Spotlight on centre

A childrens' study has put the national spotlight on Kaikoura's Barnardos Early Learning Centre.

The centre was featured in the New Zealand Education Gazette, the official publication of the Ministry of Education distributed to all schools and learning institutions nationwide.

It came after assistant teacher Dawn Calvert and infant and toddler teacher Kylie Campion ran an eight-week "inquiry into light" with the centre's under-two children last year.

The inquiry included using torches, disco lights with slow and fast music, underwater light and reflections. Some of the centre windows were blocked so the children could experiment with light inside and they also explored a dark loft, which Mrs Calvert said they loved.

The children learned where light can come from, ranging from torches to the sun.

Mrs Calvert said the idea was for the children to come up with their own questions about light and figure out how to answer them. The process was more important than the answer itself.

Once a light experience had been set up at the centre, it was left for at least a few days so the children could re-visit it and work on what they had already learned.

The inquiry was carefully documented and photographed by the teachers so they could assess the learning experiences of the children. They ended up with 60 pages of information and later did another inquiry on body movement.

Mrs Calvert said more inquiries would follow this year, the topics of which would be steered by the childrens' own interests.

She was delighted the Education Gazette featured the centre, as it gave confidence they were on the right track.

"It's exciting having the recognition," she said.

Mrs Calvert thanked Kaikoura High School for lending textbooks for the teachers' initial research on light and eventually equipment for light projects.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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