Lansvale Public School Preschool re-awarded the Excellent rating

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Date Re-awarded: 11 February 2021

Valid until: 10 February 2024

Lansvale Public School Preschool has been re-awarded the Excellent rating by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), the highest rating a service can achieve under the National Quality Framework.

The Sydney based service was recognised for its

  • collaborative partnerships with professional, community or research organisations
  • inclusive partnerships with children and families
  • positive workplace culture and organisational values, sustained commitment to professional development and support of educators
  • practice and environments that enhance children’s learning and growth.

Examples of exceptional practice at the service include:

  • Organising presentations by educational specialists such as Nathan Wallis and Dr Kirsty Goodwin to empower family understandings of supporting play-based learning and children’s healthy use of technology.
  • The service has also revised its Parents as Teachers Classroom Helpers (PaTCH) program to include play-based literacy and numeracy modules and workshops which it developed for its families in consultation with its Preschool to Year Two (P-2) initiatives officers and NSW Department of Education (DoE) preschool colleagues. Family feedback acknowledges these programs have supported the implementation of play-based strategies across their extended family and built more confidence in including literacy and numeracy experiences within their children’s daily routines.
  • Children undertook an inquiry project to investigate ongoing instances of rubbish scattered across the playground. This included: 
    • children being supported to engage in discussions about how rubbish can be washed into drains which then ends up in the ocean and harms the sea ecosystem
    • through playground observations, children noticed the bin lids were left open and ibises were picking up and scattering the rubbish
    • a child suggested making a scarecrow to scare the ibises away. A family assisted the children to create a scarecrow which they took to the playground to test out their theory. They observed that the ibises didn’t go near the bins with the scarecrow, reducing the amount of rubbish being scattered
    • the use of green screens to capture children’s images and their expressions about the environment to create posters for display to promote environmental advocacy in the service
    • children being environmental advocates outside of the service by encouraging their families not to buy more plastic bags at the checkout in shops and by closing bins in public spaces to stop rubbish scattering.
  • Following professional development on promoting a positive culture, the service introduced a ‘celebrating success board’ displaying appreciative emails, uplifting messages from colleagues and families and photos from celebratory events. The service references the board with visualising the motivation and enjoyment of their work and promoting the ongoing reflection of practice.
  • The service extended its partnership with the Sydney Opera House’s (SOH) Creative Leadership in Learning (CLIL) project:
    • the resident artist supported educators and children in learning about the value of using limited types of materials to facilitate creative expressions. The service acknowledges due to constraints in materials, children thought of and applied more creative ways to manipulate their materials to represent their ideas
    • educators supported the artist with unpacking ‘Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework’ (EYLF) to guide the project’s planning stages. In response, the artist used the children’s current interests and knowledge of plants and insects as inspiration for the service project of a collaborative mural in conjunction with use of the SOH creativity framework.  The service states the collaborative mural represents a shared vision of children’s belonging, being and becoming through using symbolic images of living things beginning to grow and evolve.

As a leader in the sector, Lansvale Public School Preschool (LPSP) shares its practices to provide guidance and inspiration to fellow NSW DOE preschools, playgroups and primary schools and the Sydney Opera House’s (SOH) Creative Leadership in Learning (CLIL) project through:

  • In 2019, taking on a shared Preschool Assistant Principal (PAP) position which has led to service teachers becoming part of the Lansvale Public School Preschool executive team and co-presenting with the school at a principals’ conference. Since the presentation, there has been a 75% increase in PAP positions being created across NSW DOE preschools.
  • The service and its playgroup shared its adaptive online practices during the COVID-19 pandemic through the Early Learning Initiatives Program. This included developing learning packs and home delivering them, and providing technical support to families in various languages over the phone and in person to promote confident use of online learning applications and remote learning.
  • Service families worked with a SOH teaching artist to create an interactive installation called the ‘Dream Makers Kiosk’. This was presented during the SOH school holiday program in 2018 and twice again in 2019 which led to 14,000 children and their families visiting the cart to make their own puppets.  A case study regarding the impact of the CLIL program was published and the Australian Council for the Arts generated a ‘Cultivating creativity research report’ which highlighted the positive impact the CLIL program had on fostering positive relationships and creative learning through services, schools and the wider community.

About the Excellent rating

Services that receive ‘Exceeding National Quality Standard’ in all seven quality areas can apply to ACECQA for the Excellent rating. The Excellent rating is awarded for three years. After this time services have the option to re-apply.