At Bright Stars, we acknowledge the Gweagal, Bidjigal and Gadigal Clans which are the traditional custodians of the land in which we work, play on and operate to serve the families and their children of our local community. We recognise their strength and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
We believe in creating a caring and friendly environment where all children and families are respected and actively encouraged to collaborate with educators about curriculum decisions, in order to ensure that learning experiences are meaningful. We believe children are active participants in their learning journey and that learning can happen at any time. Their individual special abilities, interests and cultural backgrounds drive our curriculum through making use of ‘teachable moments’. We believe children learn through play and optimise any opportunity of play to encourage children to make sense of the world around them by exploring, identifying, negotiating and taking risks. We use play-based learning as a method in which children make sense of the world around them. Play enables a connection for children to explore, discover, imagine, develop ideas, interact, communicate and a sense of belonging, being and becoming.
Our routine and play experiences support children’s creativity and discovery, as well as supporting positive educator interactions to develop secure and trusting relationship. We believe all children are artists. We encourage children to be responsible with building comfortable and safe learning environments. We offer children small and large group experiences and understand children play together in unique ways, supporting Rubin’s theory in practice. We will scaffold the education and development of each child as an individual who can grow their separate identity and qualities, yet still work and contribute constructively within a large group. We provide unstructured play experiences; free play that allows children to freely explore and discover the world we live in. The use of technology also supports organic, unplanned play and investigation other resources can’t.
Our curriculum embraces and shows respect to Aboriginal, Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander heritage, children’s cultures, identities, abilities and strengths. Through program planning, we ensure our curriculum is well balanced with Early Years Learning Framework learning outcomes, principles, practices, family input, play experiences and intentional teaching. We promote belonging, being and becoming by being respectful and accepting diversity and ensuring children understand that they are accepted for who they are and knowing others care about them. We adapt our environment and resources to inclusively ensure all children successfully participate. Every child should be valued as an individual and as a contributing member of their family, community and society, consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We encourage independence and reflect on individual growth. We provide experiences that promote or initiate investigation of ideas, thinking, reasoning and hypothesising. Intentional teaching allows us to provide intriguing and enticing resources and experiences through questioning, reflecting and revisiting ideas.
We aim to provide all children a home away from home with a loving and caring family like setting. With reference to Bronfenbrenner’s theory, we work closely with families to tailor the individual needs of all children as our interactions with families supports children’s development. We believe that families bring insights that offer a rich picture about their children by sharing interests, progress and preferences, which promotes a sense of belonging, being and becoming, to be collaborative decision makers within our Bright Stars community. We take pride in celebrating all children’s achievements and milestones.
We believe our environment plays a big role in the way children learn. Our environment enhances creativity and curiosity, allowing children to express personality and uniqueness. (EYLF, 2009). We establish indoor and outdoor spaces which are organised and adapted to support every child’s participation and to engage every child in quality experiences, in both built and natural environments.
We learn about our local community in authentic, real ways. We access local knowledge of the community by talking, discussing and learning from Elders and educational facilities to build upon our children’s learning. We provide children with the opportunity to engage in extra curricular experiences within the service and promote extra curricula activities within our local community.
Our educators are positive role models within our community; they are always ready to teach and be involved by acknowledging spontaneous teachable moments and extending upon these ideas and interests. Educators gather information and gain insights that support, inform and enrich decision making about children’s learning through reflective practice.
We ensure that keeping children safe is our number one priority. Meals and menus are provided that are fresh, nutritional and well balanced, taking into considering childrens’ individual dietary restrictions. Safe food handling and hygiene practices are observed at all times. A balance of indoor and outdoor experiences is provided to promote physically active play and healthy lifestyles. A rest time is provided each day to meet all children’s needs and wants.
We implement effective hygiene practices, illness and injury management across the service. Educators reinforce hygiene habits through the curriculum and play experiences, as well as throughout the daily routines such as mealtimes nappy changing and toileting, and modelling good hygiene habits.
We all take responsibility in knowing and working with the National Regulations, National Quality Framework, First Aid guidelines, centre policies and procedures. Our ongoing critical reflection provides opportunities for educators to build on their professional knowledge and development.
We promote and implement environmentally sustainable awareness and practices and educate children about environmental responsibility through dissecting authentic sustainable situations to help build a sustainable community. Children are encouraged to interact with vegetation and natural materials in the environment and exploring insects and animals in their habitats to develop their understanding of biodiversity. Educators foster children’s capacity to understand and respect the natural environment and the independence between people, plants, animals and the land.
We have a positive attitude towards our work, service, families and educators. We are proud of our team and our service. Our quality improvements allow us to communicate updates effectively and regularly with families and educators. The aim of our Quality Improvement Plan is to help us self-assess our performance in delivering quality education and care and to plan future improvements. We believe quality experiences are achieved through ongoing learning and reflective practices. We critically reflect on our practices and learn from our mistakes and move on to better ways to build our service to be the best it can be. It is our aim to provide a loving, safe and comfortable environment which promotes each child’s learning and development, self-esteem and individuality whilst having a great day full of play and learning!
