Individualised childcare in Lake Cathie

Hear what our customers have to say:

“My son has loved his short time at Cowarra Park. Every day he wakes up and says am I going to school today and was always so excited when we said yes you are going to Cowarra today. We absolutely love the backyard at Cowarra Park, it was my son’s favourite place to play. We especially love the natural parts of the playground. We really appreciate getting an email each day giving an outline of the day. The staff were always friendly and some of the educators who weren’t in my sons room knew his name and said hello and goodbye everyday. It really is a wonderful pre-school and we are sad that we will no longer be coming. Lastly I just want to say a HUGE thank you for everything you have done for my son- especially his teachers. He has gained so much confidence in the short time he has been coming to Cowarra Park.”

Wombat Room

In January 2017, Cowarra Park Preschool opened an additional room within our centre that has now become known as ‘The Wombats Room’. In keeping with the existing environment, The Wombats Room is spacious in its design and has been thoughtfully planned to cater for the appropriate age group, which in this case is between the ages of six months to two years. Within this design, The Wombats Room offers three different sleeping zones to support the needs of children, as well as stimulating play and learning areas. These are just some of the many benefits of this new space.

In the Wombats Room, we focus on providing secure and loving relationships between educators and children to foster every child's confidence and potential to explore, learn and develop. We believe in the importance of building trusting and supportive relationships with families as their children first enter the early childhood environment.

Routines are an important part of a baby's day and our daily routine will reflect each child's development, individual needs and interests and value the importance of maintaining your baby’s routine from home while they attend our centre. Providing flexibility for activities such as feeding, sleeping, group experiences and exploration, we work closely with families to ensure consistency between their development here and life at home.

Through regular observations of children and communication with families, The Wombat educators develop their knowledge of each child's strengths, needs and interests, which forms the basis of our room’s program. The program is then used to plan and provide stimulating and appropriate experiences that will foster all areas of your child’s development, as well as giving babies the time and the space to explore the world around them. The experiences that we provide in the Wombats Room evolve from children's current and emerging interests, from both the centre and the home environment. These experiences promote exploration and learning through play and offer opportunities for developing a variety of skills. As well as incorporating books, props and technology to support children’s learning, we use both the indoor and outdoor environment, providing natural materials for many experiences.

Between the age of six months and two years, physical development occurs quite rapidly, from sitting, crawling and walking to climbing. We aim to support this development of skills and milestones - understanding each child’s individual ways and time frame for acquiring them. As children gain more independence, they are intent on discovering new things about their environment as well as themselves. They begin to walk and talk, they are learning to listen and are beginning to form friendships with their peers. As educators, we recognise the importance of guiding children and role modelling how to build caring and respectful relationships with others.

Gumnut Room

In the Gumnut Room, we aim to provide a secure and loving environment, where educators thrive to build trusting relationships with each child. We believe the foundation for all children’s learning comes from the first and most influential teachers, their families, and with this we thrive to build supportive relationships with families to foster their child’s confidence and learning.

In our room, we provide meaningful experiences and interest-based learning for children from the ages 2 – 3 years. As educators, we see learning in many forms – from friendships and interactions, through to numerical and literacy understandings. Working closely alongside children, we support their curiosities and confidence, building upon their interests to intentional challenge and further their learning. Within our educational program, we incorporate experiences of different structures, such as group experience and individual learning. These provisions and intentional moments support a growing sense of belonging, children’s interactions and the building of relationships and the opportunity to learn within a social context, while also supporting each child in their individual learning pursuits.

Through our daily observations, we document children’s learning and share this with our families. This documentation highlights the journey of each child, supporting their current interests and the milestones in their lives – those magical moments of learning and childhood. A wonderful insight into children and their learning is gained through our thoughtful interactions and our meaningful documentation. It is this documentation, along with input from families and our knowledge of children that informs our program – the planned experiences, the intentional teaching and the support we provide for children.

We believe relationships are the important foundations for the construction of identity. Educators in the Gumnut Room appreciate the importance of building these trusting and supportive relationships. We are supportive and respect children’s relationships and their individual personalities as we consider how we can best achieve our aim of every child feeling comfortable and secure in their environment.

Childhood is a time to explore, and simply be. The Gumnut Room supports each child through a purposeful harmony of play, relationships and learning, and finding a sense of belonging within their preschool environment.

Joey's Room

Relationships in the Joey's room are a key influence to everything we do within the curriculum. The educators see the importance of building nurturing and collaborative relationships with all the children in the room. Educators also recognise families as the main influence within children's lives therefore we strive to build collaborative, meaningful and trusting relationships with all families. Through these relationships families and children’s voices are respected, valued and incorporated into the curriculum.

Children's interests, ideas and concepts are always growing, expanding and changing. We follow, extend and delve deep into children's thinking and theories through play and also through small and large groups. As adults we don't always have the answer and when we do, we don't always just tell children the answers. Instead together with children we research, explore theories, experiment, problem solve, use representational models and make mistakes to build on understanding and knowledge.

Confidence within children can be an extraordinary thing. We support and build on children's confidence through meaningful, challenging and achievable experiences. Whether it is large or small, we recognise, celebrate and praise all children's efforts and achievements.

Childhood is a time to be, seek out and make meaning of the world. While we appreciate childhood to be such an important time for children to enjoy their experiences and simply 'be' in the moment, we continue to have a routine that offers predictability, organisation and a level of structure. Our day supports children, their learning and their sense of belonging through a thoughtful balance of play and group experiences.

Kanga Room

Children's ideas and theories of the world around them are constantly growing and changing and in the Kanga's Room, we recognise the endless learning opportunities that are presented to us when we follow children's interests. It is these interests, questions and curiosities that provide the basis for our weekly program and present both children and educators with enriching and meaningful learning opportunities. Whether it is within play or within group learning experiences, educators use their teaching and thoughtful interactions to support children and their understanding of the world. At many times, we become co-learners with children - we learn alongside children - we take the position that we don't know all the answers, but encourage children to consider 'what they think', 'how could we find out more' or 'how could we solve the problem'. This strategy builds children's confidence and involvement in their own learning, both of which are important dispositions that support children's learning and presents learning as a life-long journey.

Within our planning, play experiences, where children have opportunities to experiment, discover, create and imagine are thoughtfully planned and educators use this time to engage with children as they play. This involvement presents opportunities to build relationships and also extend children's learning through teaching strategies. A variety of group experiences are also incorporated into our program and these are based on the interests, questions and curiosities of children. Shared group experiences provide opportunities for children (and educators) to learn alongside one another, contribute to shared projects and build their sense of belonging to the group. The social nature of these group experiences enriches our program as these interests, questions and curiosities are shared. Having these experiences based on something of particular importance to children, encourages the development of commitment, concentration and engagement - all of which are important foundations for life-long learning - and incorporates literacy, numeracy and scientific concepts into our day.

Our play and group experiences utilise a range of resources that support children in their learning. These resources include our amazing backyard, with many natural elements and our interactive whiteboard with its connection to the internet. It is resources such as these that allow us to look closely at our interests, research and explore in a supportive environment.