Nature Kindergarten Teacher

**Nature Kindergarten Teacher**:
**Little Sophia Rudolf Steiner Kindergarten**

Little Sophia is a not-for-profit, inner-city Steiner long day kindergarten. We currently offer playgroups and two SECA-approved mixed-age kindergarten programs within a long day care setting. Little Sophia has two “home kinder” rooms, Dragonfly and Kingfisher, caring for 19 and 20 children respectively each per day. On Mondays, some children from both programs attend Nature Kinder offsite at Bellbird Park on the Yarra Bend (Birrarung). The entire day is play-based and outdoors, for 20 or more children aged between three and five years. On Friday afternoons the two home kinder rooms again come together for “Walkabout” in the local environs, with walking, gardening, and child-led play outdoors in the surrounds of the historic Abbotsford Convent and Collingwood Children’s Farm, as well as in our garden at Little Sophia Kindergarten.

**Primary role: The Nature
- Kindergarten Teacher**

The teacher works 18 hours per week - 11.5 hours with the children and 6.5 hours of planning and management duties. The teacher works all day Monday and on Friday afternoons with the children, and is onsite at the kindergarten on Friday mornings for management meetings. The Nature Kinder program runs for 48 weeks of the year. When the Nature Kinder teacher is on school holidays as per the award, the program will be led by the regular diploma and certificate qualified assistants in between terms and follows the rhythm of the term.

**Development of the Program**

The Nature Kindergarten program is developed by the Nature Kindergarten teacher out of their knowledge of Steiner Early childhood pedagogy and special interest in nature-based Programs. Whilst the program is now healthily established, the successful applicant will take responsibility to develop this further to continue to meet the needs of the children and our community. The design of the framework will require leadership qualities and strong communication skills to work cooperatively with assistants to form a team and develop the content of the program, and to ensure a shared vision of the kindergarten is held in the best interests of the children, their families, and the organisation.

**Staffing structure across the kindergarten**

Little Sophia is committed to working without unnecessary hierarchical structures in an anthroposophical framework.

**Applications