At The Learning Cottage our educators utilise the children’s knowledge, ideas, cultures, abilities and interests to form the foundation of the program. The program is highly tailored and child-centred, allowing educators to gain a holistic understanding of each child’s development. Children are involved in the decision-making process in regards to setting up the rooms, making rules and the altering of routines. We provide our children with a great sense of autonomy, allowing them to own the program and feel empowered by their own interests and ideas. Educators work with the children to ensure that this, and the centres routine and program are planned effectively to provide maximum learning opportunities.
Routines have been managed to maximise learning opportunities for each child. Through constant reflection and discussion between our educators and children, they have created a daily routine suitable to their needs and wants.
Our program allows involvement and promotes children’s ideas via questioning and prompting, this encourages the children to investigate, ask questions, share individual ideas and test theories. When documenting a child’s observation our educators ask themselves:
‘what?’ – What happened, set the scene for a parent by introducing the environment, the children/ educators involved and what meaningful events occurred.
‘So what?’ – What learning took place? What did the child achieve or attempt to do? What connections were made in regards to The Early Years Learning Framework and/or theories?
‘Now what?’- How will we as educators plan effectively from this? What resources do we plan on utilising to further extend on this developmentally in regards to the child’s current interest’s. These learning stories form the basis for future programming, guiding educators in their decisions when extending/ challenging the children and while tailoring activities to the current interests and needs.
Educators intentional teaching is often documented as part of the learning story, allowing educators to deliberately follow up on the learning effectively. Follow up activities are flexible to allow open-ended play opportunities, with a purpose and intention in mind. Educators are experienced in using strategies to guide this e.g. ‘What do you think would happen if…’ or ‘How could we find out?’, ‘What do you think about that?’.
We as a centre have recognised the importance of our preschool age children to be involved in a meaningful school readiness program, ensuring them and their families are equipped with the necessary tools and support for their transition to school. To create a school readiness program relevant to the current needs of our children, we have reached out to a local school, allowing us to get an insight into the area’s children are needing a basic skill in, to be prepared for their schooling journey.
With this information alongside the EYLF developmental milestones, our program has been divided into 6 developmental areas with key prompts throughout the year. The program allows the educators and children to adapt it according to their interests and level of development.
We provide full catering, a leading developmental program, and fantastic quality of care for children and families alike.:
- Focus on Children
- Family Partnerships
- Experienced Educators
- Learning and Development Program
- Community and Environment
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