Starting your enrolment is simple. Fill in the form below and our team will be in touch within one business day to walk you through the next step.
Every family is invited for a tour if they can attend but virtual tours are also available. So you can see the space and meet our educators.
Our enrolment team will reach out within one business day of receiving your enquiry to discuss availability and next steps.
Every family is invited for a tour of the centre before enrolment is confirmed — so you can see the space and meet our educators.
This form is an expression of interest. There's no obligation — we're here to help you find the right fit for your family.
Our enrolment team is warm, knowledgeable and here to help. Complete the form and we’ll be in touch within one business day.
Koalas
6 weeks – 2 yrs
Wombats
2-3 yrs
Possums
3–4 yrs
Roos
4–6 yrs
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In Australia, nature play is also known as bush kinder (Elliot & Chancellor, 2014). The underlying approach of bush kinder is for children to have unstructured play in natural environments—such as forests, nature trails and beaches—where they can simply be present, engaged in nature and spend time outdoors. Bush kinder is also driven by the belief children have the right to be engaged with nature and open-ended settings allow children to be the driver of their own learning (child-led learning).
In our nature play program, children learn to assess risk, use and learn about safety precautions and explore, discover and investigate different flora and fauna. This creates deeply imaginative play, forges strong friendships and increases children’s interest in the natural world.
Children’s curiosity is apparent in the questions they pose to our teaching team:
The team found being outside, immersed in nature, helps to initiate such rich questions and investigations for the children.
The benefits of being outside extend from the children to the teaching team and the families. Educators gain a better understanding of children’s skills and interests and can build stronger relationships with them. Families get a better understanding of their child’s capabilities, including risk management, which is essential for engagement with outdoor natural environments.
As children gain more exposure and experience outside, they begin to transfer their past learning to new situations, developing their risk-management skills. In our setting, the teaching team supports children in taking and managing risks. We know children are competent and able to take care of their own safety and the safety of others. This is reflected in some of the things they say when we are out and about:
Don’t touch the mushrooms; we don’t know if they are poisonous or not. Just look at them from here.
I know not to climb on the branches that are smaller than my arms, because it can break and I can fall and hurt myself.
Implementing a successful bush kinder program requires more than just letting children go outside and play. Educators need to constructively plan its underpinning pedagogy and have logistical preparations in place (e.g. weather updates, emergency and evacuation policy and essential items). Risk management, as mentioned earlier, is also an essential element, as the teaching team will need to understand logistical and operational details while adhering to national regulations (State Government of Victoria, 2020).
Our teachers and educators reflect on their role when children are engaging in bush kinder. It’s not just about actively supervising children but also about adopting a ‘co-investigator’ or ‘co-player’ role and guiding children in investigating and discovering the answers to their questions. Teachers and educators also need to assess when to jump in and guide the learning or stand back and allow children to make discoveries for themselves, drive their own learning through real-life interactions and firsthand experiences.
(Figueiredo, 2016)
Children possess an intuitive ability to make their own risk assessments, as they will usually only climb as high as they are comfortable or as high as they are prepared to fall. We need to give them the right tools to make good judgements and they will.
Everything you need to know before taking the first step.
Yes! Come on in. We’d love to welcome your family. 100 Enoggera Terrace, Paddington
