Our Philosophy

At Magic Garden Childcare Centre our core values are family, the safety and wellbeing of children, and the happiness of the children in our care. This leads to learning and development through uninterrupted time to play and the children having options, choices and opportunities.

We believe in lifelong learning and give priority to creating opportunities for all staff, families and children of Magic Garden to work together as learners.

As a centre we recognise that our families are the children's first and most influential teachers. Our goal is to build relationships with each child and their family. We ensure everyone has the opportunity to feel valued, respected and supported. By sharing information about children's uniqueness, interests and experiences, we can work together to support each child to feel safe and secure and to grow and learn whilst in our care. We believe that families should contribute to the centre and share their knowledge about their child/children and their family by encouraging families to get involved in their children's time at Magic Garden, as well as to get involved in our wider community. We work to create ties to the broader community around us by including the local Kinder, local school and local sports groups in our contacts and experiences.

Children deserve to be individuals. We strongly believe that our most important priority is to ensure that each member of our community feels a strong sense of connection and belonging. We always provide a safe, secure environment for each child to explore their individuality, while still respecting other people's rights to do the same. The children's current knowledge, strengths, ideas, culture, abilities and interests are the foundation of the program. (NQS 1.1.2)

At Magic Garden we promote a cultural safety for all children, including but not limited to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. We care about all culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds. We also promote the safety and inclusion of children of all abilities levels and work hard to ensure our program and curriculum are accessible by all children. We encourage children to give everything a go and not let self doubt or fear hold them back.

We document learning and share information about what is happening in our community. We plan for and share children's joy in discovery. We work within the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework to encourage the development and reinforcement of skills that will help children to navigate and flourish in the world as they grow. We encourage the children to develop their self help skills by teaching independence and reinforce the skills needed to be resilient as they grow and learn.

Each child's learning and development is assessed or evaluated as part of an ongoing cycle of observation analysing learning, documentation, planning, implementation and reflection.(NQS 1.3.1) Critical reflection is used throughout our program to evaluate our own progress and what else we could change or achieve.

As Educators we follow the Early Childhood Australia Code of Ethics, to work to our best standards and industry practices. We also understand and refer to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“A child's first educational experience should be a garden full of pleasant discoveries and delightful adventures, where the adults role is to plant ideas for children to use as they grow at their own pace.” - Friedrich Froebel whom developed the first “kindergarten” which means child's garden.