Full-time kindergarten valuable
Marjatta Chapman
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Updated: November 04, 2009 7:42 AM
Full-day kindergarten is coming to British Columbia, but it will be up to parents whether they want their five-year-olds to attend.
Full-day programs will be available for as many as 50 per cent of eligible students in the province in September 2010 and all students by September 2011.
School Trustee Pattie Baker says children would benefit from more interaction with trained personnel and would get excited about learning, with more exposure to songs, stories, play centres with equipment, including pencils, pens and scissors as well as time in the gym.
“It will be good for kids and an opportunity for teachers. The district is taking a look at the cost and we hope when the ministry mandates something, they’ll fund it.”
The School District 27 trustee says if the district needs
to increase kindergarten programming with no more
money, the board would have to cut elsewhere and questions whether another program would have to suffer.
“We have the tools, we have the skills, but do we have the economic resources?”
Baker says this district is fortunate it hasn’t closed any buildings, so the board has space to house additional programming.
Trustees feel good they have managed their resources very well, Baker says, adding she credits much of that to a lot of people committed to education: volunteers, parents and teachers “who go the extra mile.”
100 Mile Elementary School principal Marjatta Chapman says there are currently two morning kindergarten programs at her school, one English and one French Immersion, so they have the capacity to extend both programs to full day.
She says it would be “fabulous” for children to have full-day kindergarten because the more early learning experience they have the more successful they are in school.
100 Mile Elem-entary has applied to have full-time kindergarten next year.
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