Nurturing and Empowering through relationships and play.

St Margaret’s School’s Early Learning Centre’s program is founded on the belief that young children need a quality educational setting that nurtures every child, whilst empowering them to be the best they can. The Australian Early Development Census reports, ‘Evidence tells us that a person’s life successes, health and emotional wellbeing have their roots in early childhood. We know that if we get it right in the early years, we can expect to see children thrive throughout school and their adult lives.’ At St Margaret’s we are perfectly placed to provide a quality program that supports the children to achieve their full potential and to make highly successful transitions to school.

During our mornings the children are encouraged to engage in specifically planned play experiences, where teachers work side by side with them, to scaffold their thinking, encourage their curiosity and support their perseverance and commitment to seeing tasks through to completion. Participating in highly valued specialist sessions, the children’s skills are further enhanced through Music, Physical Education and Library sessions within the Junior School environment. Not only supporting the development of a broad range of vital skills, these classes enable the children to become familiar with the school environment and develop an understanding of school culture. To ensure the development of the whole child, our afternoons are spent working in small focussed groups. During this time the children work collaboratively on targeted skills designed to ensure that they engage in a wide range of experiences, which they may not choose of their own accord during our valued free choice morning play sessions. Having high expectations of our children, whilst nurturing their unique personalities and capabilities, ensures that we are providing a high quality early childhood education.

Mrs Sue Eden
Director of Early Learning Centre