Pioneer Spring Gully Kindergarten teacher hangs up hat after 18 years

"The small dilemmas they have, I will miss solving them together," she said.

"And having beautiful, frank discussions about the world where they appear as a friend rather than a child to you."

After 18 years, Ms Prince has left Spring Gully Kindergarten to start her retirement.

The tenure at the kindergarten made up almost half of her over 40 year career in early education, spanning South Australia to Epsom.

"I feel really comfortable," Ms Prince said.

"Stopping had become important. My brain needed to rest."

Ms Prince spearheaded Spring Gully becoming the second kindergarten in the state with a bush kinder program.

The sessions took children into the outdoors, challenging them to adapt to playing with materials at hand and connecting with Dja Dja Wurrung culture.

The extension of the classroom into the outdoors, filled with natural trip hazards and a lack of walls, went against the grain of most kindergarten guidelines, Ms Prince said.

To convince higher-ups, she looked to forest kindergartens in Europe where the only restrictions were that children did not go into the outdoors when temperatures dropped below minus 10 degrees, or if storm clouds were rolling in.

"And I thought, if they can do it - we can do it," she said.

Corinna Clough has known Ms Prince as a teacher to her children, a mentor and a colleague at the kinder.

She said Ms Prince had shaped the teacher she was today.

"Jenny helps guide you and mentor you to believe in yourself and to follow through with those big ideas that you have," she said.

"I'm really grateful and honored to have had the opportunity and experiences that I have with Jenny."

Outdoors or in the classroom, Ms Prince said showing honor and respect for a young person's thoughts was paramount in shaping their confidence.

"They feel like they can achieve and they can do things. Because you've taken them very seriously about the issues that they have," she said.

And that relationship was not a one way street, Ms Prince said.

"I will miss having my buddies that I can so freely talk to and have that reciprocated."

Ms Prince said those "buddies" were sometimes hard to recognise, now towering over their parents when she ran into them in the street.

And despite their new found height, Ms Prince said she could still see the young person she once knew.

"The love that you have for them stays and you still remain interested in who they are, who they're becoming," she said.

"You've invested a lot of who you are into that child, so at the end of the year when you say goodbye, they go with your best thoughts as a part of who they are."

Jenny's family would like to invite anyone would like to pass on well wishes to join them at the One Tree Hill pub from 1pm - 3pm on May 5.