 Welcome back to the second part of our video presentation on early learning within Holy Spirit Catholic schools. In the first series we looked at professional development and the critical nature of professional development within the programs. During this section we're going to take a look at the actual structure and how the programs are designed to be the best learning play-based environments for young children. Within Holy Spirit Catholic schools we have a centrally based early learning team which consists of myself as the early learning coordinator, two speech language pathologists, as well as a lead teacher who assists in developing and providing program for our pre-kindergarten programs. The front line staff is the most important part in the in the entire program. We have in each program we have a early childhood educator who is a program, who we term as a program leader. She is essentially the teacher of the program. Every program also has a speech language assistant who is who is supervised by our speech language pathologists and she looks after providing support for children who have mild to moderate program needs. Finally we have dependent on need, we have educational assistants who provide support and facilitation for children with more severe support needs. The assistants help these children to be the most successful and really it's their job to work themselves out of a job. We want to move children towards independence and we want children to be interacting with their peers and not with the assistant that is that has been assigned to to support them. Long before children arrive at school in September the the process has already begun. We are really in feel it's important for for universal screening to occur so that we know prior to the children coming through who needs support. Is there is there additional support that we need to put in place and and is there anything anything else that we should be aware of so that we're ready when the child comes through the door. We really feel strongly that the child shouldn't have to wait till he's ready or she's ready for the program. The program has to be ready for the child when they walk through the door and screening prior to is is really a critical part. We're particularly lucky here in Lethbridge we have a collaborative partnership with the health region the school jurisdictions as well as other other partnering professionals that provide universal screening using a tool called ages and stages and the ages and stages is is a tool that that gives a rough overview of of where the children are in terms of their social development their motor development their language development as well as as well as their their fine motor development. If something if something comes up as as being perhaps a reason for further investigation during those community-based screenings we can make referral to the health region directly so if a child needs support with their large motor movement will will make make a referral. If their language or their speech is is seen as being perhaps not not developmentally where it should be then we can we can further investigate that as well and this just this just gives us all the information we need prior to the child beginning school. Within Holy Spirit schools we have orientation in the in this in the spring of the year. Of course you know coming in to do to do a little a little test is is so boring and so we've decided that that we would term the have the orientations have a theme and so we have pirate days where every child who's registered to attend would program with us in the following September they and their family are invited to come and do some a lot of really fun pirate type activities make do crafts and they even get to walk the plank and of course all of the adults are dressed up as pirates and it's it's it's a really fun day but one component of that day is completion of an assessment a standardized assessment called Kauffman's Survey of Early Academic and Language Skills and this this will give gives us some deeper information and especially for parents who choose not to go to the ages and stages check up it gives us it gives us an opportunity to to look a little deeper. The really nice thing about doing it during the orientation phase of the day is that the parents are there with the child so if a child is is shy or if they if they for whatever reason are not comfortable going with a complete stranger who looks like a pirate go figure we would be we have the parent right there and the caseals is a very is a very quick assessment that gives us some really good information and it can be scored and reviewed with the parent right then so there's no there's no questions and there's no leaving oh I wonder how I wonder how Susie did with whatever so we can review and explain to them what what the scores mean and and if there's additional support that we can provide for for whatever whatever reason we can have that conversation with the parents right there and so it really it helps to alleviate a lot of parental concerns but it also gives us a a good opportunity to have a very clear idea of what and what we need to provide in each program for the upcoming school year program program delivery and program structure is really is really built in on a pyramid of supports and interventions so on our pyramid at the bottom of the pyramid we have universal supports so that's what every child receives when they come through the door regardless of regardless of everything of anything that's what that's what they receive this component of the program was developed by myself and and our speech language pathologists and it's really a literacy based program where each week there's a a book that is the book of the week and so all the activities and and all of the games and songs will come out from that book and it also gives an opportunity for multiple readings and which is really an important part of emerging literacy skills also in the universal in the universal supports our gym programs we have access to the gyms in the school we have access to the libraries so within the universal supports everybody everybody is provided with that that component the next piece on the pyramid would be targeted supports so those would be the children that that might need a little bit of extra support in developing their language social skills motor skills and that component of the program is is individually is individually established and individually based the the thing to remember is that is that development particularly in the early years is definitely a continuum and some children are going to develop and some children are going to to reach milestones at different paces and that's perfectly fine and that's that's something when we when we sit down and we and we talk with parents that's something that we really want to reiterate to parents is that this is not this is not something to to be panicked about but we have these resources it's fun and and we can we can provide that extra little bit of of support so that the child is better able and better ready to move on to the kindergarten environment when the time comes at the very top of the pyramid is our specialized support services um specialized and the specialized support services within the programs would be it would be a very small segment of of the population again these these are children who who really need a lot of support in facilitating their their actions and throughout the day but although although they they need that that extra support we've really moved away from it being a pullout go to another room to work on whatever their goals happen to be into into a place where where they're in the program they're with their peers they're with other adults so they're not only responding to the one adult who who may be assigned to to that child this this change in in program delivery um occurred probably about four years ago and it was really a kind of a painful process for the educational assistants who were used to coming in and saying okay which child is my child and so so we kind of strategically were evasive with the assistants so that they got to know all of the children they got to know the needs of all of the children and so everybody every adult in the program was supporting the needs of that child it was also an interesting an interesting development with parents as well because parents in the past would seek out the educational assistant now they they seek out the teacher who who has that more global view of of how of how johnny's day went and puts less pressure on the educational assistant to to answer um what may be very specific and very difficult questions to to answer i think one of the most important questions we can ask at this point is why does any of this matter why is early learning so important the early learning opportunities creates the foundation for later learning children who have successful and and positive opportunities and interactions in in their early stages of life tend to have more success down the road and and tend to to be the ones who are who complete high school and move on to to other opportunities um adult to adult child child interactions are critical and positive interactions are critical children need to know and need and some need to learn how to how to make those those social interactions a positive and an enjoyable thing for them but also for for the peer or adult that they're that they're that they're reciprocating with and so so teaching children to be effective communicators is going to serve them for the rest of their lives early learning and positive opportunities is particularly particularly important for children who are maybe maybe living in in situations where they're where they're vulnerable so children who who are living in poverty children who are are experiencing violence in their home children who who may not have the opportunities that that we that we really wish and want all children to have those children having a positive early learning experience can help to mitigate some of the negative negative vulnerabilities that that that they have to deal with on a daily basis and finally this is the generation that's coming up we want them to be the most empathetic the best skill and and the and the most the most socially conscious of any of of the generations that have come before and early learning plays a part in that if you would like any further information on early learning programs within Holy Spirit Catholic Schools please feel free to contact me email at michelle.mckinnon.holyspirit.ab.ca I think when we work together we really have a more powerful voice because our children truly are our future