6 wks to 2 yrs
2 yrs to 3 yrs
3 yrs to 6 yrs
At Bray Park Early Learning Centre, the Educators embrace the Early Years Learning Framework’s definition of play-based learning, and the curriculum is designed to inspire delight, curiosity, and inquiry in the classroom.
The centre is structured to allow the environment to become the third educator. Children are encouraged to explore many different avenues of learning and engage in self-directed play. Educators also provide open-ended experiences to develop imagination, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
The Educators recognise that every child and their development is unique. They provide an environment that is responsive to the children’s capabilities in order for all children to experience feelings of success and accomplishment. The aim is to create a lifelong love of learning, and support a successful transition to early years schooling.
The centre’s vision is to create a warm and nurturing space, that is full of fun and learning, where little ones will thrive. The team aims to provide the very best child care and early education at all times. At Bray Park ELC, everyone belongs.
The design of the centre embraces the natural beauty of the Bray Park environment. The classrooms are modern and inspiring, and the outdoor playgrounds include adventure forts, sandpits, bike tracks, and vegetable gardens.
Five classrooms provide learning havens for children from Nursery right through to Kindergarten. Classrooms are filled with inspiring, age-appropriate resources, and the educators aim to instill a love for learning in every child.
At Bray Park Early Learning Centre, we believe that everyone belongs.
Family and community is at the heart of everything we do, and we want everyone to feel welcome at our centre and our families to feel it is their home-away-from-home.
We believe that children learn best in a happy and nurturing environment, and we value building long-lasting and strong relationships with our families and our community. We promote inclusivity and belonging, to ensure that every child feels safe, secure, and happy at our centre.
We love being part of the diverse and wonderful Bray Park community, and we can’t wait to welcome everybody to our beautiful centre.
The Bray Park Early Learning Centre Team
At Bray Park Early Learning Centre, the children enjoy a wide variety of seasonal and local produce, with a multicultural menu that provides more than half of their daily nutrition requirements. The chef-designed meals also include many vegetables and herbs from the centre’s own vegetable gardens. The centre works in consultation with families to accommodate any child’s allergies, intolerances, their cultural background or other family preferences.
Mealtimes provide an important opportunity for children to develop good eating habits and learn about nutrition and food variety. They are also an important time for social interaction with other children and adults.
The Educators adopt meal time strategies to teach children about good nutrition. These include things like involving children in creating the menu, encouraging younger children and toddlers to talk about healthy food choices, providing children with opportunities to eat food and engage in the mealtime routines of different cultures, talking with children about nutritious food during mealtimes.
The parents don’t miss out either, with the centre’s own barista providing fresh coffee every morning upon drop-off to enjoy with a baked treat prepared by the centre chef.
Morning
Arthur is nine months old and starts his day outside in the sandpit with his educator and friends. His mother enjoys a coffee before she heads off to work.
Lunchtime
The children are sitting outside with their educators, who are singing some nursery rhymes. Arthur claps along while they sing and blow bubbles.
Afternoon
The nursery children are playing side by side with the soft building blocks. Arthur’s educator helps to guide him to build a tower with his blocks.
Morning
Jenna is two and a half years old and always likes to play in the home corner with her friends. They pretend to cook some breakfast and then get some cakes into the oven.
Lunchtime
After lunch the children head outside to enjoy the centre’s dance program. Jenna and her friends are watching the educator as she explains the moves, and then the children try to copy.
Afternoon
Jenna and her friend Ali are playing a game of shops. Jenna uses the toy shopping trolley to pretend to be the customer, while Ali is on the cash register.
Morning
Evan is four years old and starts his day at the craft table with his friend Luke. They’re making some robots using recycled materials such as cereal boxes.
Lunchtime
After lunch, Evan enjoys some quiet time with a few puzzles at the table with his friends. They swap around as they finish each one, before heading off to join in storytime.
Afternoon
Evan and his friends are having some fun in the dress up corner. The boys all wear their adventurer outfits and use their toy binoculars to pretend to look for wild animals.
Care for children under school age, on premises especially built or adapted for early childhood education and care services. Private operators, local councils, community organisations, employers and non-profit organisations may run long day care centres.
Occasional, Casual or Flexible CareOccasional, Flexible or Casual Care Services provide short periods of care for children under school age. Families can access Occasional, Flexible or Casual Care on either a regular or casual basis a variety of reasons including, shift or part-time work, respite care, crisis and emergency care, shopping or attending appointments.
Pre-school / Kindergarten / PrepPre-school is a planned educational program for children in the years before a child commences school. Children are usually aged between 3 and 5 years of age. Pre-school may take place in a range of settings including a purpose built building, in a community setting, a school, as part of a long day care centre or a mobile or visiting service.
In January 2012 the National Quality Framework (NQF) came into effect across Australia.
The purpose of the NQF is to improve and standardise the quality of child care through a
range of measures including better staff to child ratios, higher staff qualifications
and an assessment and rating system designed to promote continuous improvement.
Under the NQF child care services are assessed and rated against the National Quality Standards (NQS).
The NQS measures the quality of early childhood education and care in Australia. It will cover
most long day care, family day care, preschool/kindergarten and outside school hours care services.
Under these standards child care services will be assessed and rated against the
seven quality areas, 18 standards and 58 elements that make up the NQS.