Jean Grima
Centre Manager - First Grammar Castle Hill
"Bringing harmony, truth, love, joy of learning and stillness (focus)."
Children are independent curious little humans and they wonder what/why/how things works a certain way. I like to enhance their ability to feel completely equipped to respond to life.
My approach to helping children on their learning and life journey is to actively listen and observe what our children require on an individual capacity and in group situations developing a simple, practical, user friendly and life changing program to approach each child and met their needs.
The extra curriculum activities enhance our learning with swimming lessons, incursions & excursions (to the theatre, nature walks, Library visit, PLS (Positive living Skills) which is a social impact program which is focused on developing a child’s secure sense of self, building awareness and skills to understand emotions and behaviours, and to form healthy and secure relationships while interacting appropriately with others. This program is throughout the whole centre in each room. Sustainability program with a visiting sustainability officer weekly, music lessons and key research into child interest-based learning.
The best part of my job is the team – they are so committed and positive about their role as educators. The whole team sees their role as incredibly important, helping children establish the building blocks for a successful lifetime of learning. We feel confident to sometimes need to bring an observation to a family’s attention in a positive supportive way. We are not afraid to have the tough communication as representatives for each child.
We provide afternoon snacks made fresh on site a few times a week for the families on their way home. We have a special fruit box that each family receive once or twice a year as a thank you for trusting us with their most previous gift their child. We provide yearly a dinner on us evening were the families have dinner prepared for them and they don’t have to worry about preparing at home. The local Hills Men Shed have upcycled old furniture and redesign and recreate something for the children and their play. We invite our neighbours to visit and have set up a R U OK cookie stall to share with our community. We have collected home items to share with charities and those less fortunate than ourselves.