Through play, children establish, investigate and build upon relationships and connections with other children, adults around them, the environment and other living things and communities. These connections and relationships, in turn, allow for children to express who they are, what their ideas are and build understanding of how they affect and are affected by people, places and living and non-living things around them.

We acknowledge our role, as Educators, to use our personal and professional skills to facilitate the building of warm, secure, respectful relationships and to have varying levels of involvement in play to allow daily connections to ebb and flow naturally.

We recognise that play can be a highly complex process, but is also natural and simple, depending on the child’s desires at the time. Creating the time and spaces for children to follow their natural play processes enables them to enjoy and value moments – moments of being intensely involved in play; moments of being reflective in solitary play; moments being with others and so on.

We value play and these moments of ‘being’ as a way for children to engage in day to day joys and challenges. We understand the many and varied aspects of our role in a child’s moments at play – we are observers, players, listeners, speakers, guides, facilitators and much more. Our presence and involvement should be such that children are able to relish and share the moments the day brings.

Our Early Learning Centre value play as a child’s tool for connecting with and gathering information about themselves, people around them, their environments and communities and so on. In play children will form the building blocks of their own unique identity and piece them together across the early years to become their best self.

We believe Early Childhood Educators to be important professionals in the lives of children and families in the communities we engage in. We have knowledge, passion and resources to share with children, families and communities that contribute to children becoming positive, life-long learners and effectively shaping the future of communities. We view our role in the early years of a child’s life as influential and we take our responsibility seriously.