Palmerston Child & Family Early Learning Centre

Our philosophy is at the core of everything we do, and endeavour to do here at Palmerston CFC ELC. This is reviewed each year as a team and shared with family for their input.

‘Environments, Nurturing, Quality care, Relationships’

Palmerston Child and Family Early Learning Centre prides itself on our nurturing learning environments for children, where we extend and expand upon their interests and provide them with a range of materials to explore and help understand their world with.

Our outdoors environment is nature based and provides a safe space for children to become confident in their abilities and explore their imaginations either individually or with their peers.

Our educators are nurturing and develop programs which help to support every child and their needs, age appropriately and with the greatest of care, as we respect the families’ wishes while ensuring that all aspects of their needs are catered for.

Quality care is more than meeting standards, but is where we believe, we provide the children and families with a sense of belonging as we always strive for creating an ‘at home’ feel where every child is acknowledged and their backgrounds and cultures are treasured.

Palmerston Child and Family Early Learning Centre is part of an integrated service where we recognise the importance of working with and supporting our local community by providing quality care for our children who may not otherwise receive it.

Strong relationships are built with every individual who walks through our doors and we value family input in everything we do.

We recognise parents as first teachers and ensure that we respect our parents in every decision we make to provide the best outcomes for children.

The team at Palmerston Child and Family Early Learning Centre are dedicated professionals that value the importance of maintaining an optimum level of care and education for all children. Our team attend Professional Development where appropriate and we view ourselves as life – long learners, who adapt different approaches of Early Childhood
Education as we see fit for our centre.

Our team view themselves as resourceful, focussed and engaging teachers, who consistently develop and refine their professional practice. As a centre, we have a great understanding of the Early Learning Years Framework (EYLF) and all that it entails. We use the EYLF principles and practices to help us extend on children’s interests and learning outcomes.

Our routines are flexible and empower children to make decisions, allowing them to feel in charge of their learning which is reflected in the style of Programming and Planning that we follow.

Play Studio One Curriculum

Play Studio One caters for children from six weeks to two and a half years of age. We have a strong focus on creating trusting relationships between educators, children and families.

Our values have been emphasised through Primary Care Giving, which supports respectful and consistent interactions with children. Primary Care Giving is underpinned by the Attachment Theory, which suggests that children will become confident in exploring their environment when they build a bond with their primary caregiver.

Before beginning in care, children are assigned an educator who will take care of all their basic care needs and become the main point of contact for families.

During a typical day in Play Studio One, the door between the indoor and outdoor learning environments stays open to give the children choice on where they would like to play. Giving children choices creates a relaxing daily routine where children can drive their own learning. Our learning
program is documented through Floorbooks, which follow and capture children’s voices and ideas as they progress along a learning journey.

Individual learning is documented in children’s portfolios and summative assessments, which provide a basis for curriculum decision-making.

Play Studio Two Curriculum

In Play Studio Two we have qualified and experienced Educators delivering a fun, interesting and educational daily program following the Early Years Learning Framework curriculum. The program is developed from the children’s needs, interests and strengths whilst allowing for spontaneous learning and taking into account the individual differences of each child.

Each child has a developmental portfolio that includes observations of children’s learning, art work and photos from throughout the year. These are
accessible for families and children to view at any time and are sent home at the end of each year.
In Play Studio Two we provide Summative Assessments for each child. This is a way for us to have a clear and thorough understanding about what each child knows, understands, and can do in relation to the Early Years Outcomes. This is also a way for us to build effective partnerships with families to have consistent input into their child’s curriculum.