Nature

"Well, my name's Jaxson and I like doing water plays.."

"I love going on poo walks" - Freddie

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We acknowledge the significant impact nature has on fostering strong mental health – in children and adults.  For this reason, authentic nature connections both at KRCC and in our surrounding National Parklands, plays a pivotal part in our every day.

 

We recognise the limitless learning possibilities nature offers and we therefore foster strong connections with children and their natural world.

 

In the spirit of reconciliation, we honour the unique connection with country held by Australia’s First Peoples, and strive to promote Taungurung and Wurundjeri perspectives authentically on country. We grow our collective knowledge and sense of custodianship together, recognising that when we know better, we do better.

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Relationships

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The educators at KRCC are so compassionate and comforting" -Rhiannon (Parent)

"I love visiting my baby brother " - Skye

 

We know nurturing relationships are paramount to the overall wellbeing of every human being. Establishing secure attachments in the first 1000 days of life positively impacts a child’s entire life.  This is why children’s individual needs are at the forefront of every decision we make.

 

We believe when we enrol a child, we enrol a family, so we strive to support families in their parenting role, and their wellbeing, through connections to professional services and through warm and respectful understanding.

 

We adopt an open-door approach to support children to connect with friends and siblings across the service through shared spaces. We support children to explore all aspects of their identity.

 

We value communication and strive to involve families in decision making about their child, our service and our community.

 

We acknowledge the advocacy role that Educators play, both within KRCC and our wider profession. With this in mind, we commit to ongoing professional development of our team, provide information in a variety of ways for parents, and both invite and seek out professional colleagues to share best practice.

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Time

"I love going over the monkey bars"

"We love making coffee and cake" (sandpit play) - Ariel & Eleanor

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In today’s hurried world, it has never been more important to have time.  Time to be. To take a mental breather. To reboot.  

 

We are aware of research highlighting the negative impacts of over scheduling children with highly structured programs in their early years. This is why our play based program is organised around providing children with long uninterrupted periods of time to play, dig, climb, explore, invent, organise and innovate.  These are the experiences that lead to resilience, social skill development, executive function (ability to organise oneseself) and readiness for school and life.

 

Our play-based program is guided by the Early Years Learning Framework and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework, and informed by international best practice and current neuroscience research.

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Cups

"I like wibbly wobbly" (going sideways on the swing) - Wes

"I love making rainbow unicorn damper" - Evangeline

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We know people, including children, have unique needs for freedom, mastery, connection, safety and fun.  These needs are summarised in the Pheonix Cups Framework which underpins all of our decisions about children, families and ourselves.

 

Each person’s cup profile is unique.  We make every effort to tailor our interactions as to be cup filling for each individual thereby enhancing overall wellbeing, sense of comfort, security and belonging.

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Knowledge

"I love hanging upside down" - Jett

"I love jumping!" - Jasmine

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Our pedagogy (way of teaching) is informed by brain development, self-regulation, co-regulation and a guidance approach.  We look to global leaders in the field for guidance in our pedagogy. We strive to understand trauma and its impacts on development. We appreciate that anxiety is a major challenge facing children in Australia.

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We look beyond behaviour to understand the unique context for each child, building our knowledge of them as individuals, their family, community and personal circumstances. This information informs our practice for each individual child.

 

We value knowledge in both children and adults.  Our programs are open-ended to encourage explorations, investigation and inquiry interjected with intentional teaching to support children to construct and co-construct their knowledge.

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