Alberta Accredited Kindergarten
About
Great Journeys Learning Centre’s Kindergarten Program surpasses the Alberta Education time requirement of 475 hours per year by offering 585 hours within our half day programs, enhancing fun, learning and socialization to best prepare for grade one.
Great Journeys Learning Centre believes that all children have unique gifts, talents and the potential to become excellent learners and be successful. All children enrolled within our Kindergarten Program will enjoy opportunities to experience success in a manner that aligns with each child’s needs, maturity, readiness, and abilities.
The idea for Great Journeys Learning Centre was created by two experienced early learning teachers, with input from educators and community leaders who are firmly committed to ensuring that our children have opportunities to improve their learning through a well–developed and organized Kindergarten program that encompasses the provincial Kindergarten Program Statement. The programming for our children offers the basic foundations for learning in citizenship and identity, physical skills and well–being, personal and social responsibility, mathematics, early literacy, environment and community awareness, that will ensure that our children are well prepared for entry into elementary school. Great Journeys Learning Centre believes that our children need to be exposed to programming and learning opportunities that will prepare them to not only maintain and grow their self-confidence and well–being, but also to prepare them for further education and learning.
The partnering of language and culture instruction, as well as an appreciation and understanding of other cultures, will provide a unique way for our children to gain community, provincial, national and global capacities directly related to a well–educated individual. Great Journeys Learning Centre will focus on developing in our children’s, creativity, critical thinking, expression, innovation, inquiry, problem solving, reflection and teamwork.
Mission
The purpose of Great Journeys Learning Centre is to provide and promote a licensed, non-profit, high quality, affordable, and accessible early learning and child care program, to meet the needs of children and families in Calgary and surrounding communities.
Vision and Values
Great Journeys Learning Centre strives to provide a safe, developmentally inclusive environment. Our focus is to provide a stimulating early learning and child care experience which promotes each child’s social/emotional, physical and cognitive development. Our goal is to support and nurture the children’s, as well as our own, natural desire to be life-long learners. We are committed to the families we serve, providing support and encouragement.
Quality Care and Trust: When parents are looking for early learning and child care programs they need to find someone they can trust. We are dedicated to providing safe and caring environments. We will also continue in our efforts to ensure and continuously improve our services to meet the needs of our children and families.
Life Long Learning: At Great Journeys Learning Centre we believe that we all share a responsibility to support and nurture the children’s, as well as our own natural desire to be lifelong learners. We put ourselves and our learning on the same level as the child’s and commit to our own professional development and personal growth. We learn alongside the children and their families and embrace the opportunity to learn and grow each day.
Partnership: Respectful relationships are very important and on which our organization operates. We believe that the quality of care we provide is measured by the quality of relationships we have with children, families, employees, school boards, investors, and legislators. We are committed to ensuring these relationships are respectful; warm and caring; honest and open; fair and equitable.
Fiscal Responsibility: We are committed to financial prudence and sustainability – to making decisions that take into consideration the overall financial health of the organization in order to meet our goals and objectives. We conduct ourselves in a manner that is professional and according to all business practices that are legal and ethical. Commitment to excellence in everything we do for our children.
Philosophy Statement
The Board of Directors and staff of Great Journeys Learning Centre believe that children deserve the opportunity to learn and grow in a safe, enriching environment. We believe learning happens through positive relationships, exploration, experiences and sense of belonging that enable children to become productive contributors to the world in which they live.
We believe that children are competent, capable of complex thinking, curious and rich in potential. We are committed to honour the provincial programs of study curriculum and program objectives within an “emergent curriculum” approach to program planning, in which activities “emerge” based on ideas and interests from both children and staff.
We believe play is integral to children’s learning and essential to quality of life in childhood. Exploration and play are a child’s primary way of understanding the world. Children are agents of their own learning, actively building knowledge, skills, dispositions, and feelings. We are committed to fostering each child’s self-esteem, well-being and growing need for independence. All aspects of their development and learning are interrelated and interdependent.
To promote a sense of belonging and to create a climate of social and economic equality, we ask that all children attending Great Journeys Learning Center wear our uniform.