Page 9 - Freckles_Handbook

Communication With Whānau

Freckles aims to make communication with parents as open, regular and
informative as possible. We acknowledge that while parents are interested in all
aspects of their child’s school, they are often restricted by time. Therefore, we have
implemented a variety of communication methods: newsletters, notices posted in
the centre and on our Facebook page.

Profile Books
Formal and informal sharing of your child’s progress will be ongoing throughout
their time at our centre. Each child has a Profile Book, which will be used to
document your child’s individual learning goals, their achievements and magical
moments of their time at Freckles. We encourage parents to add their voice to their
child’s Profile Book through their own stories, quotes, photos and experiences. The
children love reading and sharing these special books and they become a wonderful
keepsake for families.
Special Events
Parent, whānau evenings and special celebration events are a wonderful
opportunity to connect with your child’s special teacher and to provide an
opportunity to interact with the team outside of the busy pick up/drop off times.
We hold these evenings regularly throughout the year and welcome you and your
whānau to attend.

Positive Guidance of Children’s Behaviour

It is the policy of Freckles to focus on encouragement and positive guidance rather
than behaviour management. Staff recognise why a child behaves in a certain way
and encourage more acceptable forms of behaviour.
Our policy is based on the importance of respect and dignity for the child,
acknowledging and accepting children’s feelings and encouraging these feelings to
be expressed. Steps that we take towards implementing positive guidance include:

• Ensuring the learning environment is set up with a range of experiences with
which children of all ages can be fully engaged.
• Ensuring the layout of the environment will facilitate supervision of children at
all times.
• Role modelling and using positive interactions with children to support
learning.
• Using recognition of effort and praise as a positive reinforcement for children.
• Explaining appropriate and inappropriate behaviours to children.
• Encouraging children to express their feelings and take turns.
• Encouraging communication AND listening skills with children.
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