Allanson playgroup is back up and running for another year after narrowly surviving the recent school funding cuts.
The program, was initially planned to be cancelled at the beginning of the year due to lack of funding, but the school pushed for it to be reinstated as they believed the program was essential for young learners and their parents.
The program has been successfully running for the past five years and aims at developing a parent-child bond, as well as enhancing the children’s motor skills.
Early childhood educator, Hayley Digney who runs the program said the program was essential to early learning and benefits both the children and their parents.
“The school felt it was an important program for early years to be exposed to play based learning,” she said.
“The program is crucial for parents to be doing activities with their children, especially with some parents work commitments meaning they spend less time with their children.”
The program runs a good balance of play and learning activities that give parents one on one time with their children.
“We have many activities here, there’s a good variety of learning and play based activities; story time, arts and crafts, sports, sensory based activities, and music activities.”
The program, which generally has around 20 children and parents attend weekly allows parents to socialise with families within the community.
“It’s a great way for parents to form friendships with other parents in the area.”
The group also has a relationship with Allied Health to help children who may have learning or health difficulties.
“We also help to give medical advice to parents, if a child has a speech issue we are able to help pick it up early on and direct them to the appropriate specialists who can help,” Ms Digney said.
Children aged 0- pre kindy are welcome to attend the playgroup which runs at Allanson Primary School.
