Female: Good morning Harry. Just sign for Harry there.
We've always had the bus run. It gives us a lot of face to face contact to the parents. There might be other members of the family around there, we have a little chat, have a yarn, and the kids love it. They jump on the bus, they wave goodbye to their parents and stuff like that. So it plays a really big part in our communication with parents and the community, and you know it's fun. All the kids get to see who lives where and what's happening, and a staff member is always standing out the front, saying good morning, you know, and bringing the kids in.
Female 1: Pretty dress Annabelle.
The ways that I try to engage parents is to have an open classroom. They often participate in the morning routine with us, whether it be like putting the stickers in the folders or coming and sitting during the nap time. We also like to invite parents to come and be involved maybe to present an activity. So we often have visitors coming from community as well.
[SINGING]
And I often do sit down and have a - an informal conversation. It's not a formal - nothing's ever formal with our mob too. It's always sitting down, having that informal chit-chat around questions that they want to ask you. But on family days, like I'll put something in there to tell the parents you know, if you want to help us, because this is what we're doing at the moment. The kids are learning about Grandpa Gramp, it's a story about the sea, and they could help us create some different sort of sizes of fish, and of course get them to help the children learn those names, those words for size. Big, bigger, biggest. You know, because often parents are the role models for their children, and if the children see the parents interested in something, then it's more likely that the children become interested in it as well.
Female 1: Oh isn't that a beautiful story. Do you like that story?
Talking to parents and having those conversations, and you know you have to have your - your relationships with those parents and say, you know next time when you're at home, instead of saying to your child come on let's set the table and put the cups out, let's use the pink cups today. Or pass mummy the green peas.
Sitting down on the beach where - you know, this is our context. You know, we're right on the beach, so when you're sitting there, get your kids to draw pictures in the sand and say oh this is ssssss, everyone knows that, it's just how are we going to use it that's going to help them in a school environment.
If you don't establish those really good relationships with parents, why would parents send them to us? You know, we wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for parents who obviously bring them every day and trust us enough to ensure that their child is safe here every day.
It's because of the relationships that we have with family and community that this place is so successful.