Kids World Child Care Centre - Welland

Operations Manager- Trish

We believe in supporting our team and running an excellent centre hence we have based our Operations Manager (Trish) at Kids World Welland. Trish has been in our sector for over 15 years and holds an Advancd Diploma in Early Education.

Trish is fantastically supported by our Centre Manager (Stella) and our Assistant Manager and Educational Leader (Caroline). Together they make up our leadership team that guides and supports our community.

Owners

Being owned by a young family (Kieran and Karen Armstrong), Kids World is all about family and community.

Kieran and Karen have three children aged between two and five years hence they know exactly what is important to our families. They work tirelessly to support their centres and make them excellent facilities. Their goal is to create communities that children love coming to and families are proud of.

Kieran, who has worked in the early education sector for over ten years, holds a degree in Psychology, majoring in child development. While Karen is a practicing midwife and nurse, hence is fantastic with our extra small bubs.

Educators

We’re proud to say that once Educators join Kids World, they never want to leave. That means we have a hugely experienced and deeply committed team providing a caring and consistent environment for your child.

All of our Educators have completed formal qualifications that exceed the minimum level of study required to work in early childhood services. They are also required to maintain a current Working with Children Check from the Department of Justice, as well as training in First Aid, Asthma Management and Anaphylaxis Management.

Our programs are exciting, investigative and fun, with learning and play firmly intertwined. Informed by the National Quality Framework, our activities, resources and routines incorporate principles from both the Montessori and Reggio-Emilia approaches to education.

Our method, which is reflective of our overall child-centred ethos, is designed to inspire your child to develop a lifelong love of learning by following their natural developmental trajectory. We value social collaboration as well as individual investigation and recognise our own environment as an important tool to inspire their learning.

While we support children to develop their understanding, thoughts and creativity in their own particular way – arts, movement, imaginative play, music –  we also ensure that we provide structured experiences which will prepare them for school.

At Kids World, we are proud to support bilingual language learning – encouraging children to be continuing users of their home language, in tandem with English. Staffed by experienced bilingual Educators, who speak a total of eight community languages, we embrace the rich tapestry of cultures amongst our children and families.

We know communication is crucial to belonging, being and becoming, and believe that early learning about other languages and cultures teaches children to show respect for diverse views and beliefs. Building solid foundations for exceptional global citizens.

Our approach to language learning is relaxed, immersive and play-based, supporting children to develop a sense of identity that honours both their adopted and home cultures.

Because we believe in nourishing little bodies as well as minds, Kids World provides delicious, freshly cooked meals – breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, late snack and dinner – as part of our daily routine. We also feed rumbling tummies as required in between times, because busy kids need all the fuel they can pack in!

Our meals are included in your child care fees and Educators keep a daily log of what your child eats and when, which you can see at the end of each day. While we encourage children to try different types of food, alternative options are provided if a particular meal is adamantly refused and Educators do ensure that every child is adequately nourished.

Our tasty meals, which meet national nutritional guidelines, are prepared on-site by our Chef, who has been at the centre for five years and is also a trained Food Safety Supervisor. Menus are displayed in the foyer just outside the kitchen, and we encourage your feedback to help us develop healthy, interesting and culturally diverse meals.

We support all feeding choices, providing a comfortable area for breastfeeding mums who wish to return the centre, facilitating storage of expressed breast milk and preparation of formula for your child throughout the day

Parents beware! If you have a skill, passion, point of interest or culture you are willing to share, we will rope you in! We love family and community involvement and believe all our families talents and differences should be celebrated!

In addition to involving our families we love engaging with the local community. We often receive visits from noteable people in the community and venture into the wider community to share different experiences with our children.

These exciting occurances are always communicated and documented through our online communication and education tool, Story Park.

So what is Reggio and Montessori? Essentially; they are teaching philosophies that each have amazing strengths and weaknesses.

Reggio is all about the child. What interests them, what they want to do. We observe the child and use that information to build engaging and interesting programs to keep that spark and want for learning burning.

Some have been known to criticise Reggio as being too open ended and lacking structure. Hence we study and implement elements of the Montessori philosophy too.

Montessori is more structured. You will see construction, maths, science and language areas in our rooms and play spaces that are designed to offer many intentional teaching opportunities. When our children leave us for school; they need to be prepared for what the next steps hold and the Montessori philosophy helps us prepare them.

As we blend the philosophies together we attempt to offer amazing learning opportunities whilst keeping the child's interest hence fostering a love for learning that we hope will last a lifetime.