🤝 Welcome Woodlands family event.✅

Welcome Woodlands family event.
(Between January and April) 

The ‘welcome Woodlands Family’ event, is a way to welcome all of our current and new families into your Campus, ready for a new exciting year of learning, collaborating and building on or strengthening our relationships between one another. This event is designed to highlight who we are, and what are some of the empowering things we do as a team and as a community. The welcome to Woodlands event will be focusing on the various learning programs that will be offered to your child/ren and how the emerging curriculum program will be delivered at Woodlands, with you all leaving with a clear understanding of how your child/ren’s learning will be communicated and presented to you and your family. You will learn about some anticipated projects that the Campus will be exploring within the different rooms, as well as having a clear understanding of exactly how kinder funding works within Woodlands, and have the opportunity to meet the whole team and have the ability to engage with and get to know the Campus team.

For families whose children are transitioning to a different room, the event offers insight and provides opportunities for families to interact with and get familiar with the new team, maintain trust between families and to build strong connections, and ensure this transition is as smooth and respectful as possible and the team to build collaborative relationships for the upcoming year. to so that both children and families are well-prepared, and feel comfortable and secure with the new room setting as a whole. 

Event Date and Time:
Date: (Decided by the campus and between January and April). 

Time: After hours, on a Saturday, 10am-12pm.

Event Guest Invite: 

All current enrolled families as well as waitlist and inquired families. Invitation can be made through the BB Event Bookings link that is located on your Campus hubspot. The guide for setting up BB Event Bookings invitation can be found below:

(Find the BB Event Bookings Guide here: to be added later).

Optional*: members from the community, such as incursions for sports, music performers etc. (No additional costs should occur with the optional guests.) Representatives of neighbouring primary schools, or the Occupational therapists, or someone who you believe can provide useful information to the families, and also showcase our connections and authority within the sector or within the community. 

Please note that this event your Children are welcome, however, please be mindful as the children will be your responsibility to care for, not just the Educators and Teachers. 

Event Decoration

1. Common areas: The campuses can decide on the decoration style, focus on festive style. 
2. Learning Gallery: Each room in the center will prepare visible learning areas, showcasing how play-based learning can look throughout the different age groups, parents are welcome to go through different rooms for visits, this can help educators to explain and show how learning is happening in the room.
3. Grazing Table: Set up some finger food and soft drinks on a grazing table for families to have some snacks. 

Event Flow

1. It will be a day event- On a Saturday, 10am-12pm. Please have someone ready to receive and direct the families. Inform the families that we will be having a gathering and information session, in the meantime, they can enjoy some food.
2.  Welcome the families with a smoking ceremony. 

1. Do an acknowledgement of the country.

Acknowledgment of Country Commence the event with a respectful acknowledgment of the traditional custodians of the land. “I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are all meeting today, the Wurundjeri, Woi-Wurrung people (change land if Wurundjeri land is not the land you are on) of the Kulin nation. I would also like to pay my respects to the Elders past and present and any people who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in the room today. At Woodlands we commit to learning the truth about the traditional land we are on and to respectfully teach our upcoming generations Australia’s history”.

2. Introduce yourselves.
3. Give a 5-10 minutes short information on how the event will go. Talk about the staffing for the rooms next year.
4. Inform the families that after the introduction that they are able to go to different rooms to talk to the educators and that they are able to explore the campus and the rooms as they feel comfortable. 

Key messages for educators to communicate with the families:

1. Welcoming the families and explaining the difference between the different rooms, such as daily rituals, record sharing, ratio’s, learning philosophy etc.
2. Settling: Focus on the strategies you have to help children settle into the rooms, to ensure a smooth transition period. 
3. Learning focus: how you structure your learning programs, how you identify learning goals etc.
4. Optional*: invite the families to sit in a learning area, preferable with table and chairs, and do a learning experience with the families to show how learning is happening in your room. This would be very impressive for the families, as most of them do not know how children learn in early years settings. 

Event Wrap-up

The leadership team can conduct follow-up one-on-one reflection conversations among each other, and with team members, to discuss how they think the event went and what they think can be improved for the future. 

***********Event Food List**********

$300 Budget, order from Woolworths.
Ensure you are aware of the dietary requirements and allergies of your service (children, families and educators), alter food selection to support that. 

Have a BBQ morning tea or

Set up a Grazing Table for the event with the following:

• Mini pizza
• Finger Sandwiches (assorted varieties)
• Mini Quiches (vegetable and cheese, might need baking, optional)
• Fruit Platter (strawberry, watermelon, rock melon)
• Vegetable Platter with Dip (carrots, celery, cherry tomato, cucumbers. Hummus, French Onion, Beetroot Dip).
• Cheese and Cracker Platter 
• Mini Cupcakes (assorted flavours)
• Bread Sticks
• Mini Pastry (Ready to serve ones, such as croissants, pain au chocolate, danish etc.)
• Juice Boxes for Kids
• Water Bottles for Adults
• Bottle Juice for Adults.

 

NOTE:   Deli produce, optional based on dietary.
- Adjust the food quantities and selection based on the number of attendees and dietary preferences.
- Note that some of the items will contain dairy, please adjust based on your guests and children’s dietary requirements to avoid any unexpected situations.

******** Budget ********
$300.00 for Food and Drinks
$150.00 for Decoration
$400 for any room/hall hire