We believe that developmentally appropriate practices like play-based learning are valuable for strengthening many areas of development and learning. It helps to support a young child’s cognitive skills, self-regulation, and social-emotional skills.

Play is a child’s natural instinct and therefore learning through play is more natural and effective.

Our 3-year-old kinder program is funded by the Department of Education and Training. It is run by our dedicated, Masters qualified and trained kinder teacher, who is passionate about providing a quality program for all pre-schoolers.

Our 4-year-old kinder program runs five days a week from 9 am to 4.30 pm and is run by qualified professionals, holding a Bachelors and Masters in Early Childhood Education.

We have an Emergent Curriculum which is focused on the child and their interests. Play-based learning is the basis for our curriculum.

Each week, we focus on an intentional teaching topic which is derived by the children’s interests and plan related activities to scaffold children’s learning. E.g: Health and nutrition, Sustainability, Road safety, community events etc.

Regular excursions to the parklands around the Kinder are a very popular activity. In addition, children suggest special foods to cook on our weekly cooking day.

Preparing children for primary school.

We believe that a child should be emotionally and socially ready before they start school. Turn-taking, sharing, co-operation, independence, problem-solving, being empathetic towards others are all important traits that we value in our kinder. In addition, Pre-literacy and Pre-numeracy skills are also practised daily in the curriculum. At the end of the four-year-old kinder year, we organise visits to local primary schools, to support the children’s transition to ‘the big school’, from kinder.

We also organise incursions once a term (four per year) from the Melbourne museum- Outreach program, Responsible Pet Ownership Program, Free dentist check-up, visits from the Bulleen librarian, to name a few.

Once a year, we plan a big excursion! In the past, the venues have been, Bundoora Park, Kew Traffic school, Edendale Farm and Essendon Traffic school. We hire a coach to and from these venues which is the highlight of the year for the kinder children, and of course the educators!

Wonderworld ELC has qualified educators running the Kide Science program which originates from Finland. This program aims to incorporate STEAM. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) into the curriculum in a play-based manner. All experiments are safe, interactive, hands-on, and fun!

Our programs comply with the principles of “Belonging, Being and Becoming” under ‘The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF)’ of Australia. The framework is a key component of the National Quality Framework for early childhood education and care. It was developed by the Australian and state and territory governments with input from the early childhood sector and academics. It also concretes the foundation of principles, practices and outcomes which are critical to the early childhood education learning programs to ensure all kids are experiencing a quality of learning.

Wonderworld ELC is a child-safe organisation and is committed to ensuring the wellbeing of children and protecting them from harm. Our services have a Child Safe Commitment Statement:

We are committed to child safety:

1) We want children to be safe, happy and empowered.

2) We support and respect all children as well as our staff and volunteers.

3) We are committed to the safety, participation and empowerment of all children.

4) We have zero tolerance of child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently with our robust policies and procedures.

5) We have legal and moral obligations to contact authorities where we are worried about a child’s safety which we follow rigorously.

We have zero tolerance to child abuse and abides by the relevant national and state laws and relevant requirements. Our Child Safe Framework consists of the following pillars:

- Suitability of Working with Children

Before starting employment at our Company, all staff and volunteers need to have a clearance from the relevant state regulator to confirm that they are suitable to work with children.

Our staff and volunteers need to have a valid Working with Children Check as per the requirements of the Working with Children Check Victoria.

- Mandatory Reporting Responsibilities

Legislation across all jurisdictions and states describes a list of specified occupations that are mandated to report suspected child abuse and neglect to the relevant government authorities. Children’s services (e.g. childcare workers) is one of the specified occupations.

Owing to this, all staff have a responsibility to recognise and respond to concerns for safety, welfare and the wellbeing of children and to report these concerns to the management and the external legal authorities.

As a pre-requisite of employment, all educators need to have the nationally accredited child protection training recognised by the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA). During induction, new staff members need to read our Child Protection Policy and Code of Conduct to ensure they understand their required responsibilities to protect children.

Staff members receive regular refresher training on child protection and mandatory reporting through staff meetings, internal and external training.

- Reportable Conduct Scheme

In Victoria, early childhood education and care services need to abide by the Reportable Conduct Scheme as a legal requirement. Our Company is required to report specified types of conduct that form a belief on reasonable grounds that a child is in need of protection to the regulatory authority if the allegation of child abuse (or other child-related misconduct) is made against our workers or volunteers.

The regulatory authority independently oversees the responses and monitors how the allegations are responded by our Company.

The authority for VIC Reportable Conduct scheme is the Commission for Children and Young People.

- National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and Child Safe Standards

The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations were developed by the Australian Human Rights Commission. They draw on the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Australia’s Children’s Commissioners and Guardians and the 2005 National Framework for Creating Safe Environments for Children. The 10 Principles provide a national approach to embedding a child safe culture across all sectors of Australian society in which children are involved.

From 1 July 2022, the 11 Child Safe Standards are compulsory by law for child-related organisations that work or volunteer with children up to the age of 18 in Victoria. The Commission for Children and Young People educates, supports and regulates organisations like us that work with children and young people to protect them from risks of potential harm and abuse.

Our centre is located in a beautiful setting surrounded by many reserves and parks which are easily accessible. We have taken this as an opportunity to take our children on regular walks.

This includes the babies in the nursery room, toddler children, Junior Kinder and Kinder children.

We ensure that parent permission is obtained initially and that risk minimisation plans are completed before taking the children on these mini excursions, to ensure safety for the children and the educators.

Our educators are passionate about implementing and embedding sustainability practices into our daily routine.