Our well prepared and carefully designed curriculum is enhanced by a secure and happy environment that is supported by a committed and passionate team of educators.

Our vision is to ignite a passion for exploration, inquisitiveness, expression and learning. At Little Achievers we pride ourselves on providing a meaningful and holistic learning experience for each child, with the fundamental aim of promoting positive dispositions towards learning for the future.

Our Educational Program and Practice:

The program has been developed alongside the National Quality Standards to enhance each child’s learning and development. Childcare services are required to base their educational program on an approved learning framework. The program focuses on addressing the developmental needs, interests and experiences of each child, while taking into account individual differences. The educators facilitate and extend each child’s learning in the program through:

–       Child directed learning

–       Child centred approach

–       Intentional teaching experiences

–       Responsive learning and scaffolding opportunities

–       Physical activity promotion

–       Partnerships with families and communities

Developmental areas such as building on a child’s fine motor, gross motor, cognitive, language, social, self-help, emotional regulation is our focus to enrich and inform our child led program. The program is driven by each child’s individual interests and exploration. We develop project learning area’s based on child conversations, children’s input, family feedback and provocation on what the children want to learn through involvement and discussions. To support this, we use evidence such as work samples, investigation mind maps, images, resources and children’s conversation.

Parent Communication:

We use an online platform called Kinderloop for all our parent communication. On this platform families will receive a variety of information. Information for the whole centre, the rooms, each individual child and the group of children in attendance on each specific day and the families can also contribute to this platform.

On a day to day basis you will receive a reflection on the room’s daily experiences and an individual snippet of your child’s day sent via Kinderloop. Plus any additional information for correspondence from the educators or the centre.

Our individual child observation cycle is developed over a 6 week basis. Your child is assigned a focus educator and we create goals from your child’s interest within their room. This goal we have set will be available for you observe and comment on their direction of the goal. Our focus is to work with you and your child where we set a goal that is individualised for your child to achieve within the 6 weeks the goal set from the initial observation. Once the educators believe a child has explored an area of interested in the direction of the goal, the achieved goal is reflected upon and sent off for families to review and you will see a reflection on the goal that was collaboratively set.

We believe it is essential to support our children wellbeing and educator’s wellbeing. We introduced a system called Wellbeing Week where every 7 weeks we take a week to reflect on our bodies, ourselves, our interests and the direction of the rooms and centre.

Ella Program:

Educator at preschool using ELLA says “It has been one of the best learning experiences of my 25-year teaching career. I am in awe daily of how quickly the children learn and have loved this learning.”

What is ELLA?

ELLA is a fun and easy digital language program for preschool children. The program is an Australian Government initiative aimed at encouraging more students to study language.

ELLA aligns with the Australian Government’s screen time recommendations for young children, with a maximum of 40 minutes per week across multiple small sessions.

How does ELLA work?

ELLA introduces children to learning a new language via interactive tablet apps, which have been developed in consultation with experts in languages, early childhood and technology. The Polyglots are a cast of characters who – through play-based learning – introduce the children to words, sentences and songs in another language. The apps draw on the interests and activities of young children, such as celebrations, cooking experiences, art activities, building and role-play.

We select one of nine languages for the children to learn: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek or Spanish. ELLA will create opportunities to enrich the language and culture in the apps through other activities such as cooking, stories or music, or inviting family and community members to share their cultures at the preschool.

All ELLA apps are aligned to the learning outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), a key component of the Australian Government’s National Quality Framework for early childhood education and care.

What are the benefits of ELLA?

Using ELLA has shown multiple benefits for children. Children will expand their knowledge of how language works and apply these skills to other literacy tasks, such as listening carefully to sounds in words. These skills will be used when the children learn to read and write. ELLA will help develop foundation skills, such as learning colours, counting and greetings.

Research has shown that exposing children to language learning at an early age encourages them to continue language studies during secondary school.

Playing with the ELLA apps helps children develop and use cognitive and social skills. They will share the tablets and their knowledge, interact with and help each other.

Language learning improves memory, concentration and critical-thinking skills. Using the ELLA apps increases children’s digital skills, too.

ELLA also creates opportunities to celebrate culture and diversity, to share home languages, and to strengthen links between families and preschool services.

Links to the Early Years Learning Framework:

The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), recognises that children learn best through play. As such, our early childhood educators use this framework to create and plan curriculums and programs that are responsive to children’s ideas, interests, strengths and abilities.

EYLF centres on the idea that early childhood plays a pivotal role in children’s learning and development. This framework has a specific emphasis on play-based learning and recognises the importance of holistic development. The overall focus is on Being, Belonging and Becoming.

• Belonging – is the basis for living a fulfilling life. Children feel they belong because of the relationship they have with their family, community, culture and place.
• Being – is about living in the here and now. Childhood is a very special time of life that ends far too quickly. Children need the opportunity to just be – time to play, explore and have fun.
• Becoming – is about the learning and development that take place during this time.