Cambridge Street Community Public School successfully launched Centretown’s first full-day kindergarten program last month amid expressions of enthusiasm from parents, teachers and administrators.
With two full-day kindergarten classes and about 40 children enrolled in the new program, school board trustee Jennifer McKenzie says feedback from the community has been very positive.
“Daycare is a huge concern in the community and having all day learning is a good fit for this community,” she says.
The school was selected to be among the first schools to provide full-day kindergarten in Ottawa because of its readiness to implement the classes, space availability and the impact the program would have on the local childcare community, she explains.
Funded by the provincial government, 45 schools in Ottawa will now provide a full-day kindergarten program for four- and five-year-olds, with another 16 schools expected to join in next September.
Jean Jeanty, who recently enrolled his child in full-day kindergarten at Cambridge, says he supports the program because it makes it easier for him and his wife to get to work and will save his family money on childcare.
“The half-day program made it difficult to get to work. But now with the full-day program you don’t have to worry about it, because if you start work around 9 a.m. you can drop (the kids) off and then pick them up after work around 3:30 or 3:45 p.m.”
Under the province’s guidelines, each class will be taught by a teacher and an early-childhood educator, with an average class size of 26 students.
Allison Wood, a kindergarten teacher at the school and a former half-day kindergarten teacher, says she supports the new program because it allows her to spend more time with each child.
“When you teach half-day kindergarten, you might have 20 kids in the morning and another 20 kids in the afternoon. But this way you really get to know the kids over a longer period of time and create deeper bonds with them.”
She adds: “With the full-day program, you can pace yourself more to the needs of each child, whereas in the half-day program I always felt very rushed.”
Wood says she now has more time to work on numeracy and literacy in a more play based environment and with the help of an early-childhood educator.
But not everyone is happy with the new program.
Kate Tennier, a parent and former teacher from Toronto, is part of a grassroots movement called Kindergarten Credit, which supports the half-day model.
She believes that the provincial government’s full-day kindergarten program is restricting parents’ childcare choices by forcing parents to enrol their children in full-day kindergarten when many parents may wish to have their children in childcare or the half-day program.
“This is morally and politically wrong because it says I am no longer allowing you to choose daycare.”
Tennier says non-profit childcare centres will also suffer financially as a result of the program because many parents will no longer enrol their children with other childcare providers.
Provincially, there are almost 600 schools that have implemented the program this year, with another 200 schools expected to participate next year.
Once fully implemented by 2015 the program is expected to cost $1.5 billion annually.