Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Overview of the Full Day Kindergarten Initiative in Ontario

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Shockingly diverse kindergarten group in ParisImage via WikipediaThe Ontario Ministry of Education just released another news item today regarding the Full Day Kindergarten initiative, More Early Childhood Educators Ready For The Classroom. Today's news focuses on the push to integrate more early childhood educators (ECEs) into classrooms to meet the "growing demand for ECEs" as Ontario phases in full-day kindergarten over the next five years.

There's a lot of talk about this initiative in the teaching community and some questions about the next few years, and today's news will undoubtedly pose a few more questions:
Children benefit from a full day of play-based learning, supported by two qualified educators. ECEs are also responsible for the integrated before- and after-school programs that are offered as part of full-day kindergarten at some schools.
When the program is fully implemented there will be up to 20,000 ECE positions supporting full-day kindergarten. Full-day kindergarten is being offered in almost 600 schools this year, and at the start of next year's school year it will be available in more than 800 schools.

All-in-all, a positive initiative...and yes, we have 15 month old twins, so we're biased.

We've provided some news items, press releases, etc. regarding the ongoing implementation of full-day kindergarten in Ontario: