Our Philosophy & History

Our centres are based in the beautiful Sutherland Shire in Sydney’s south. We acknowledge the Dharawal people as being the original custodians of this land and respect past and present Aboriginal elders of this area.

The first of our centres was opened to the community in 1994 and our story continues to be one of great success and pride. Our first centre was Kirrawee Child Care Centre, and over the past twenty years we have expanded to provide more quality child care in the Southerland Shire at Bonnet Bay Child Care Centre, Bonnet Bay BASC, Oyster Bay BASC and St Catherines Gymea BASC. The growth of our centres has been due to the dedication of our management team and educators, and building trust and respect in the community through their ongoing support of quality child care.

The underlying philosophy of our Shire Child Care Learning Centres is inspired by our passion to achieve the highest standards in quality child care and education.

We support the National Learning Framework’s view that children’s lives are characterised by belonging, being and becoming. Belonging to a family and wider community is central to being and becoming, in that it shapes who children are and who they can become. Being recognises the significance of the here and now in children’s lives; engaging with life’s joys and complexities and meeting challenges in everyday life. Becoming acknowledges the process of rapid and significant change that occurs in the early years as young children learn and grow. Their identities, knowledge, understandings, capacities, skills and relationships all develop greatly during childhood. Our educators incorporate the principles of belonging, being and becoming in their holistic approach to care and education.

We believe that through providing a variety of activities and educator interactions we encourage children to develop an open-ended approach to learning through play. It is our goal to provide a program that fulfils all children’s fundamental and basic needs in the different areas of development through National Quality Standards and the Early Years Learning Framework including the five learning outcomes:

1. Children have a sense of identity
2. Children are connected with and contribute to their world
3. Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
4. Children are confident and involved learners
5. Children are effective communicators.

In support of the Early Years Learning Framework, we believe in the following practices:

• We believe each child is unique, bringing to the learning environment an exclusive set of individual and life experiences. We endeavour to nurture children’s self-esteem in order for them to enter the social world beyond the family and establish themselves as valuable members of the community.
• We believe in encouraging children’s acceptance and awareness and fostering their ability to develop positive attitudes towards equality.
• We believe in fostering and reinforcing positive behaviour based on control of self and the understanding and appreciation of other people’s rights and feelings.
• We believe in exercising strict health and hygiene practices that relate to staff, children and families.
• We believe a hygienic and clean environment is important for the benefit and well-being of everyone using the service. We believe using the guidelines of ‘Staying Healthy in Child Care’ will ensure we limit the spread of illness & infectious diseases at the service.
• We believe the child care natural environment is the 3rd teacher, embedding sustainability into everyday routines. The environment is organised in a way to engage every child and encourage physical well being of the children and staff in exploration and learning.
• We believe the relationship between educators, children & their families is fundamental to the quality of the education & care of the children. We believe in encouraging a strong connection with families & the community through collaboration and we deeply value those who make up our service & encourage their participation.
• We believe in continuity of staff to ensure that warm and respectful relationships can be developed in a safe and predictable environment. We believe in an open door policy and encourage everyone’s input to assist in the quality improvement of the service.