Early Years Program
Ready for School!

Maximising children’s opportunities for learning and development is key to effective Kindergarten programs and Prep curricula.

  • The Early Years Program is designed for Early Childhood educators and teachers working with children aged 3 to 7 years – from Kindy to Year 2.
  • The program works by addressing the underlying factors that can interfere with a child's development.
  • Early Childhood Educators are regularly asked to respond to the needs of young children with developmental immaturities that present in a variety of ways including: poor concentration, poor physical ability, speech and language immaturities or poor sensory motor development.
  • The Early Years Program provides a practical and simple program to address such issues. However the benefits extend to the whole group, settling them and preparing them for learning.
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How the Early Years Program works

Stage 1

  • A two-day educator training workshop which includes hands-on training with the movement activities
  • Parent and Community engagement workshop
  • Delivered onsite or through our Public Workshops

Stage 2

  • Typically occurs 4–6 weeks after Stage 1
  • Critical to reinforce and strengthen the skills for implementing the Program effectively
  • Onsite one day Review (or two half days) to coach and support individual educators to embed the Program, troubleshoot, extend activities and refresh their knowledge
  • Hands-on mentoring

Annual refreshers

  • We recommend an annual refresher workshop to ensure continuity
  • Replicates the Stage 2 process and includes a half day workshop for educators, centre reviews to mentor individual educators with specific groups
  • Also includes a one-hour parent and community engagement workshop, especially to orient parents who are new to the Program

Theory and Practice combine

Factors contributing to school-readiness and academic learning

Learn about the impact of individual child factors and development upon school readiness: including sensory systems, motor skills, executive functions, social-emotional learning and higher cognitive abilities. Explore environmental factors which also impact readiness, including the built, social, kindergarten and home environments.

Support holistic development

Dive deep into key topics such as: critical periods for neural development and plasticity; the sensory system and sensorimotor integration; the importance of movement and the connection between motor skills and cognitive development; how the vestibular system impacts learning and behaviour and how you can enhance vestibular function; proprioception and body awareness; tactile and auditory systems; self-regulation.

Program Delivery

Examine the practical methods of how to deliver the Early Years Program in your centre and integrate it with your existing centre programs. Flexibility is important to us and we regularly adjust activities and delivery strategies to suit particular educational environments, curricula, learning frameworks or routines. Most importantly, we listen to educators in practice and continually develop the Program utilising their feedback.

Partnering with Families

Through a Parent and Community engagement workshop we provide an opportunity for families to learn how the Program works, listen to any particular needs of the community and make suggestions for varying the delivery to respond to those needs. We describe strategies for the home environment: diet, mealtimes, physical activity and screen time.

Two years are better than one!

Help children transition from Kindy to Prep with the familiarity of the Early Years Program. We love working with kindergartens and primary schools who collaborate to deliver the Program as part of their K-2 continuity and alignment strategy. This approach consolidates the significant benefits for children as well as being a vehicle for collaborative efforts by staff.

Follow-up is key

4 to 6 weeks after the initial training, Stage 2 is an individualised hands-on mentoring process to assist educators to implement the Program with their groups and address specific questions they may have. Our trainers review how educators deliver the activities and provide guidance on techniques and further integration. Stage 2 also includes a follow-up workshop for families.

Take home resources

All Program participants receive a program manual, a set of flashcards to use as a reminder of the core activities and our ‘5 Minute Moves’ song list – a fun playlist with songs to accompany each of the core activities.

Teachers receive a certificate of completion for the workshop they attend.

Learning Connections’ professional development workshops contribute to Teachers and Early Childhood Educators CDC (Continuing Professional Development), aligning with the following Quality Frameworks: Australian Professional Standards for Teachers: 1, 4 and 7; ACECQA National Standards: Quality Areas 1, 2 and 5.

Shay Gililand

Kookaburra Creek Kindergarten
The Early Years Program has changed the way I think.

Anna Woodhouse

Kidz at the Beach
Our educators embraced the training. They felt it was one of the best professional development opportunities they had been to in years. We saw results in a short amount of time. I will be recommending the program to whoever will listen.

Sally Norman

Renown Kindergarten, South Yarra
We have noticed such significant positive changes to not only the way in which we teach but the behaviours that we see within our classes. I can highly recommend the training delivered by Learning Connections.
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Let's develop a proposal together

Provide us with some basic information and let’s organise a time to talk. We write a tailored proposal for each of our clients, and happily answer any questions you have before committing to introducing the Early Years Program into your centre.

Just call us or request a callback here

Prefer a Public Workshop instead? Check here if any are scheduled near you.