Early Childhood Development Initiative

Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 

In January Ba Futuru preschool enrolled 43 children; 39 children are active, and 4 children have moved elsewhere.   

9 children are full time students. 

6 are from theSeroja Community. 

24 are fee-paying children. 

Boys: 20 and Girls: 23.  

We have two classes operating; Sprouts class is for children aged 2-4 and our Explorer class (transition to school)is for children aged 5-6.  

We currently employee, 6 teachers and 1 cleaner/cook. 

Term 1-Settling, Discovering Self and Identity  

We welcomed our new and existing familiesand children and settled back into our preschool routines. Our new children have been exploring our fun and educational environment with curiosity and are beginning to develop a sense of well-being and belonging in their new surroundings. Our children have been exploring self and identity throughsharing family photos, stories and self-portraits and family representations through art. We all learn and share together and build up stronger identities and relationships with each other. 

Self-Regulation. We delivered a comprehensiveprogramme on self-regulation. Children learnt about emotions through being able to label emotions and self-regulate in appropriate ways. We revisited our good friend programme, which reminds children how to play like a good friend. 

Ba Futuru Preschool Attributes.We have 10 attributes that nurture skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviours.  

This term,our teaching and learning programme has focused on 3 attributes.  Friendliness,Team Work, and Resilience. I believe our children have a good understanding about these attributes as children are able to nominate their peers who they see doing things in these three areas. 

Transition to School Programme (5 year olds)  

Our teaching and learning programmefollows the Jolly Phonics Programme.We have been using this programme for over 5 years consistently and it deliversgood solid results, as all our children learn to read and write before starting primary school. Thisconsists of children learning the alphabet letter sounds and actions, through singing and moving.This term our children have been learning to practice the first 12 alphabets soundss, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r and m.We also practice to form the letters correctly in the air and then on paper and make a craft dedicated to each letter. 

Children also practice their reading skills through learning to sound out an early reader book for 5 minutes each day, one on one with a teacher.  

Montessori and Play Based LearningMathsProgramme 

We continue to explore different ways of learning maths. Our children are all at different levels of maths learning, therefore we cater lesson plans to the individual’s skill level.Currently we are focusing on one-to-one correspondence, sequencing, unit measurements, shape, addition, patterns, and classification.  

Place Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring ourCommunity.  

What’s happening in our larger Dili community? These experiences enrich our children, through gaining knowledge about the place that they live. We use these experiences as a foundation for learning more about language, art, maths, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.  

Thisterm our excursion took us to the Nun’s Bakery our neighbours.  We are invited every year and it has become an annual excursion. Our children get the opportunity every year to experience a commercial kitchen and its operation.  The nuns choose a different food experience each year for our children to participate in making.  This year it was making a cupcake and decorating it and of course sampling it, YUM, YUM.  Because of COVID, we have limited our excursions to only one a term.   

Teachers’ Professional Training 

We had afull day refresher session on our curriculum framework.  We focused on what we want to nurture in our children through teaching skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviour through these 10 areas.Leadership, Friendliness, Team Work, Resilience, Health, Explorer, Guardian of the Earth, Creativity, Empowerment, and Building Relationships.  

We discussed what’s going well in our new documentation and writing a narrative report in the form of a learning story, and what teachers are finding hard about this documentation.  The teachers that are more skilled with writing and using the computer are mentoring the teachers that are still learning these new skills.   

The teachers have had a Montessori Maths refresher course with Mrs,Lolita from Sri Lanka who is Lecture in Montessori.We appreciate her refresher maths courses that she has delivered over the past five years.  

• Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 - 1 (PDF)