Welcome to our early learning centres

Our fundamental responsibility is to provide a safe environment for all children in our care. We are committed to the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, and children in our ELCs are never alone with one staff member.  

Our Child Safety Policy states our commitment to child safety, how we ensure that children in our care are safe, and how we comply with the Child Safe Standards (now the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations). 

Our approach to child safety has many elements overlapping and linking together to make it stronger, including legal obligations, best-practice safeguarding protocols, and working together with children and families.  

All our ELCs have the same fees. Unlike in our schools, we don’t adjust them for lower-income families. This is because Centrelink provides Child Care Subsidy payments based on your family’s income.  

The Australian Government website Starting Blocks has a calculator for how much Child Care Subsidy you can get to help pay ELC fees. 

We welcome children with additional and complex needs in our ELCs, and every child is equally valued and included in our community.  

We work closely with families to provide adjustments so that every child has the same opportunities to participate. 

We provide extra resources, such as an additional educator, for children with identified additional needs, and ELC staff are trained to understand and support children with medical conditions, neurodivergences, additional needs or challenging behaviours.  

Our ELCs teach intentionally, which means there’s a real, evidence-based educational reason for everything they do.  

Your child’s day of early learning will include indoor and outdoor play, prayer, group time such as yarning circles, story time, small-group activities, sensory experiences such as painting and cooking, and a little direct instruction in short lessons.  

All the activities relate to important developmental goals. We focus on where your child is now and how we can build their confidence and equip them for the next stage. 

Children in our ELCs participate in a wide range of learning experiences tailored to their individual strengths, interests and goals. 

Their learning opportunities are guided by our literacy and religious education programs, STEM learning through the Early Learning STEM Australia (ELSA) program, and the Protective Behaviours education program. 

From these experiences your child will develop early literacy and numeracy skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, social and emotional skills, resilience and independence, helping them form positive relationships and develop an understanding of the world around them. 

Getting ready to read is a top priority in early learning, especially in our system.  

Our ELCs share the joy of books and reading through:  

• interactive storytelling sessions using high-quality picture books 
• beyond-the-mat activities themed around the book  
• vocabulary-building games  
• first steps in direct instruction to learn to read – the key to our science-based teaching approach in primary school.  

Religious education in Catholic early learning engages children’s curiosity about their world and how to make sense of it.  

Through storytelling, activities and games, children in our ELCs learn about Jesus’s life, family and friends and about God’s love for people and all of creation. 

Our ELCs have prayer times and visits to the parish church. These introduce ideas about how and why people pray, about belief and about church as a sacred place.

Our ELCs are designed for outdoor play-based learning and exploration.  

Their playgrounds have trees, sandpits, climbing structures and gardens, with activities including water experiences in summer, cooking on fire pits in winter, growing vegetables and flowers, and looking after chickens or rabbits.  

Within safe bounds, we encourage supported risk-taking, while conducting full risk assessments of activities and including children in discussions about risk.