The first five years is a critical and sensitive period for children’s learning and development. At First Five Early Learning Cranbourne, we join with you to establish a secure foundation for your child’s health and wellbeing, learning and development.

Our family-owned and operated service provides children and families with a high-quality early education and care experience. Welcoming children aged birth-5 years, our service offers purposeful learning environments, and newly refurbished and purposefully designed playgrounds.

High-quality education and care matters for children’s early experiences and how they develop foundational skills for learning and life. For young children, high-quality education and care incorporates secure and trusting relationships with responsive educators; play-based learning; purposeful learning environments.

Our play-based curriculum affords developmentally appropriate experiences that build healthy bodies and brains as children explore actively, engage with others, and have fun. Purposeful indoor and outdoor learning environments foster children’s curiosity and engagement through self-initiated and educator-guided play.

Our beautiful service is led by a qualified team of early childhood professionals. Dedicated leadership roles include a Centre Manager, Assistant Centre Manager and Educational Leader to support children, families, and a quality program. Our Cranbourne leadership team have extensive combined experience in the education sector, and all hold an early childhood qualification.

As the leader of the service, our Centre Manager, Ebonie, connects with children, families, and community to create a strong sense of belonging. In service delivery, Ebonie is focused on connection, safety and compliance, and your child’s wellbeing and enjoyment within the program. Ebonie works closely with our Assistant Centre Manager, Paige, to afford you a welcoming and supportive experience.

At First Five Early Learning Cranbourne, we invest in the Educational Leader role to focus on continuous quality improvement in our programs. The Educational Leader role is mandatory in early childhood education services and responsible for supporting and leading the development and implementation of the educational program.  Our Educational Leader Hayley has a Bachelor in Early Childhood Education.

Our service offers the Victorian Government approved 3 and 4 year old Kinder Programs, delivered by experienced bachelor-qualified early childhood teachers. Within our play-based kindergarten program we celebrate what it means to be 4, and support children to develop foundational skills for learning, school and life. Added benefits of our kindergarten program include extended hours of care, and access 52 weeks of the year. We offer 9-hour, 10-hour, and all day sessions.

To support your child’s transition to school, we focus on 5 foundational skill sets for early learners as part of the kindergarten program:

1. Physical skills to build strength in movement patterns linked to writing, reading, and coping with the physical demands of the school day.

2. Social skills to establish, maintain and enjoy friendships, and work collaboratively with others.

3. Emotional skills to identify, label and understand emotions, leading to self-regulation.

4. Oral language skills as the basis for learning to read and write and communicate effectively.

5. Dispositions for learning required to be a successful learner including curiosity, confidence, problem-solving, persistence, concentration, and cooperation.

Pre-reading and pre-writing skills are central to learning in the kindergarten year, with our skilled teachers promoting a love of stories and storytelling, mark-making and emergent writing, and early mathematical skills including patterning, sequencing, and counting. Engagement with literacy and numeracy concepts is embedded within all learning experiences and across all play spaces.

Within our kindergarten program, children access specialist learning, including Clay, STEM and Nature experinces. These experiences afford deep engagement with project work, small group learning, and opportunities to extend on learning both indoors and outdoors using a range of materials and techniques.

For more information about Free Kindy and the added benefits of a government-approved kindergarten program in a long day care setting, go to https://www.vic.gov.au/kinder or contact us today.

Our Centre Chef prepares fresh, nutritious meals daily in line with Nutrition Australia requirements and guidelines. Individual children’s allergy profiles and preferences are catered for to ensure safety and positive food experiences. our Centre Chef engages with the children around ingredients, food preparation and taste.

As eating is a social practice, our educators sit with children during mealtimes to talk about the meal and share stories of home and community. We offer progressive mealtimes for older children during morning and afternoon tea to ensure play is uninterrupted and mealtimes unhurried.