Big change coming to prep classrooms after interrupted year
The way prep is taught in Victorian classrooms is about to change, after young students missed out on crucial face-to-face learning time during the pandemic.
Early Years
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The state government is launching a major overhaul of the prep classroom to focus on play based learning after children missed months of crucial face-to-face time in lockdown.
Prep teachers and school leaders will be called on to change how the curriculum is taught next year and “embrace play-based, inquiry learning” in a bid to “counter any negative effects of missed on-site kindergarten attendance”.
The education department has found that kids heading to school next year may have “a greater diversity of needs because of potential disruption to their learning and ability to attend on-site kindergarten”.
And while families may have been able to access resources for home learning, their children still would have had “fewer opportunities for play-based learning with peers”.
Mum Toni Prime said her daughter Ivy, 5, is heading into prep next year and would welcome the chance “to ease into it”.
“They did miss out on that whole year,” she said.
Despite Ivy having older siblings to talk and play with at home, Ms Prime said her other children were busy with school work during lock down.
“I felt a bit bad for her because I was so busy trying to do remote learning with the other three — on days off I’d usually do craft with her,” she said.
After missing so much time at four-year-old kinder this year, Ms Prime was pleased Ivy would get back some of those important social and developmental experiences in a rejigged prep classroom.
“That was the fun year (that she missed) — it’s not as structured and you’re still discovering where you sit,” she said.
Next year’s prep teachers will be instructed to introduce more play, collaboration and differentiated learning.
While there will continue to be a strong focus on literacy and numeracy, 2021 school starters will face a “particular emphasis” on their personal and social capability.
Documents show the Department believes this will help youngsters adjust to their new school and “build relationships and understanding”.
The hunt is on for experts in Prep curriculum to design an online program to teach the teachers and school leaders how to instruct in a post-COVID classroom.
From term 1 next year, teachers will attend “curriculum design and pedagogical, online professional learning”.
A Department of Education spokeswoman said “this year has been like no other”.
“That’s why we are supporting teachers and the 2021 Prep cohort with additional universal support, with a focus on developing Foundation teachers’ skills to deliver the curriculum through play-based, inquiry learning approaches,” she said.
“Research shows that play-based learning supports the development of children’s language, social, problem-solving, and emotional skills.”
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