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Published: October 17th 2012
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Today I had the privilege of visiting 2 kindergartens as part of my work here.
Qilu University Shandong China has partnered with Southbank Institute of Technology Queensland Australia to deliver a Diploma of Child Studies to students.
Chinese and Australian teachers are training the students to work as kindergarten assistants.
As part of this training the students must do work experience at a kindergarten and they do this in blocks of 2 weeks.
There they volunteer, and work alongside the paid staff working with the children in the rooms.
Each kindergarten caters for children from 3-6years and this is non-compulsory but seen as highly valuable, so many children attend.
The two I visited today had enrolments of 500 and the other 600, with 40 children in the junior rooms and 50 in the senior rooms, with three staff in each room.
We have 3 students in each room with one kindergarten hosting 17of them at one time.
We have 90 students to place at one time and Jinan is fortunate to have the BEST kindergarten in the whole of Shandong province close to the university.
It
has won many awards, proudly on display, the environment was so clean and welcoming, the children looked extremely contented and happy, the staff looked like they were enjoying their jobs, and our students all reported being very happy working there.
I went with another one of the staff from Qilu University and a translator. We were welcomed with open arms and shown around some of the rooms.
The junior children were having lunch around 10-45am, a hot cooked meal of soup, meat, vegetable dish and a steamed bread bun. The staff served the students meals onto trays and the children used spoons to eat, sitting at tables and chairs. It was orderly but had happy noise from both staff and children.
After lunch they all have a 2 hour sleep, on purpose built little beds with bedding supplied by the kindergarten.
The middle and senior children all get to play after their lunch for a period of time, as they need to sleep less.
One group was on their little sunny balcony, which comes off each room. The children all had large balls and were playing whatever
they wanted with them.
Another group was playing in the outdoor play ground, again free play, self-chosen and directed.
The junior room had a dramatic play area which apparently the children loved; there was multiples of equipment, lots of blocks, books, toys.
One kindergarten utilised the talents of their staff and had this as a speciality subject for each of the teaching floors e.g music, calligraphy.
The older children were learning some words of English and were keen to try it out on me, I said hello so many times. Some knew and wanted to say a little more. As the adults were talking some of the children came over to listen and they were encouraged to stay and hear the new language sounds.
In the corridors of one kindy there were pictures of an excursion, this was part of the students’ learning about Jinan and its famous springs, history lessons in action.
Beside the display of the photographs were the parent’s letters about how they and their children felt about the excursion and how they appreciated it and what the children had learnt.
Natural materials are used in collage, such as rice, grains, leaves and flowers, with outlines for the children to follow. The children would be imitating the order they see in the parks and gardens where there are flower and tree displays that are highly ordered and stylised.
A science lesson was also on display in one of the corridors, with the children learning about each of their senses and then they had to draw what they wanted in that space to represent what they understood about it. This was for the six year old children, quite similar to what we would be doing in Grade 1.
Overall there are many similarities between our kindy, preschools and preps and these kindergartens.
There may be a little more structure here, but with so many children and a country with so many people, as a nation there is more structure and order in life here so this is a cultural thing.
A huge positive is that the children are still in a play based environment up to 6 years of age.
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