We, the people of Lawson Community Preschool, nestled in the world heritage Blue Mountains National Park of NSW acknowledge we are on the sacred land of the Dharug and Gundungurra people.
We invite members of the preschool and local community to teach our children local Indigenous languages, so our children will value our First Nation’s culture and communicate this widely. We believe our children should learn through storytelling, song and art, which reflects the value we place on indigenous ways of knowing. In the spirit of our First Nations people and by their example, we will care for our natural environment. We will work together to guide and nurture our children as the future citizens and guardians of this ancient country, so that they will develop an understanding of sustainability and lifelong love of the land.
Our purpose is to cherish and nurture our children, creating a physically and psychologically safe environment in which they feel a strong sense of wellbeing. In doing so we honour the United National Rights of the Child, in the belief that all children have the right to play and learn in a safe environment. Our view is children learn best through an engaging play-based educational program with carefully planned indoor and outdoor experiences. Children and educators co-construct meaning together, discover, investigate, hypothesise, imagine, and create in a kind and caring environment.
We believe each child, their family and our friends in the community will feel a sense of belonging through our welcoming and inclusive values and practice. We want our children develop a sense of fairness and become socially responsible people. We celebrate the rich diversity in our community, in family life, culture, abilities and perspectives. It is this diversity that makes our preschool unique and we celebrate all family structures, cultures and their special celebration days. We believe families are children’s first teachers and see themselves reflected in our environment, feeling connected with the preschool. We invite the community into an ongoing conversation to continue to share diverse perspectives, collaborate and reflect on our program.
The Early Learning Framework, centring on the five most important outcomes for our children provides us with the guiding map for how we teach our children. We treat each child as a precious individual in our care and support each child to build their own strong sense of identity. We encourage our children to be confident, involved, self-directed learners, who can creatively respond and explore their environment. We also believe our children should become effective communicators, verbally, through text, and by using communication technologies to access information to investigate ideas and represent their thinking, as this is the key to successful relationships and navigating their complex world, now and in the future.
We aim to exceed as an outstanding model of an early childhood educational community, in a local, national, and global environment. Our guiding, National Quality Standards, will support us in our quest to achieve highly in relation to the quality of our educational programs and practice, children’s health and safety and respectful relationships with children, safety in our physical environment, staffing arrangements, collaborative partnerships with family and our community and good governance and leadership. We fully embed The Child Safe Standards across the whole organisation.
Our philosophy will be continually reflected upon, as a source of inspiration and testimony to the privileged role we all play in the lives of children, their families, and our community.
