The start of KG is wonderful and exciting for everyone involved, but the importance of a great start cannot be underestimated. KG is the start of every child's education journey, starting that journey right each year lays good foundations for the 15/16-year school journey your children have ahead of them. At NKCS we take our responsibility for starting right and fostering a love for school very seriously, so we launched a new and exciting KG to start the year right this year!

Before children even set foot inside the building, so much happened. Over summer our KG burst into life, with the building of a new Movers and Shakers Sensory Integration room.

01 Movers and Shakers Sensory Integration room

02 Little Scientists Light Adventure Lab

03 Little Explorers Nature Centre

04 Outdoor Classroom Adventure Centre

As well as an incredible new welcome space for us to exhibit our learning. Children have already had great fun exploring and many have taken their families to see what is new. Everyone is excited to learn!

Whilst the KG learning environment was growing and developing, our curriculum was too, with teams of teachers exploring the latest research and development in the field to bring new specialist STEAM curriculum to our young learners and plan extra PE exploration and sensory integration schemes of work running throughout the year. These new curriculums take 21st century skills, top 10 target skills for development, and the abundant resources of our incredible campus, and turn them into hands on, engaging learning programs for our kindergarten students.

Teachers make the biggest difference in any education setting. Before school began our whole KG team participated in two days of sensory integration training, ensuring everyone has knowledge and skills to help children lay the very best foundations in this area. Using sensory integration to stimulate children’s senses for fantastic vestibular and proprioceptive development is important for all round growth and is the foundation of all later skills. Massive investment in resources and teacher development means we are ready and excited about getting this right for every child, as we set them off on their road to learning.

When it was time for children and families to return, our focus became making sure both children and families feel safe and supported from day 1. One-to-one family meetings gave parents and grandparents a chance to get to know teachers, share updates from the summer, and discuss hopes and dreams for the coming academic year. Our getting to know your classroom morning made sure children and families they had the opportunity to explore new classrooms and school spaces together, finding cubbies, making name tags, taking family and student photos, building confidence in the school space together, and starting the year joyfully.

After all this preparation, transition week was upon us, and what a week it was!!! The start of school for our youngest students is gradual, building stamina and a sense of belonging. When children feel safe, they are ready and able to learn, so helping children feel safe must always be step one! Talking about how you feel is an important part of that journey to safety and belonging, so on day one our young learners made a collage of their feelings about that special first morning, creating a magical start of school canvas to be displayed in KG all year!

Children have settled incredibly well this week, even our youngest learners in Nursery are having a ball! Specialist lessons have begun, classrooms are already filled with the creations of our young learners and every corner of the kindergarten is filled with life and laughter!

Parents have joined a meeting for each grade level, where curriculum, activities, and the exciting learning journey for the year were shared, and families had the chance to ask questions and suggest topics for our upcoming monthly parent workshops.

Ensuring we start well on our road to learning needs the support of everyone in the community, teachers, parents, children and the team who help ensure our learning space is more exciting and engaging each year. Our mission in KG is to foster confident young learners, and this year we already know our KG children are well on their way to being confident and inspiring citizens of the future!