We believe children learn best in an environment where they feel safe, secure and are able to build trusting, respectful and responsive relationships with educators. Children need to have the opportunity to play, explore, experiment, problem solve, think critically and use their imaginations.
The first five years of a child’s life are incredibly important, children develop more rapidly than at any other stage in their lives. Significant developmental milestones occur during this time as children progress from sitting to standing, babbling to conversations and from being largely dependent to independent.
Engaging with peers and educators in an early childhood education environment designed and resourced specifically for young children provides an optimal setting to develop skills, dispositions and a love for learning.
Our Wattle Room feels like a home away from home. Our educators provide children with an environment that is safe, warm, loving, secure and responsive. There is a strong emphasis on the building of trusting relationships, which supports children’s development, sense of belonging and well-being. From the moment you walk through our doors you will notice the nurturing and homely atmosphere, where children thrive in a natural play based environment.
Our qualified and supportive educators genuinely care about your child’s wellbeing and growth. They plan and implement opportunities designed to enhance physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. Daily experiences we enjoy are sensory play, music, singing, rhymes and reading, and we spend lots of our time engaging in our own outdoor playground.
Our Manna Gum Room recognises the importance of play in children’s learning and development. Our educators design a curriculum that provides children with the time, freedom, space, flexibility and resources to engage in meaningful play. The program is child-centred, based on children’s emerging interests, needs and abilities, with a strong emphasis on social and emotional development and the building of independence and self-help skills.
Our enriched program extends children’s learning opportunities through engagement in real life and play-based experiences, encouraging solid foundations in pre-literacy and pre-numeracy concepts and through trial and error, resilience.
Our Stringybark Room is an integrated learning environment, home to both our Victorian Government Funded Kindergarten Program and our non-funded long day care program. These programs exist side-by-side, and provide an engaging, creative and welcoming atmosphere for all children.
The funded 3 & 4 year-old Kindergarten programs are delivered by an Early Childhood Teacher, Monday – Friday 8.30am-1.30pm and is complimented by the flexibility of long day care hours.
Our Kindergarten Teacher and educator team use a holistic approach to program planning in our integrated setting. Children in multi-age environments learn from their peers, supporting their development of independence, empathy, resilience, understanding and leadership skills.
Our children learn through a variety of play-based experiences that are intentional and spontaneous, whilst being adaptive to children’s emerging interests.
Children have access to our indoor and outdoor environments, providing a variety of invitations to explore and investigate multiple experiences. Incorporating dramatic and imaginative play, block construction, creative arts, music and movement, sensory play, messy play, puzzle and manipulative activities and numeracy and literacy. This enriched play enables measured risks, encouraging children to develop resilience, confidence, persistence and build lifelong skills that support their transition to school.
Early Childhood Teacher: Monday–Friday 8:30am–1:30pm (School Terms)
Our program and practices are guided by the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF). Families may not be familiar with the EYLF. In the following text we will introduce you to its five learning outcomes:
Thank you for the land, thank you for the sky,
here are my friends and here am I,
thank you to the Wurundjeri people,
for the land on which we learn and play,
hands up, hands down,
we’re on Kulin Nation ground.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the Land and River, on which we learn, work, play and live. We acknowledge Warrandyte and Birrarung (Yarra River), as a significant living and gathering place for the Wurundjeri people from time immemorial. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
