At Broadbeach Kindergarten we aim to provide a homelike, nurturing environment where parents and children can feel secure and happy.
A place where parents, teaching staff and children can work together to provide a positive learning experience for each child.
- We offer a challenging, safe and interesting learning environment and encourage children’s curiousity, creativity, confidence, independence, discovery, co-operation and language and concept formation.
- We value and facilitate learning about the local community and the surroundings.
The physical environment at our centre is one, which we pride ourselves on and has been developed to provide rich experiences where nature is respected and admired.
- We aim to provide a rich and diverse setting to help promote the children’s learning development.
- We aim to ensure that children develop a sense of being, becoming and belonging within the immediate environment and the wider community.
Broadbeach Kindergarten’s informative “Ocean Warriors” program.
Broadbeach Kindergarten is the oldest kindergarten on the Gold Coast and is located on the beachfront in Broadbeach.
In order to educate our children further in the conservation and preservation of our beach environment we established this initiative.
We visit our beach regularly, raising awareness, teaching the children about our ocean, its inhabitants, the beach, the waves, surf safety, and why we should protect this resource by extending their skills and interests as well as challenging the children in all development areas.
The philosophy behind this is a direct reaction to the ‘bubble wrapping’ of children that has occurred over the last decade. Our aim is to support children to have a feeling of freedom, allowing children to take risks and be adventurous and facilitate the growing sense of place that is within most of us. The beach environment and resources are resources that the kindergarten children use to engage their learning in a similar way to which the forest kindergartens are doing with our European partners.
We have such a wonderful natural resource with so many learning opportunities right on our doorstep. We are thrilled to incorporate it fully into our program, as we are one of the only kindergartens in Queensland with such an accessible beach right across the road.
The Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guidelines are the framework that we utilise for our learning and assessment, the way in which we believe our children learn best is very much grounded in the community in which we live. Children, through their play, connect to the environment they are in.
We see the direct link to more collaborative learning that take place within nature, for our children to link to ownership of the place/land and become more self-sufficient in their play whilst having the opportunity to extend their sense of risk and to assess that risk through experience and competence.
We are privileged to run this program with the guidance of some engaging, skilful, and knowledgeable professionals who share their passion with our children about the ocean.
The benefits of children’s contact with the beach in their education is evident. These benefits include:
- Developing an environmental identity and consciousness.
- Different ways of moving, which improves coordination.
- Risk taking – children are more likely to develop responsible attitudes toward risk if they have experience dealing with risky situations.
- Problem solving – children are is more likely to encounter opportunities for decision making that stimulate problem solving and creative thinking because the beach and outdoor spaces are often more varied and less structured than indoor spaces.
- Socialisation – much of play is social and play promotes learning about vital social skills such as turn- taking, sharing, negotiation and leadership.
- Instilling a sense of wonder and stimulating creativity, imagination and symbolic play.
- Supporting a child’s sense of self and recognising independence, interdependence and connectedness with their ecological worlds.
- Developing a relationship with their ocean environment and special outdoor places.
This exciting program opens up a myriad of benefits for our children and their families.
Nature, through the role it plays in stimulating and encouraging physical activity and through the direct impact it has on our emotional state (e.g. through exposure to sunlight) can help alleviate mental health and well being problems.
For children, the sense of freedom experienced during the unstructured play that occurs in nature creates a source of independence and inner strength that can be drawn on during stressful situations for the rest of their lives.
Boosting this connection with, and understanding of, nature will help our children – the next generation of leaders and decision-makers – respond to looming environmental challenges such as the impacts of climate change.
Children learn that helping save the ocean starts at home and they will become our greatest teachers. They are our hope for the future and by giving them a learning environment that is interactive, alive, challenging and engaging children they believe it is their mission in life to live in harmony with all living creatures and to leave the planet a better place for future generations.
We will leave you with our “Ocean Warriors” poem – every day being with this – reinforcing our love of the ocean, our commitment to conservations and animal protection and being open to new experiences and people.
We are Seahorse/Starfish Ocean Warriors
We go to Broadbeach Kindy
We like to visit the beach each day
When it’s sunny, cold and windy.
We are Seahorse/Starfish Ocean Warriors.
We are clever, kind and keen.
We pick up rubbish on our walks,
To keep our beaches clean.
We’ve made new friends, we’ve had some fun
We’ve said “hello” to everyone.
We are Seahorse/Starfish Ocean Warriors and we never rest
We are Broadbeach Kindy kids and we are just the best!!
Libby Power, Kathryne Powell & Danielle Sorensen
Broadbeach Kindergarten
Environmentally responsible.
Broadbeach Kindergarten cares for the environment and supports children to become environmentally responsible by: –
- Children engagement with native wildlife
- Solar roof panels
- Water tanks for garden
- Worm farms
- Recycling education
- Sustainable use of resources
- Herb/Vegetable garden beds
- Annual visits from a variety of environmental educators
- Nude Food initiative- minimise packaging and rubbish produced by each child.
- Compost bin is in use by educators and gardener
- Ocean Warriors program