Our 100-place service is led by a qualified team of early childhood professionals. Dedicated leadership roles include a Centre Manager, Assistant Centre Manager and Educational Leader to support children, families, and a quality program. Our Tarneit leadership team have extensive combined experience in the education sector, and all hold an early childhood qualification.

As the leader of the service, our Centre Manager, Preeti, connects with children, families, and community to create a strong sense of belonging. In service delivery, Preeti is focused on connection, safety and compliance, and your child’s wellbeing and enjoyment within the program. Preeti works closely with our Assistant Centre Manager, Steph, to afford you a welcoming and supportive experience.

At First Five Early Learning Tarneit, we invest in the Educational Leader role to focus on continuous quality improvement in our programs. The Educational Leader role is mandatory in early childhood education services and responsible for supporting and leading the development and implementation of the educational program.  Our Educational Leader Mariam has a Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education.

At First Five Early Learning centres, our programs draw from early childhood education research and evidence-based practice to afford optimal outcomes for learning and development. In our program, educators plan for children’s thinking, providing environments, resources and provocations which promote engagement, deep thinking and learning. Using long blocks of unhurried time, children and educators co-construct curriculum and are co-learners, building on shared questions, ideas and interests to play, discover and learn.

Arts-based learning is foregrounded in our program. Learning through the arts provides children with a language to express their knowledge, ideas and experiences. The creative process is central to a child’s growth and development as it challenges their thinking and imagination. Through the creative arts, children build on their resilience through risk-taking, experimentation and problem-solving. The creative process affords enjoyment, intellectual and emotional satisfaction, perception, physical coordination, opportunities for individual and group experiences, and scope for individual and collaborative creative expression. Through arts-based learning, children draw on and represent literacy, numeracy and STEM concepts and skills.

Our service offers the Victorian Government approved 3 and 4 year old Kinder Programs, delivered by experienced bachelor-qualified early childhood teachers. Within our play-based kindergarten program we celebrate what it means to be 4, and support children to develop foundational skills for learning, school and life. Added benefits of our kindergarten program include extended hours of care, and access 52 weeks of the year. We offer 9-hour, 10-hour, and all day sessions.

To support your child’s transition to school, we focus on 5 foundational skill sets for early learners as part of the kindergarten program:

1. Physical skills to build strength in movement patterns linked to writing, reading, and coping with the physical demands of the school day.

2. Social skills to establish, maintain and enjoy friendships, and work collaboratively with others.

3. Emotional skills to identify, label and understand emotions, leading to self-regulation.

4. Oral language skills as the basis for learning to read and write and communicate effectively.

5. Dispositions for learning required to be a successful learner including curiosity, confidence, problem-solving, persistence, concentration, and cooperation.

Pre-reading and pre-writing skills are central to learning in the kindergarten year, with our skilled teachers promoting a love of stories and storytelling, mark-making and emergent writing, and early mathematical skills including patterning, sequencing, and counting. Engagement with literacy and numeracy concepts is embedded within all learning experiences and across all play spaces.

Within our kindergarten program, children access specialist learning, including Clay, STEM and Nature experinces. These experiences afford deep engagement with project work, small group learning, and opportunities to extend on learning both indoors and outdoors using a range of materials and techniques.

For more information about Free Kindy and the added benefits of a government-approved kindergarten program in a long day care setting, go to https://www.vic.gov.au/kinder or contact us today.

Our Centre Chef prepares fresh, nutritious meals daily in line with Nutrition Australia requirements and guidelines. Individual children’s allergy profiles and preferences are catered for to ensure safety and positive food experiences. Our Chef engages with the children around ingredients, food preparation and taste.

As eating is a social practice, our educators sit with children during mealtimes to talk about the meal and share stories of home and community. We offer progressive mealtimes for older children during morning and afternoon tea to ensure play is uninterrupted and mealtimes unhurried.