At Castlefield, we value and respect every child’s rights and choices. We believe that children should have access to enriching and nurturing programs that allow them to gain the fundamental skills and knowledge that create who they are and what they become. We aim to provide a healthy, warm, enticing and caring environment to stimulate and enhance children’s learning and growth in all aspects of their development. We believe in facilitating a nurturing home like environment to each individual, creating trusting relationships being built between the children and their families as well as the educators. We are also passionate about our community connections, promoting incursions and excursions

We also believe that all children should be treated with equality and their cultural and linguistic diversity embraced and acknowledged. Implementing a play and interest-based curriculum, we aim to further scaffold on children’s knowledge and advocate new concepts and skills. As early childhood educators, we at Castlefield Kindergarten lay the foundation for a child’s further learning with high quality curriculum’s and experiences as we strive to achieve this with families and enhance our understanding of the National Quality Framework. Castlefield Kindergarten will ensure children and families feel included and welcomed by celebrating cultural and religious events and acknowledging and respecting different religious beliefs. We implement experiences on our weekly curriculum to educate children about the differences within each family in our service and community. We recognise the original owners of the land and continue to embed this in our daily curriculum.

It is of significance to highlight the fact that all staff working with children have obtained formal qualifications in the field of early childhood. Independent of the qualification that they hold, the staff are consistently developing and refining their professional practices, attending additional training to update and improve the quality of service.

The educators at Castlefield Kindergarten are dedicated professionals that value the importance of maintaining an optimum level of care and education for all children.

We value our environment and continually strive to improve our sustainable practices in order to encourage children to participate as true sustainability officers in their future. We endeavour to ensure children’s transitions are smooth and children have a sense of belonging in their extended community from home with us. Orientations, transitions in their daily routine and transition to school are considered major stepping stones for children and we support them in our inclusive program to feel an innate sense of Belonging, Becoming and Being.

Castlefield Kindergarten recognises that families are the foundation in children’s growth and development. Partnerships with families provide us with valuable information relating to cultural backgrounds, interests, strengths, emerging areas and additional needs. The educators at Castlefield Kindergarten will strive to build positive relationships with families based on mutual trust and a high level of open communication. Partnerships with families will be developed through daily communication, monthly newsletters, daily journals and parent information sessions.

We aim to promote healthy eating by providing families with ideas for children’s meals and role modelling healthy eating habits which are nutritious and are appropriate for each child’s diet. With healthy eating the importance of physical activity and active living shall be imbedded into our curriculum. At Castlefield Kindergarten we aim to provide a clean, hygienic and safe environment to ensure that all children are protected and adequately supervised within their learning environments.

As early childhood educators, we believe that it is pivotal to be aware of the diversity and multicultural natures of the community in which we live within and to reflect diversity throughout the centre. Furthermore, through inclusive practices we offer a curriculum that recognises the diversity of our community.