User talk:JulieMay54/sandbox

Kindergarten expansion in 2014

Offering this in case it is useful. I will include the full text because I used the library-at-home facility which can't be accessed.

Mcneilage, Amy Philosophy at five: kids in kindy to study ethics. Sydney Morning Herald, The [serial online]. June 24, 2014:2

Should you dob on someone who does the wrong thing? Is it OK to tell a friend's secret? And how do you know if someone is your friend?

These are the moral challenges of five-year-olds. And they will be up for discussion in classrooms across the state when ethics lessons are introduced to kindergarten for the first time next month.

The kindy curriculum marks the final phase of the rollout for primary ethics classes, which have been offered in NSW public schools since 2011 as an alternative to special religious education.

It comes as the Education Department has updated its school enrolment form, giving parents the option to choose ethics over scripture for the first time. Previously, families were only told about the availability of ethics classes at their school if they had already opted out of special religious education.

While the new infant students might not be able to tie their shoelaces, the curriculum's author Sue Knight says their capacity to grapple with philosophical concepts should not be underestimated.

"Have you ever heard a kindy kid say, 'That's not fair' or 'Why do I have to do that?' Kids can use logic. They ask for reasons and they're very rarely satisfied by a teacher or parent saying, 'Because I said so'."

Dr Knight, who has been developing the lessons for more than three years, says it is important that children are exposed to, and engage with, beliefs that are different from their own. "We're not trying to stop them forming beliefs," she said. "But we want them to have considered those beliefs and to be able to defend them."

More than 10,000 NSW students attend ethics classes but there are still not nearly enough volunteers to meet demand. Primary ethics chief executive Teresa Russell expects at least 40 schools to begin offering the classes to kindergarten students when third term starts next month. One of those schools is Haberfield Public School in Sydney's inner-west, where 45 kindy students are already on the waiting list for ethics classes. "It's important to get kids going with this early because then they have time to build up those skills and ways of thinking," Ms Russell said.

Emma Collett from Youthworks, which is responsible for training Anglican scripture teachers, says the same principals of questioning and inquiry are at the core of kindy scripture classes. "We want robust discussion and we don't want the kids to feel like they are forced into making statements they don't believe or to pray if they don't want to pray," she said.

Ms Collett, who teaches kindergarten scripture at a NSW public school, says the first year is about introducing students to God and Jesus. "I want my kindy kids to understand that God's love reaches higher than the heavens, that God made them and that they are loved by Him, that God keeps and makes promises and that God wants them to be a part of his family," she said.