Our Vision and Philosophy
For Children
We believe every child is a unique individual with their own distinct ideas, interests, abilities, learning style, growth progression and culture.
They do not exist in isolation but are, first and foremost, a member of their family and then also a member of a variety of communities. For this reason, we regularly provide collaborative learning opportunities for the children and promote acceptance of our culturally diverse community through an anti-bias multicultural environment.
Their diverse knowledge, skills, perspectives and experiences gives them a confidence in who they are and allows them to continue constructing and shaping their own self identities and understandings of the world.
Children are resourceful, capable and powerful. They actively construct their own understandings and promote and influence others learning. For this reason, we encourage interactions in individual, small group and large group experiences.
When given the time, space, support and opportunity to interact in a meaningful, comfortable, safe and inclusive environment, where they can be themselves, children increase their sense of wellbeing, develop and maintain relationships and construct new ideas and concepts.
We empower children with communication skills to ensure their dignity and rights are maintained at all times and so they can learn to take responsibility for themselves and others, to understand their interdependence and connectedness with others, to appreciate collaboration and cooperation and self-regulate their own behaviour.
We allow children the opportunity to build confidence and expertise by giving them the time to revisit a range of open ended materials and equipment that cater for children’s individual needs and interests that are familiar and natural to them and by introducing novelty to promote interest and more intricate and increasingly abstract thinking.
We develop trust, confidence and optimism in children for a strong sense of wellbeing that maximises their learning opportunities by providing warm, trusting relationships, supporting their health needs, providing predictable, positive and safe environments and valuing all aspects of their physical, emotional, social, cognitive, linguistic, creative and spiritual being.
We focus on the process of children’s work and not on the finished product, firmly believing the early childhood years are about both the present moment and the future.
We ensure children’s motivation, engagement and inclusion in learning by respecting and building on their unique skills and strengths, ways of knowing, cultural traditions, multiple languages and individual needs and interests.
For Families
We positively connect with families and consciously work together to develop collaborative partnerships with them.
We strive to ensure families feel empowered in our centre by consistently engaging in open and ongoing two-way communication, and embedding support, respect, understanding and joint decision making about their children’s learning and wellbeing into all we do.
We embrace diversity and respond to changing individual and family needs with care, understanding and empathy.
Families are children’s most valued teachers and their knowledge, expertise, experience and involvement forms an integral part of our program.
We continually encourage families to become partners in building our curriculum by consistently requesting input and feedback from them about their children’s experiences both inside and outside of our service.
We collaborate with the community to provide families with support agencies and resources that can enhance their parenting, family wellbeing, child development and health and to ensure continuity of learning and transitions.
Continuity of care and learning is provided between children’s home environment and our service environment through ongoing verbal and non-verbal communication and feedback on their children’s learning.
Children’s experiences, their responses and work samples are meaningfully displayed for families to ensure that children’s learning is visible.
For Educators
The Early Years Learning Framework and the National Quality Framework guide our everyday practices and development of our policies and programs.
We endeavour to earn the respect of families, children, the community and fellow educators through allowing them to be equal active participants and decision makers and providing them with a high level of commitment, dedication, trust and educational expertise.
Our professional judgments are central to facilitating each child’s individual learning. We critically reflect on our experiences, our beliefs and values and a range of perspectives and theories about early childhood on a regular basis, to help improve and adjust our practices to suit the time, place and context of learning and to also create a confidence in what we do and an understanding for why we do it.
We also critically reflect on children’s learning and development on a regular basis individually and as a team.
We create a collaborative environment that values, affirms and supports motivation, commitment and ongoing learning of all educators and fosters individual professional development. This is inspired by honest and open communication, leadership, confidence, enthusiasm, creativity, innovation, imagination, experimentation and investigation.
We believe in providing continuity of care through an environment that represents each child’s unique sense of belonging, being and becoming and familiar educators who are regularly consistent in their approach to education and care and who continually communicate openly with families and other educators.
Quality experiences in built and natural environments are achieved through educators intentionally planning and preparing both indoor and outdoor play spaces that are engaging, flexible, predictable, include a balance of active and quiet areas, have sufficient and age appropriate space, equipment and facilities, encourage positive relationships, and reflect responsiveness to the children’s emerging interests and needs.
We actively care for the environment and resources of the centre by embedding sustainability into our daily practices to help children to become socially responsible, show respect for their environment and develop an understanding of the interdependence of living things. Most valued are the relationships that the children, families and educators develop with the animals at the centre and the appreciation, care and connectedness they have for one another.
We value a team of educators who ask questions, network with other teaching professionals and support organisations, possess openness, readiness for change and trust, share ideas and provoke discussions on current early childhood issues and contribute to others and their own ongoing learning and inquiry. This allows for a deep understanding and appreciation of children’s learning and development, and a constant review of our changing environment and practices, leading to ongoing continuous improvement.
Our educational leader motivates and mentors educators to effectively and consistently aim at implementing the Early Years Learning Framework and National Quality Framework at an exceeding level, as per our ACECQA 2021 Rating - Exceeding.
For the Community
We liaise with services and resources in the community to enrich our program, and communicate with specialists to assist in planning an effective and equitable environment that ensures all children have the opportunity to experience a sense of personal significance and achieve the learning outcomes.
We develop a sense of community within the centre, build connections with our local community and facilitate connections between our children, their families and the local community through excursions and incursions, group play experiences and projects, a sense of belonging and comfort, participation in reciprocal relationships between different rooms of the centre, group discussions, collaborative learning and shared decision-making. We also promote events and experiences within the community by sharing them on an ongoing basis with children and families and help children to make connections between their experiences and knowledge developed in context of their community and family experiences to that of the context of the centre by incorporating children’s experiences outside of the service into our program.