Family Groupings
We have truly embraced family groupings over the past 3 years and believe we are the only large service on the Sunshine Coast to fully commit to this practice: all day every day! We know that mixed-age grouping has great potential but only if it's implementation is carefully and knowledgeably planned.
It was never a simple case of ''let's open all the gates and see what happens''. We were greatly influenced by Peter Gray's book "Free To Learn" , his in depth research on the children and young adults who attend Sudbury Valley Free School in Massachusetts in the USA . We were privileged to hear Peter speak at a conference in June 2015, and then able to host him ourselves in October 2017, and everything he spoke about resonated with our desire to return to the early days of Milford Lodge, when children of all ages were cared for together.
A considerable number of children attending Milford Lodge are siblings, cousins or really good friends with others outside of the service. It made complete sense to us that they would want to spend time together throughout the day. Younger children innately wish to spend time with older more competent children and older children have a natural desire to help and nurture younger children. Our families really appreciate the way in which we honour children's right to decide who they want to spend their day with and have the choice of deciding which space they feel most comfortable in throughout the day.
We have had some wonderful moments this year when older siblings have decided to have a nap next to their Toddler age sibling or noticing that one table at lunch time had three sets of siblings seated around it.
You can simply '' feel'' the love in the air and it's a beautiful thing that we are very proud of.
It was never a simple case of ''let's open all the gates and see what happens''. We were greatly influenced by Peter Gray's book "Free To Learn" , his in depth research on the children and young adults who attend Sudbury Valley Free School in Massachusetts in the USA . We were privileged to hear Peter speak at a conference in June 2015, and then able to host him ourselves in October 2017, and everything he spoke about resonated with our desire to return to the early days of Milford Lodge, when children of all ages were cared for together.
A considerable number of children attending Milford Lodge are siblings, cousins or really good friends with others outside of the service. It made complete sense to us that they would want to spend time together throughout the day. Younger children innately wish to spend time with older more competent children and older children have a natural desire to help and nurture younger children. Our families really appreciate the way in which we honour children's right to decide who they want to spend their day with and have the choice of deciding which space they feel most comfortable in throughout the day.
We have had some wonderful moments this year when older siblings have decided to have a nap next to their Toddler age sibling or noticing that one table at lunch time had three sets of siblings seated around it.
You can simply '' feel'' the love in the air and it's a beautiful thing that we are very proud of.
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