It is often said within our school that a visit to the ELC will lift your spirits. And it is true. There is so much joy here. As Loris Malaguzzi, the educator whose thinking helped shape the Reggio Emilia approach, reminds us, there can be “nothing without joy”.

For the Annie girls, joy has been found in expanding worlds: in new friendships, in the freedom of the ‘big girl’ playground and in visits to the Coach House, where even a shared drawing lesson becomes an opportunity to add something unmistakably their own.

For the Mamie girls, joy is often found in places adults might pass by. The locker room becomes the setting for games returned to day after day, familiar stories are learned by heart and then delightfully reshaped, and the eyes of a new Mamie reveal the wonder of discovering just how much one day can hold.

Joy is present, too, when the girls reach for their family photographs, name the people they love and invite us into the stories of their lives. It is found in the connections that begin through a shared game, a familiar story or the discovery that something in one lunchbox is much like something in another.

These moments may appear small, but together they tell us something significant. When a child moves confidently through her ELC home, returns eagerly to familiar play, shares the people she loves and begins to find her place alongside others, she shows us that she feels safe, known and connected.

In our ELC, joy is belonging made visible.