Our Mount Gambier Village

A FREE Teachers’ Professional Development opportunity for schools in the Blue Lake Partnership is being offered to all teaching staff through a partnership with NRM Education, DECD PACIO/SACIO and an Aboriginal Cultural Consultant.

The program will be offered across a full day on Wednesday 11th March Term 1-Week 7 8.45am – 4pm

Venue: Main Corner Complex City Hall Mount Gambier

Teaching With An Indigenous Perspective Program at a Glance:

8.45 Registration at Main Corner Complex City Hall, off Cave Gardens and board bus.

9.00 Experience and explore Bunganditj country tour, which can be run for a class of students, travelling from the Blue Lake to the coast at Port Mac Donnell with local elders and support teachers.

12.30 Lunch back at City Hall (provided)

1.00 *NEW Teaching with an Indigenous Perspective SE kit by NRM Education SE.

*Australian Curriculum links with Linda Clayton (ACC), Ros Cord-Udy (SACIO) & Andrea Lawrie (PACIO)

*View display boards of schools currently integrating Aboriginal studies

2.30 Participant planning to incorporate Aboriginal Perspectives into their teaching and learning programs.

3.30 Participants share planning outcomes

For more information contact:

Natasha Dawson - Environment Education Coordinator - NRM SE - 0427 015 531

Ros Cord Udy (SACIO) - 0408 588 375

Andrea Lawrie (PACIO) – 0427 015 531

Registrations by fax to Natasha Dawson by 20th Feb 2015 on 8735 1135

The Mount Gambier 50 Things To Do Before You Turn 13 project has seen thousands of checklists distributed to children and families across Mount Gambier. As the children have been returning to school we're hearing that many of them have been working hard towards completing the checklists. Well done to all the children and families involved in exploring our city.

Check out Mount Gambier's kids doing some of the 50 things this link below.

http://www.filmitall.com.au/video/50-things/

The 2014 Echo Limestone Coast Early Years Forum – Birth – 6 years is on again.

This year’s theme is: Connectedness – Community, Family, Learning.

Saturday August 23^rd 2014. TAFE SA Mount Gambier, Wireless Rd.

9:00 to 2:15 PM (registration from 8:30)

The forum will feature:

Keynote Speaker: Marilyn Hayward, ECHO Co-President

Various workshops with  a focus on birth to 6 years including:

Michaley Battery: Inspiring Spaces for Playful Leaning.

Marilyn Hayward & Susan Sandows: The Story Nest

Charmaine Suares-Howard: Children as Citizens

Brioni Pridham: Going Bush & Getting Connected

Linda Clayton: DECD Aboriginal Cultural Consultant – From Cultural Awareness to Cultural Competency – How to Get There.

Local Poster Sessions: Featuring various stories from our Village, including;

Acacia Kindergarten,

McKay Children’s Centre,

Melaleuca Kindergarten,

City of Mount Gambier,

Mount Gambier Children’s Centre.

Award Presentation: Dianne Manhood ‘Commitment for excellence in the early years’.

"From before birth, children belong through their connections to family, community, culture and place.  Warm reciprocal relationships between parents, carers, families and children are the foundation of children’s learning and development.  As children participate in everyday life they develop new relationships, new interest and construct their own identities and understandings of the world." (ELYF Educator Guide)

Registrations Close: 19^th August 2014. Cost $65 (incl. GST)

For further information contact John Merrett on 8725-0211 or john.merrett@directions.org.au

Australia’s foremost cyber safety expert wrapped up her week long visit to the Limestone Coast on Friday after delivering an awareness session for over 100 professionals.  Susan’s visit has increased information of hundreds of parents, caregivers, school children, teachers and other professionals.   Her Limestone Coast Workshop tour was an initiative of the Limestone Coast LSC Drug Action Team, hosted by SAPOL.

The documents Susan provided at the parent and Professional’s lectures including her list of recommended websites, is available in the Our Mount Gambier Village Library. To learn more about Susan’s work  you can go directly to her excellent  website at http://www.cybersafetysolutions.com.au/

The ‘Mount Gambier 50 Things To Do Before You Turn 13’ project invited people to share their ideas to develop a list to inspire Mount Gambier families to explore our special part of the world. We heard from children, teenagers, grandparents and parents about the great things on offer in and around Mount Gambier, including our well known, and hidden treasures.

The List was distributed to families across Mount Gambier in late 2014.

Background;

The ‘Mount Gambier 50 Things To Do Before You Turn 13’project was launched in May 2014, as part of National Families’ Week, to the theme of Strong Families, Strong Communities.

In the previous 12 months, there has been extensive work undertaken by the Early Childhood community in Mount Gambier, along with the City of Mount Gambier to identify opportunities to better support our families and young children from all across the City, to thrive and embrace the many opportunities Mount Gambier has to offer young people.

The Australian Early Development Index forum hosted in Mount Gambier in July 2013, highlighted an evident disparity in our community, identifying there are large numbers of children under 4 who are not doing as well as other children of the same age. The aim of any healthy community is for all its’ children to have the same opportunity to grow and thrive. So when that is not happening, we need to act.

We also knew through the Perspectives of the Child project that many young children from Mount Gambier, had difficulty discussing and identifying with their own home town, yet were able to easily discuss other areas of the country that they had visited on holidays such as Adelaide, Queensland and Warrnambool.

Identifying opportunities to better support our families and young children from all across the City, to thrive and embrace the many opportunities Mount Gambier has to offer young people became a key focus.

The ‘Mount Gambier 50Things To Do Before You Turn 13’ project was developed to help provide local families with a checklist to inspire them to further explore our special part of the world, and by doing so, encourage children to feel a sense of citizenship and belonging to our community.

The '50 Things' concept is not new, we have been inspired by previous communities that have completed similar projects for their own area, but this one is specifically Mount Gambier's.

making the list has been a joint effort from a wide group of people who know our children are capable, competent and contributing citizens.

If you missed out on a list, and would like on, please contact the City of Mount Gambier on 8721-2504.

Thank you to everyone who took part.

A short film detailing the project can be viewed at this 'Film It All' link;

http://www.filmitall.com.au/video/50-things/

For more information about this project, please contact Fiona Pulford, Community Development Coordinator, Mount Gambier Children’s Centre on 8725-7375 or email: Fiona.Pulford@sa.gov.au.

Please find below a list of useful short Education videos found on YouTube for your review.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms (11 min)

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? (20 min)

Pasi Sahlberg on the Finnish Education System (16 min)

Pasi Sahlberg on Equity and Finland's Education System (10 min)

Pasi Sahlberg (3 min)

Ken Robinson - The Element (40 min)

RSA Shorts - How to find your Element (3 min)

Ken Robinson - How to escape education's death valley (20 min)

Ken Robinson - Hot to Change Education (24 min)

Professor Carla Rinaldi - Making Learning VisibleProfessor Carla Rinaldi - Making Learning Visible (3 min)

Adelaide Thinkers in Residence YouTube Channel

If you come across a video you think is useful and you would like it included within this news article, please feel free to submit the link through the Request For Upload form on this site.

Following the series of forums and workshops held in Mount Gambier over the past two years the City of Mount Gambier’s Lifelong Learning Sub Committee is developing partnership projects which enhance our community across each stage of the learning cycle.

With a goal of making Mount Gambier the most liveable City for all of our citizens, we recognised the importance of developing a pledge with local services to allow our children to flourish in their earliest years.

To date the sub-committee has primarily focused on partnerships in the early childhood stage of the lifelong learning cycle. 

Through the Perspectives of the Child project we have listened to young children as well as the early learning educators who support them.  This has been important as the City recognises the value in encouraging and respecting the perspectives of children and responding to their requests and interests. 

We appreciate it takes a village to raise a child, and that villages are enhanced by having inquisitive, active, happy children who explore and participate actively in community life.

The City of Mount Gambier welcomes the opportunity of working with our “whole village”, as we work towards developing a Children’s Charter for this City. 

In late 2014, we met with a broad representation of local champions, to draft the Mount Gambier Charter for Children. Check out the video here.

This charter aims to serve as an aspirational set of principles, to guide the work of Council and early learning services who wish to subscribe to the Charter’s principles.

Though the focus is early childhood, with the aim of decreasing rates of developmental delay in the region (recorded independently by the Australian Early Childhood Index -AEDI) we recognise the Charter principles have relevance and application across childhood.

For further information on the Mount Gambier Charter for Children, please contact City of Mount Gambier Community Development Officer, Alison Brash on (08) 8721 2504 or abrash@mountgambier.sa.gov.au. 

Under the auspice of the “Perspectives of Children in the City” project the views and aspirations of a wide range of young people from across Mount Gambier were gathered.

These views were delivered in a series of presentations to Professor Carla Rinaldi by early childhood leaders from kindergartens, childcare centres, preschools, children’s centres and OSHC who had sought the views of young people on a range of questions that included:

• What are the places you like to visit with your friends and family?
• Where do you like to play and why?
• What makes your place special?
• Where don’t you like to go and why?
• What do you think would make Mount Gambier even better?

The presentations reflected the thoughts, ideas and understandings of the children in their own words and drawings. Take a look at what Mount Gambier's children have told us here.

Outcomes from “Perspectives of Children in the City”:

• Council recognises early childhood learning and development as fundamentally important
• Council acknowledges that the experts on childhood are the children themselves
• Play settings which reconnect children to nature also encourage children to problem solve, think creatively and develop their own growth and knowledge (moved)

As part of the “Perspectives” project we sought to understand the way children view their own City. We asked them to tell us and to show us. By doing this, we’ve already learned that:

• Not every child in Mount Gambier knows the name of the City they live in
• Mount Gambier children like places that allow them to explore their imagination, seek adventure, nature and height.

 These outcomes were particularly illuminating, and will support the future directions of Council.  

In July 2013, Fiona Pulford coordinated a seminar in Mount Gambier conducted by Dr Sally Brinkman; explaining the value and complexities of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI).

The AEDI is testing which occurs across Australia and is all about measuring children's development domains as an indicator of their being ready to learn when they start school. 

This index is fundamentally important in our goal of better understanding and respecting our young people.

This seminar presented for the City of Mount Gambier the true purpose and value of a Children’s Charter for our community.

The AEDI highlights that here in Mount Gambier there are a number of geographic clusters in the North and the East where AEDI figures pose a considerable concern. 

Find further information on Mount Gambier collated by Fiona Pulford here. 

During this seminar and the discussions around the AEDI and what it means for Mount Gambier, Dr Brinkman encouraged us to consider the following questions

• What is special about Mount Gambier?
• What do we need to create?
• What do we value in our community?
• What do we care about?

Take a moment to think about these questions and what they mean to you before reading our discussion notes from the seminar.

It was this discussion that enabled us to develop the top five priority areas for Mount Gambier:

1. Transport
2. Access - What is accessibility?
3. Family Support and Education
4. Family's knowledge of services
5. Breaking the cycle

Target groups were formed with attendees registering their commitment to delve deeper into one of the five priorities. The outcomes of the continuing conversations and connections made within these sessions is crucial in the development of Social Capital, whilst highlighting the importance of developing a Children's Charter for Mount Gambier.