B4 Big School our educators

Nadia Shmeissem- The Educator and Founder of B4 Big School

My Hobbies and Interests

Believe it or not, teaching is one of my hobbies. I actually look forward to waking up each day and going to work and getting down to the young children's level - supporting them in becoming confident young learners. I also enjoy bike riding, swimming, jogging, creative arts especially painting, yet I really enjoy grabbing a 20min coffee with my sisters and friends, making dessert and spending quality time with my immediate family oh and travelling to places where I am surrounded by the beauty of nature.....I've attached some of my own personal photos of my favourite places.

A little bit more about myself and my journey......

In 1997, I started my career journey at the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) and remained with the organisation for 12 years, sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you have. So I was!! but several years later I continued working
part-time and decided it was time to study and look forward to a healthy career change and so I did just that.

I decided to complete the Children's Services Cert 3, which was a great experience. I decided to go ahead with the Diploma and during my study time, I discovered several outstanding educational philosophers which inspired me to take a step further in my studies and being in this current teaching role. During my Diploma studies I continued working part-time at the RTA, and held a part-time, Team Leader position in the 3-4's pre-school room at Leppington child care centre for just under 12 months. This was a great start, leading me into the next learning stage of my career path.

I decided to further my studies and complete a Bachelor of Teaching in Early Childhood, which lead me one step closer to where I needed to be. I thought why limit your choices when you can excel further in your career and that's when I decided to continue my studies. I continued with my own learning journey and finished off The Degree of Bachelor of Education- in Early childhood.

My journey didn't end here! When I finally graduated from university, I worked for Bambinos Kindergarten both at Harrington Park and Horningsea Park. Taking on the role of the Early Childhood Educator in the 4-5's & 3-4'S room I loved every minute of it as I watched the children grow and flourish. My engagement and positive teaching strategies allowed the children to nourish through play and the meaningful interactions which were taking place. I thoroughly enjoyed my role as the Early Childhood Education at the pre-school, although I really wanted to prepare the children so much more for the big world that awaits them, but I felt I was limited.

At this stage of my life, I thought it was time to try the primary school environment so I began by working as a casual teacher with Early Stage 1 and stage 1 Students K-2 and as the years passed, I started to work across all the various grades at the several Department of Education Schools and Private Schools around the Liverpool and Campbelltown region. In the following year, I was offered a Teacher Relief Role, I worked at Leumeah Primary teaching on set classes from k-2 for a period of four terms in 2014. I have also worked at Blairmount Public teaching mainly k-2 for four terms during 2015-2016 and I worked with the team at Prestons Public for six months in the year of 2016. I have been teaching as a casual teacher mostly with years k-2 throughout (2010) - (2013-2017) and Pre-school (2004) and (2009) (2012- 2013) and also I have worked on several occasions at the Department of Education Pre-school's during the years of (2010-2017). I am currently (2017) working as a casual teacher mainly with k-2 years alongside my three days at the Centre- B4 Big School.

Another great opportunity came up with TAFE NSW (SWSi) in early 2015, taking on the role of the teacher in Early Childhood Education and Care and Education Support teacher role. It was the perfect opportunity to pass on passion for the industry and share some of my past and current experiences in working with children to the student learners, with the aim of helping the adult student learners to build the same passion that I have for the industry. Passing on the message to my students that -
I believe if we understand the children, truly understand their differences and enjoy our role as responsible caring educators, working together with families, only then we can provide the children with so much more meaning to their world.

I will share with you briefly about some of the influences which further lead me into starting B4 Big School. It was those teaching days and the close observations which I made whilst working with the young children that helped me to see that some struggled right throughout the day and some became overwhelmed during learning time. The child's transition to school may not have been a positive one. Some of the children have not yet developed their fine motor skills, let alone be expected to start forming letters and words. Also some of the children find it extremely hard on a daily basis to communicate and express their feelings even asking for help is at times rather stressful for them, they would usually approach me with.... Ms I feel sick and just then I thought "Mmmmmm" perhaps they may need extra assistance to get the ball rolling, and it was just that most of the time. Some of the children find it so hard to make any friends on a daily basis let alone be expected to try to get through the day- social interactions are very crucial to wellbeing of children - we need to highly support this. Some of the activities require a reasonable attention span in order to finish the task off and some children struggle to sit there for more than several minutes. We can further make these little experience much more smoother for the children through an in-depth school readiness program which is similar to the kindergarten classroom.

The greatest aspects of this tutoring centre are the resources and freedom of choice- the interactive program in place which together provide a very influential tool in supporting the children's learning environment also aiming to stimulate the engagement and efforts of the children.

Being the Founder of B4 Big School and the educator on site, I feel privileged to be able to tailor the tutor program and the learning environment to ensure that your child will have the best start.

Finally- I want to add... A big thank you to the local community for your support in making this Interactive School Readiness program come to life. In the past six months since our opening, we've continued to grow, thanks for entrusting us -
Educator- support staff- with your children and allowing us to implement this program to its fullest. Your feedback and children's progress has been quite remarkable.

If I can also mention that it's been rather interesting as to where we are at present.... growing in such a short period of time from a School Readiness centre in addition introducing the school aged tutoring then moving forward in supporting the School Holiday programs. Also just recently I've decided to use my current ESL skills and knowledge to teach the Arabic language for the little ones (early years learning).

Attention: The Team -Staff, Families and Children!! Your voice and suggestions are of high importance to us and this is what will have even a greater positive effect on the B4 Big School's program's in place!

Dear Parents/guardians.......Thank you again for your supporting B4 Big School's growth.

Nadia Shmeissem

The founder and Educator-

Nadia Shmeissem - holds a (Bachelor of Teaching in Early Childhood and Bachelor of Education) seven years experience in the teaching field (Early Childhood education, primary school and Tertiary education in Early Childhood education and Care - Education Support) with the Department of Education and TAFE SWSi- NSW. Nadia also has had twelve years experience in a Customer Service position with the Roads and Traffic
Authority (1997-2009).

The Team
Our team members have various skills and qualifications but most importantly we posses a professional and a wonderful down to earth nature.

Come in and meet the team at B4 Big School!

So why should you send your child to B4 Big School??

Our educators maintain professional work ethics at all times, as we possess a good character and are great role models- always supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of your child.
Our teacher ratio is 1 educator to 3-6 children working in small groups
We are passionate and supportive of how children learn- catering for the different levels.
The Educator has in-depth experience in working with children of various age groups and school settings.
We work effectively as a part of a team, this has been observed throughout our training workshops which are held frequently.
At least one adult Educator is Qualified and First Aid Anaphylaxis Asthma trained.
We can help your child's learning abilities shine, by giving them a sense of being, belonging and becoming.
We are always willing to work together with the families through planned workshops to further share ideas, concerns, changes or simply give one another feedback.
We do care about the well being and whole child as we are people who always try to understand the child's mind, we cater for the individual abilities and posses a caring nature ensuring to nourish your child's developmental domains and our program reflects this!
In our practice we do our best to demonstrate some of the qualities of the past outstanding theorists of child development and philosophers of education.

HUMANITARIAN WORK

The photo above represents Zahra, the daughter of the founder of B4 Big School participating in supporting the Phillipines community. Zahra worked closely with the people of Zamboanga and Manilla (Phillipines) in distributing food, essential lively resources and exchanging words of peace. This was a family trip, travelling with several other families from Sydney Australia, organised by the Australian Relief Organisation (ARO), a very professional team taking on outstanding work supporting people in need, from all around the world on numerous projects each year. ARO also takes part in organising cataract eye operations and water wells ensuring clean water is provided to the less advantaged countries around the world. If you would like to take part in supporting this organisation please let us know or contact them directly as we all work together in making bigger things happen for humanity.

June 2018- We began collecting donations to pass onto ARO -to begin building the water well in Tanzania (Africa) which will provide over 1000 people with clean water on a daily basis - two water wells were completed during 2018.
During 2019 We have collected over $1000 to purchase beds and mattresses for an orphanage based in Malawi.

Please let us know if you're happy to help out!

click on the link below (line) to find out more....
https://aro.org.au/water-wells-tanzania/

Educators- The Team