New Building and Ludo Program Helps Transform St Cuthbert’s Catholic School

A state of the art, purpose-built building makes early learning and care at St Cuthbert’s Catholic School a highly sought after option for families on the Eastern shore. As a relatively small school, the opening of the early years centre has been transformative for the St Cuthbert’s community. 

Ludo St Cuthbert’s are fortunate to be based in a brand-new, early years centre which gives families an opportunity to immerse themselves into the St Cuthbert’s Catholic School community prior to their child beginning compulsory schooling. The building was developed using the latest pedagogy and research into what three- to five-year-old children require to enhance their learning at such a vital age. There are many stakeholders who were involved in the design of the centre at a school and TCEO level as well as builders, designers and architects who all had significant influence in the development of this building. 

The Principal of St Cuthbert’s, Marcus Donnelly explained why his school is blessed to have such an architecturally unique space. “It’s purpose built for this particular age group. A lot of thought, effort and time has gone into the design and how that works with the pedagogy that we use here on a day-to-day basis. It’s a very clever use of space.”

Mr Donnelly discussed how the school is aiming to provide students with the best possible start to their education, by introducing them to the St Cuthbert’s community at a younger age. The school provides a seamless transition from Ludo into Kindergarten and is able to help educate attendees on their values and what it means to be a St Cuthbert’s student. Mr Donnelly also found that a large proportion of parents whose children are enrolled at the school are choosing to access Ludo on the off days that they are not attending kinder. 

Rebecca Geeves is the Team Leader at Ludo St Cuthbert’s and she tries to imitate the structure of a kinder day within an average day of Ludo. “There’s more structure around how the days run in Ludo because we are emulating what they’re doing in kinder. This is so the students become more prepared for kinder than a traditional childcare centre.”

Ludo helps bridge the gap for children before the start of their compulsory schooling, and gives them skills such as building their resilience and independence to prepare them for when they start kinder in the coming years. The program ensures that students have an opportunity to experience the school they might attend, and also allows them to socialise with older students and provides them with an easier transition into formal schooling. The Ludo program encompasses before and after school care, a short and long day service and is tailored to support the needs of any family. They aim to provide a learning program that is play-based and different to regular childcare, and Ludo St Cuthbert’s is a fantastic advocate of this.

Ludo also gives schools the opportunity to support parents earlier in a child’s development due to them being under the care of the school at a younger age. It allows educators to put interventions or support in place to help students who require extra care in certain areas of their development. Marcus said, “We can provide opportunities for students who might need support in terms of early literacy acquisition... It's an opportunity for our school to work with parents, to support them and more importantly, support their kids.”

The program at Ludo allows attendees to become accustomed to being at school, and allows them to interact with the two kinder classes when they are in the spacious shared playground. Once the building opened, the students immediately built a respect for the facilities and gardens. Rebecca explained, “We spent a lot of time planting things in the garden, watering them and things like that. So now the kids just do it automatically. I think because the students are given freedom and get to use the garden every day, they learn what the right thing is pretty quickly.”

Ludo Early Learning and Care continues to be an important aspect of Catholic schools in Tasmania and provides a program that is specifically designed for three to five year old children. 

Ludo Early Learning and Care is now available in seven different locations in Catholic Education Tasmania schools since Ludo St Cuthbert’s opened in September 2022. 

Enrol in your local Ludo today: https://catholiccaretas.org.au/programs/ludo