Our Centre
Ready for puddle jumps, giggling adventures, and curious discoveries? Welcome to Willows Preschool! We’re all about letting children be children – building friendships, exploring nature’s wonders, and learning through play. Join our joyful community where little imaginations soar and big smiles bloom!
The Willows has 6 rooms focusing on the different development stages from newborn to 5 years.
Rainbow Room (0-1 year) and Sunshine Room (1-2 years)
Your Child, Your Family, Your Service.
We are linked in a common goal to ensure your child is happy, healthy, and learning all they can about their world.
In the Rainbow and Sunshine Rooms, we strive for a nurturing and routine-based program focused on continuity of care between home and The Willows, creating loving and secure relationships, and providing supportive challenges for rapidly developing brains and bodies. There is an emphasis on creating a warm and inviting home-like environment.
Our language skills are beginning to develop and many of us are using different cries, gestures and body language to indicate hunger and thirst, tiredness, insecurity and anger when someone takes our toy or mum leaves before we are ready.
The educators in this room are experienced interpreters and devote much time to exploring the emotions with the children and gently coaxing them towards the words to express them. This will give them the power to control their own worlds. Once we learn to talk and walk the world opens up to us.
Butterfly Room and Joeys Room (2-3 years)
Working Towards Independence and Supporting Social Success
Providing an environment that encourages sharing, turn-taking, and respect for all.
In the Butterfly and Joeys Rooms, we focus on
- Self help skills such as toileting, hand washing, and dressing and feeding ourselves
- Language and communication
- Socialising.
We strive to provide a supportive environment where children are encouraged to ‘give it a go,’ and mistakes are viewed as stepping stones on our learning journey.
We have discovered the power of words and are encouraged in our journey toward independence by skilled facilitators who understand the value of providing a setting where it is safe to try new things and teach the importance of being responsible for our belongings, environment, and community.
The Village (3-5 years)
Our unique Preschool model, known as “The Village,” stands apart from standard approaches, born from many years of dedicated research and thoughtful reflection on how children learn best and what is truly needed for success at big school and beyond.
We like to think of The Village as just that – a village! A small learning community where all members are encouraged to contribute and participate in ways that are meaningful to them, learning alongside one another through hands-on everyday experiences, rich and playful explorations, and interest-based projects.
The Village program fosters all the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential for school-readiness and life-readiness. Village children are nurtured to grow into competent, confident, and capable learners, communicators, and community members who embrace their world with open minds, ears, arms, and hearts.
We have big dreams for early education and care and would love for you to join us on our mission to reach our goals for curiosity, life-readiness, community and connection, respect, holistic development, and fostering a life-long love of learning; all while honouring every child’s right to be an active participant and key player in their learning experience.
The Village is guided by 5 core principles:
The Child As Life-Long Learner
Learning to Learn: Nurturing Deep thinkers & life-long lovers-of-learning.
The Child Becoming
Life-Readiness: Preparing for success at big school and beyond
The Child As Citizen
Individuals in a Community: Independence & Interdependence
The Respected Child
Trusting and Respecting Children. Responsibility, Rights, Respect & Relationships: Truly Hearing Children’s Voices
The Educator As Advocate
Research, Reflection and Advocacy: Champions for Children
Life Readiness
To empower children to thrive, both at school and in life, we support children in four equally important and interrelated domains:
HEAD: Seeking, Sharing and Creating Wisdom & Understanding
HEART: Connection, Expression & Purpose
HANDS: Giving, Contributing & Protecting
HOLISTIC HEALTH: Holistic Health, Wellbeing, and development
School Readiness
Our “Lift Off” program is developed by a gifted team of early childhood and primary school teachers and endorsed by our local schools, and expertly prepares children to launch into big school armed with the skills, knowledge, and dispositions to be and become curious, creative, committed, courageous life-long learners! This is achieved through a research-based curriculum founded on meaningful, contextual, whole-bodied learning.
The Village is divided into two groupings:
(3-4 years)
This grouping accommodates the finer caregiving needs of our younger Villagers, particularly in relation to toileting, independence, and emotional and self-regulation.
(4-5 years)
This grouping accommodates our senior Villager’s unique needs through engaged small group times and a focus on our Lift-off and Life-Readiness goals for children in their final year at The Willows.