Jack and Jill Early Learning (previously Preschool) has been a staple of the Sunshine Coast community for over 50 years. Generations of Sunshine Coast residents take pride in being alumni of Jack and Jill, a chapter of life that brings early childhood education, development and parent education together, forming life long friendships, year after year.

We follow the B.C.’s Early Learning Framework, which establishes a vision for respectfully living and learning together.

Our philosophy is based on inclusion , where all teachers and enrolled families are welcoming of all peoples from/with different cultures, lifestyles, opinions, and abilities.

Our programs are “emergent,” which means the weekly subjects we explore and learn about, are led by the interests and needs of the children of that age group and geared towards preparing children for learning and school readiness.

Play is the focus of our program, where a child can practice small and large motor skills, develop thinking skills, explore curiosities and imagination, build and create, as well as forming their first interpersonal interactions by developing important social skills related to empathy, cooperation, conflict resolution, and self-control, which will be used throughout life to maintain healthy relationships with others.

We are a Early Childhood Learning and Development Centre that offer two age based programs.

• A 3 year old Program held on Monday and Wednesday from 9:00am-12:00pm (3 hours long) with a teacher to child/student ratio of 1:5-8.

The 3’s Program is geared towards building connection skills that include: adjusting to new people and situations, basic routines, teacher and social/peer interactions, language development, social behaviours with an aim to move children from parallel play to collaborative play.

• A 4 year old Program held on Tuesday and Thursday 9:00am – 1:30pm (4.5 hours long) with a teacher to child/student ratio of 1:6-8.

The 4’s Program is geared towards school readiness that will build on the connection skills learned in the 3’s Program, and will also include: self-care, positive self-esteem, routines, more complex fine motor and cognitive development, academics are lightly introduced.

We believe our low teacher to child/student ratios reflect a model of quality care, demonstrated by the positive relationships formed between each teacher and child, contributing to the enhanced learning, language, and academic development of our students.

Each program follows a daily routine suitable for that age group. Each day, different activities are set out inside or outdoors, to challenge a child to build their age appropriate skills and to achieve milestones in areas of: physical growth, cognitive development, emotional and social development, language development, sensory and motor development.

We use Brightwheel to manage tuition account, teacher-parent messaging, and student portfolios.

Registering and enrolling in one of our programs means you are committing to be be enrolled from Sept – June. Our teachers are hired based on our September enrollment, under contract.

Our programs are run by our Non-Profit Society(Jack and Jill Parent Participation Preschool Society), who follow our own Constitution and Bylaws and the BC Societies Act. Our Teachers manage the day to day Operations/Administration. When families enroll their child in our program, the family becomes a member of our Non-profit Society. Families cease to be members at the end of each school year, unless their child is already enrolled in the next school year. Members are required to “vote in” Executives, approve Budgets and make group decisions on major capital expenses at our Annual General Meeting. Executives(Directors) fulfill the Non-profit requirements of the Society.

As parent participation, each family(one parent from each) is involved in the school in some way, by being on our Executive or taking a job on the Schools job list (such as laundry, indoor or outdoor maintenance, weeding, lawn mowing, composting, fundraising). This helps our teachers with the maintaining of our school and shows our students how we can all work together as a community towards a common goal.

Parents are encouraged to engage with our Teachers on learning what developmental milestones their child is achieving, to discuss any behaviour questions or frustrations they are having, thru daily conversation and thru our parent education opportunities.

Parents are also encouraged to participate in our Chiristmas and Year end program events, such as Christmas party, 4’s Mothers Day Tea, 4’s Bike parade, as these events children will showcase to their family member, what they have been learning and developing and help build the relationships within our preschool community.

And finally, we see teachers and membership, as our own community of families, where when we get together, we can respectfully share experiences, ideas, stories, achievements or be a sounding board, for each other. These connections are vital to the formation of healthy, family relationships, friendships and can be a life line for many.

Staff are members of ECEBC(Early Childhood Educators of BC)