St Maroun’s Preschool opened its doors for the first child in January 1989. The Preschool’s aim is to provide a secure and safe environment within a warm relaxed atmosphere; we endeavour to bridge the gap between home and formal schooling. We believe children “learn through play” through experiencing, manipulating, exploring, observing and by being involved. We also aim to provide a service, which fulfills all the child’s basic needs that allows them to be, belong and become who they want to be.
Through this we are able to connect children with our centre through belonging, being and becoming.
At St Maroun’s Preschool, we aim to promote a program which is guided by the Early Years Learning Framework that is child-focused and holistic, in an environment, which ensures that the children feel safe, secure and which supports the individual needs of the children and their families. We place emphasis on the process, rather than on the product. We encourage children to become independent, and allow them to direct their own learning. We provide this by providing learning experiences that consider each children’s interests, strengths and emerging skills.
As Early Childhood Educators, we aim to provide an anti-bias curriculum, which is play based, stimulating, challenging and developmentally appropriate, and which contributes to the development of each child in all areas and enhances optimal learning. Through play, the children are given the opportunity to enhance their thinking, imagination and creativity.
The children connect and contribute to their world as they experience sustainable practices. These are promoted within the centre as we care for our environment, by encouraging children to care for our garden and worm farm. Engaging children and families in our sustainable practices, looking at reducing, reusing, recycling and repurposing.
We value and encourage parental involvement into the program, and we believe that this is important if the program is to be effective. With our new online Storypark program families have access to observations and the educational program. They can provide feedback through comments on the observations and/or the program.
We place emphasis a multicultural community which supports us to be sensitive to the different cultural backgrounds of the children in our care, and therefore, we integrate cross-cultural education and activities into the program. In relation to the community around us, we value cooperation and involvement among any agencies and professionals working in the best interest of young children and families.
We, the Staff at our preschool are committed to achieving what we feel is best for the children in our care. Together as a team, we strive to build an atmosphere of trust and respect towards our colleagues, families and children. A professional attitude is upheld in order to avoid discrimination against all that are part of our centre’s community. We value team work as we carry out constant discussion at all times and during our staff meetings, we come together to program, and support each other’s ideas and extend on them if needed.
