We are looking forward to getting to know you and your child.
We pride ourselves in providing a nurturing high quality natural environment for you and your child. We aim to be flexible within our routine and where possible follow the same routine as at home (eating, sleeping patterns etc.) as we believe this is best practice and helps with smooth transitions between the home and the learning environment.
There are permanent room based and additional support co-educators allocated to work with the children on a daily basis – this is made up of full time and part time educators. Each room has a team of consistent educators where the children are able to become familiar with and build trusting relationships.
Orientation
Within this process you and your child will have a primary educator. This is an educator allocated to each child and family to ensure the establishment of a warm, secure relationship with the child and a strong partnership with the parents/guardians. There are two orientation dates and times that they will make with you. This is catered to the needs of you and your child. We aim for a slow and staggered orientation process allowing the children to build an attachment with their primary educator’s and form a sense of belonging and become familiar within the room environments.
Read MoreOur program
We offer the children a stimulating curriculum based on individual needs and interests. These needs and interests are determined after observation and assessment of your child and from information we gather from you and your child.
The materials we provide are mainly natural and open ended, where the room aesthetics are considered in providing the children with a soothing calm environment. We focus on children’s pro-social behavior and encourage it through positive reinforcement, encouragement and guidance. The program we offer is flexible indoor/outdoor and the children are free to explore all areas at their own pace provided suitable supervision can be maintained.
The routines are flexible. For example, if the children are involved in an experience, we do not expect them to ‘drop’ everything and sit down for a group experience. Rather, in the case of lunchtime, we put some lunch aside for them to eat at a time suitable for them. Spontaneous group experiences are offered on a regular basis, however, no pressure is placed on a child to join in against their will.
At Windsor we believe in children exploring challenge within their environment as a way of extending their learning and development. What this can look like in our environment is children engaging in risk taking experiences. Our yard is full of wondrous trees to explore, children will approach them, engage with them and climb them. We allow the freedom of this exploration without limitations as children are aware of their own limits. Educators are on hand to supervise and assess if children may need help however children are also encouraged to ask for assistance if they feel they require it. Within our environment we also prefer to engage with real tools again as it allows us to view children as competent and active citizens in their own right, an imitation or ‘child friendly’ version is great in setting the foundations but the real thing allows expectations and respect to be truly explored.
A continuous journey for us at the centre is ensuring that Anti-Bias principles and goals are embedded into our curriculum. Here experiences, interactions and discussions with the children will be setting the foundations for positive social outlooks for community, people and the wider world. Children and families engage with respect and kindness around topics such as gender, racism, sexuality and disability. They share their understandings and explore resources that help to unpack the themes and working towards strengthening their voice to stand up to injustice when they are faced with it themselves or see others surrounded by it.
Our curriculum will also contain a number of resources and experiences that will explore the connection to country. We will also be engaging with different organisations throughout the year to run sessions at the centre and have excursions which will help strengthen our knowledge and understandings. All of this coupled with our ongoing exploration of Anti-Bias principles are working towards the creation of our own Reconciliation Action Plan.
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