MARY JONES EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
ELC
The Mary Jones ELC offers an inclusive play-based program where children learn by actively engaging, participating, and exploring within a safe environment.
Our program is designed to build a positive collaborative approach between each child, their family and ELC staff, who all have input into the program and its policies.
The children’s interests are reflected in the program so that the learning inspires them and meets their individual needs.
Based on thorough research, Mentone Grammar has chosen to draw on a range of perspectives to offer an effective program that truly reflects our inclusive, caring philosophy and offers the best ELC program possible.
Underpinning all our planning is the Mentone Grammar Learning and Teaching Framework, the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework and the National Early Years Learning and Development Framework.
Focus on Wellbeing
As consistent across all campuses, the ELC embraces the highly successful RULER Wellbeing Framework where all children are consistently encouraged to understand and articulate their emotions and feelings to develop sound social and emotional intelligence.
Children benefit from the opportunity of peer mentoring, modeling, explicit teaching, and outcomes that are developmentally appropriate for their own level. Our ELC is well supposed by a Learning Enhancement team if the need arises for additional learning support.
Our Programs
- Inquiry-based learning where each child initiates the learning, explores, experiments and analyses, and at all times is encouraged and supported by the teacher.
- Intentional teaching is teacher-driven and initiated. Factual learning is imparted as part of the curriculum, and the teacher plans for this to occur.
- Skill-based learning supports each child’s skill development to be accurately planned for and evaluated.
The Principles and Practices of the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia are founded on the belief that:
- Children are capable and competent learners.
- Children actively construct their own learning.
- Learning is dynamic, complex, and holistic.
- Children have agency. They have capacities and rights to initiate and lead learning and be an active participant and decision maker in matters affecting them.
Learning Opportunities
Our staff use a variety of methods to document a child’s learning including portfolios of the children’s work, photo documentation, reflective journals and developmental checklists which are always available to families.
One of the many benefits of being part of an ELC to Year 12 school is that students in our ELC have many opportunities to take their learning outside the Centre to utilise the whole Campus facilities and resources and participate in a range of cross-campus events and activities to interact and learn from the older students. We visit the School’s cafés, Mentone Aquatic centre, sports fields and even our beachfront camp at Shoreham.
A Safe Environment
We are proud to offer a nurturing place where children feel safe, secure, and valued and where families feel comfortable and confident in leaving their children each day. We enjoy building relationships with our children and families and are passionate about working with families to foster enthusiastic learners with all the tools necessary to embrace the more formal learning programs in the primary years.
We encourage confident, happy children who are eager to arrive each day to see their teachers and to connect with the endless learning, fun and friendships on offer. We aim to challenge all our students by inspiring them to be active learners and thinkers, full of curiosity about the world around them.