators have been collaborating with us by sharing their voices, ideas, and thoughts as we work collectively together to review our philosophy. We have loved hearing the wonderful ideas and feedback being brought forward, with a strong focus on safety, community, culture and diversity, education and care, and the importance of relationships and connections.

A Centre Philosophy is so important as it helps guide our everyday practices, decisions, and goals. It reflects our shared values and vision for creating a welcoming, inclusive, and supportive environment for every child and family. Most importantly, it ensures that every voice matters and is valued within our learning community. 🌱

If you haven’t already contributed and would like to share your thoughts, please speak with one of the team members at Bourchier St and we can provide you with a feedback form.

We truly appreciate all the feedback and support we have already received, thank you for being part of our journey and helping shape our centre philosophy for the future. 🤍

👏🏼 Last night our team came together for our annual Excursion Training, and what an incredible session it was!

At Goodstart Early Learning Bourchier St, the safety and wellbeing of our children is always our highest priority. Each year, our educators complete refresher training to ensure they are up to date with any changes, updates, and best practice processes when taking children out into the community.

During the session, educators worked collaboratively in small groups to assess potential risks, analyse effective control measures, and develop strategies to minimise any impacts. Using a Bow Tie Risk Management approach, the team identified preventative controls and response strategies, which then informed our risk assessments.

This activity, helps us create safe, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences beyond the centre walls. We are so proud of our dedicated educators for their professionalism, teamwork, and commitment to keeping every child safe.

We can’t wait for the whole centre to begin engaging in exciting excursions and community experiences ahead! 🌟

💪🏼Protective Strategies Team Meeting 💪🏼

Tonight’s team meeting was a valuable and meaningful session as we unpacked the new Protective Strategies Kit from Goodstart Early Learning.

This comprehensive kit is designed to support educators, children, and families in building a strong culture of safety and wellbeing. It includes a range of practical resources such as conversation guides, child-friendly materials, educator training tools, and clear frameworks to help us confidently teach and reinforce protective behaviours, empowering our little people to be safe. Giving them the tools to speak up and find trust in a safe person.

We broke off into small groups to explore each topic in depth, discussing how we can put these strategies into our everyday practice with embedded intention.Together, we created mind maps to capture our ideas, before coming back as a whole team to share, reflect, and unpack them even further. This collaborative approach allowed us to learn from one another and strengthen our understanding as a team.

We explored how these resources empower children to understand their rights, recognise safe and unsafe situations, and feel confident to speak up. For educators, the kit provides structured guidance and professional learning opportunities to ensure we are responding appropriately and consistently. It also offers families helpful information and language to continue these important conversations at home.

Goodstart is a child safe organisation and now more than ever, we are empowering our children to feel safe and be safe.

We’re proud to continue learning and growing as a team to create a safe and nurturing environment for all children in our care.🫶🏽

⭐Immediate vacancies available ⭐

We understand that finding immediate childcare can be an emotional and challenging experience and we are here to help.

Our tour slots are open all week, you are welcome to book online or call our friendly family support team on 1800 222 543. We look forward to welcoming you and your family into our happy centre 😀