PROGRAM STATEMENT

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School is committed to ensuring the development of children within its care according to the Minister’s policy statement on programming and pedagogy. All families and educators are encouraged to familiarize themselves with our Program Statement and their roles and responsibilities when implementing these views. Our policies and procedures include best practices provided by the CCEYA.

Please see attached documents on the Ministry of Educations website to support this policy:

1. How Does Learning Happen? Ontario’s Pedagogy for the Early Years
2. Ontario Early Years Framework
3. Ontario Early Learning Framework
4. Think Feel Act: Lessons from Research About Young Children
5. Early Learning for Every Child Today

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School also uses the Montessori Approach in our Preschool program. Our Montessori program resembles and emphasizes How Does Learning Happen? in several ways. Since we know that children learn best by pursuing their personal interests and goals, children’s learning is guided through structure, use of materials and objects, and interactive lessons all towards an established set of goals for each child. The overarching principle mimics our best practices that call for the child’s behaviour to be constructive for his or her development, and for the community too.

CHILDREN ARE COMPETENT, CAPABLE, CURIOUS AND RICH IN POTENTIAL

Zac’s philosophy reflects the view of children as being competent, capable, curious and rich in potential with the support of age appropriate equipment, flexible routines, and provocative environments that encourage curiosity.

Our goals for children, consistent with the Ministry of Education pedagogy include the following:

• Every child has a sense of belonging when he or she is connected to others and contributes to their world.
• Every child is developing a sense of self, health, and well-being.
• Every child is an active and engaged learner who explores the world with body, mind, and sense.
• Every child is a capable communicator who expresses himself or herself in many ways.

To foster learning and support our children’s interests, Zac’s offers a variety of daily activities that nurtures the continuum of development presented in each age group. These areas include:

• Language and physical literacy
• Numeracy
• Music, dance and visual arts
• Active Outdoor Play
• Science, nature and technology
• Construction and design
• Rest time

HEALTH, SAFETY, NUTRITION AND WELL-BEING OF CHILDREN

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School understands the importance of physical and mental health and wellness. We are committed to working together with the children and families to create a healthy sense of self, incorporate opportunities to support self-care and promote self-regulation skills. Our program will nurture each child’s healthy development and support their growing sense of self. We will be supporting our children’s well-being through:

• A clean and safe environment
• Nutrition based on the Canada’s Food Guide
• Access to drinking water throughout the day
• Limited transitions and unnecessary disruptions to play
• Eliminating any environmental issues that may cause undue stress to the child
• Reducing or being mindful of hazards that may cause injury
• All Educators and students will familiarize themselves with all information concerning any medical conditions, exceptionalities, allergies, food restrictions, medication requirements, and parental preferences in respect to diet, exercise and rest time.

Health and Safety

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School is committed to ensuring the health and safety of all adults and children within our care. We strive to exceed all health and safety requirements of the Ministry of Education and local government bylaws.

Nutrition

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School is committed to ensuring the health and well-being of children within its care. We collaborate with Food for Tots in order to provide nutritious and appealing meals to our children that exceed Canada’s Food Guide standards. Our standard menu is prepared with a registered dietician and our support educators are required to obtain their Food Handling and Safety Certification when preparing or distributing meals to our children. Our menus are posted throughout our school and website and we are able to accommodate any dietary or religious food requirements for our children in our programs.

RELATIONSHIPS AMONG CHILDREN, FAMILIES, EDUCATORS AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School works with families and their children as a team. By using a multidisciplinary approach, we understand that sometimes it takes a village to raise a child and the importance of each element represents. We foster collaborative and co-operative relationships between children and the adults. We view the community as a valuable resource and our educators plan learning opportunities to engage the community in our programs.

We promote a sense of belonging for children and their families in our classrooms by creating positive interactions and collaboration of families. We are committed to working collaboratively with all our community partners as well in order to meet the best interest of the children and their families.

POSITIVE SELF-EXPRESSION, COMMUNICATION AND SELF-REGULATION 

At Zac’s, we have developed policies, practises and environments that respect and support inclusion, meaning participation, and a sense of belonging for all children. Through positive learning environments and experiences, active play-based learning, encouraging children’s self-expression, communication, and self-regulation our children will be able to have the ability to better control their emotions and bodily functions as well as maintain focus and attention.

Our Early Childhood Educators will encourage children to interact and communicate in a positive way, and support their ability to self-regulate on a daily basis; acknowledging that each child is competent, curious and rich in potential. Educators will support self-regulation in children. Self-regulation in early development is influenced by a child’s relationship with the important adults in that child’s life, including the ECEs in the program. All educators will provide the experiences, that will support and encourage our young children to learn to self-regulate, which is a crucial component of quality care.

Our program will focus on active play-based learning and foster children’s exploration by providing a variety of activities, and an environment that is rich in content and that encourages choices. The children will be provided with child-initiated experiences and will be supported by qualified, attentive and interactive Early Childhood Educators

The Early Childhood Educators will observe the children and use that information to plan and create a positive learning environment that is based on the interests of the child, and supported by all the adults in the child care environment. Educators will be responsible for introducing new ideas, interests, facts, concepts, skills and experiences to widen the child’s knowledge and life experiences.

All Early Childhood Educators need to be reflective practitioners who learn about children through listening, observation, documentation, and discussion with others, families in particular, to understand children as unique individuals. They will observe and listen to learn how children make meaning through their experiences in the world around them, and use this to have meaningful interactions, and engage children on a daily basis.

OUTDOOR PLAY, ACTIVE PLAY AND REST

Each child will experience indoor, and two hours of outdoor play (weather permitting) daily, as well as a time to rest and sleep if needed, quiet and active times, always being mindful of each child’s needs and parental direction.

SLEEP SUPERVISION AND INFANT SLEEP POSITION

Our educators will be required to use best practise when supervising children while they are sleeping. This includes direct visual checks every 10 minutes and completing a matching sleep supervision form to document and monitor sleep for each child.

Staff will be required to use best practise when placing the infants in the cribs or cots to sleep for every sleep. This includes placing each child on their backs to sleep and once infants are able to roll from their backs to their stomachs or sides, it is not necessary to reposition them onto their backs.

Strollers, swings, bouncers, and car seats are not intended for infant sleep and it is important to move the infant to the crib or cot when the destination is reached.

This requirement will only be waived if a note from a medical doctor is submitted and approved by our management team.

PARENT ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

Regular and ongoing communication with parents is an important component of the day. Communication may be in person, by phone, e-mail or through written and posted communication tools. Communication needs to come from all members of the organization, the Owner, the Director, the Assistant Director and all educators.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Educators and parents will be directed to resources outside of the centre if necessary and community partners such as early year’s services, subsidy representatives, speech therapists, support services, occupational therapists, counsellors, etc., this will be an important part of the centres support to all children and their families. We view the community as a valuable resource and our educators plan learning opportunities to engage the community in our programs. We seek out opportunities to expand our knowledge and to learn from others in the community.

SUPPORTING EDUCATORS IN CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School is committed to hiring, training and fairly compensating educators. Our non-discriminatory hiring practices provide individuals of all backgrounds the opportunity for employment. All of our educators are respected, supported and treated fairly. All educators attend mandatory professional meetings and are committed to continuous professional learning.

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School will provide ongoing opportunities for educators to engage in critical reflection and discussion with others about pedagogy and practice, to support continuous professional learning.  If we are unable to bring in resources ourselves we will utilize our community partners and attend on going workshops.

All educators will build a climate of trust, honesty and respect in the workplace, working collaboratively in order to provide a safe, secure, healthy and inviting environment for all children and their families, building and maintaining healthy professional relationships that encourage growth and offering support and mentorship.

All educators hired will fulfill the mandatory requirements with professional development as per the Child Care and Early Years Act.

DOCUMENTING AND REVIEWING THE IMPACT OF OUR PROGRAM STATEMENT

 Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School recognizes that pedagogical documentation is a way for our program educators to learn about how children think and learn. Our educators make daily observations of children in the program and utilize the observations to produce a program that is reflective of all the children’s needs.

The purpose of our documentation is also:

• A way to value children’s experiences and help them to reflect back on those experiences and what they have been learning
• An opportunity to make children’s learning and understanding of the world visible- to themselves, to other children, to their parents and other families, to the program educators
• A way to reflect of developmental growth over a period of time
• A process for program educators to co-plan with children about learning
• A dialogue with families about children’s experience and an invitation for parents to add their own documentation about their children’s learning
• A self-reflection opportunity for program educators, as they participate in continuous professional learning

Zac’s Childcare and Montessori School will be reviewed annually by all educators members to ensure it remains current and aligned with the Ministers policy statement.

Zac’s Childcare has a Purchase of Service Agreement with the Region of Halton, participates in Quality First and we accept children with differing abilities.

Policy and Procedures Handbook for Parents Sept 2017