Early Years Department - Children's Services

At Arthur Mawson Children’s Centre, we offer a Funded Kindergarten Program, Pre-Kindergarten and Playgroup to cater for the needs of our community. We offer a nurturing, caring environment where children from many different cultures come together to enjoy our programs. Our focus is on relationships first, because we believe that if our children and their families have a strong sense of belonging, then they will feel comfortable to engage and explore in our environment. We aim to foster a sense of wonder in their environment, encouraging children to ask questions about what is happening around them. While Pre-Kinder and Kindergarten are not an early form of school, it is the beginning of your child’s formal education. Here, basic skills and attitudes are formed and knowledge gained, which form the building blocks for future development. Our Playgroup offers a chance to engage and explore our environment while learning to be around other children with the safety of parents near. Playgroup is also supported by Kildonan with a bilingual worker for our Arabic and Afghani families. All programs benefit from us being co-located with the St Georges Road Primary School. The children who attend all programs at our centre service, entered school very strong. In line with the Early Years Learning Frameworks (EYLF & VEYLDF), through play, we will encourage each child to develop: a strong sense of identity; connections with their world and an interest in contributing to it; a strong sense of wellbeing; confidence and involvement in their learning and effective communication skills in English and in their home language, where applicable. Through a flexible play based learning environment we aim to provide the children with endless opportunities for the exploration of emotions, relationships and identity, as well as a chance to practice language and communication skills: a chance to make sense of and explore the world around them. We value & encourage independence, self-confidence & a desire to explore & find things out. Our focus is on preparing children for life in general. We provide the children with opportunities to imagine, wonder, explore, create, manipulate, discover, practice, reflect, evaluate, laugh, sing, move their bodies and resolve conflicts. Where possible we run an indoor/outdoor program with many open-ended activities on offer. We also aim to offer “flexible” snack & lunch times and provide many opportunities for the children to be involved in the preparation of food. We mostly start the day with a ‘Morning Circle’: a time to share news; ideas; sing songs; play games; listen to a story; and/or do a focus drawing. We aim to finish the day, once again sitting in a circle, with a told story and a story candle.