Child's hands covered in multicolored paint with paint bottles on a wooden table.

Our Philosophy

Child and adult working on glass art project with water and paint, using droppers and molds.

Children come to this kindergarten as capable, competent learners. It is our role to provide an environment which instils a sense of wonder in them and enables them to demonstrate their mastery of their world.

Child with short auburn hair holding orange paper with a cut-out eye hole, using scissors to cut along the hole, indoors with a plant in the background.
A young child wearing a blue hat and a dark sweatshirt writing on a large sheet of paper with a yellow marker. The paper has a photo of a historic building and pink text.

JJ McMahon Memorial Kindergarten encourages children to:

  • Explore and celebrate the history and culture of our first nation’s people. We come together on Wurundjeri land and pay our respects to elders past and present, and acknowledge our responsibility for Reconciliation. We care for the land we are on, care for each other and for all living things

  • Discover the richness and cultural diversity of our world through an inclusive bias free curriculum, celebrating people of all abilities, genders, sexualities, religions and cultural backgrounds

  • Feel safe, secure, happy and empowered; they have the right to be heard and their thoughts and feelings are believed and validated

  • Thrive in an environment where they are given the time and space they require to develop the confidence and autonomy to make independent choices

  • Be creative and curious thinkers who direct their own learning

  • Independently manage their own safety through ‘risky play’ and through the use of real tools and materials. Children seek out challenges and learning in a way which respects themselves and others

  • Manipulate their environment to enhance their learning and meet their needs; their voices are included in programming and planning and our aesthetics and play spaces are determined by the children for the children

  • Develop an understanding of what it is to be in a community and the rights and responsibilities of group living

  • Feel a sense of belonging and community in a variety of structured and unstructured ways, through small and whole group activities and meal times

  • Explore our natural playground. Children are invited to connect with the natural environment in all weathers with messy, barefoot and water play, and learn from example how to use it in a respectful way

  • Expand their learning through child led and intentional teaching and develop a lifelong disposition for learning

  • View themselves as capable beings, competent learners and respected participants in our community. Kindergarten translates as ‘child’s garden’. The rights of our children as enshrined in the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) are the focus of our Centre

Two children playing in a sandbox. One is standing and the other is crouching, both wearing hats. They are using toy shovels and rakes, with toys and buckets nearby.
Child mixing paint in large plastic buckets filled with colorful paint at a craft table.
Child crawling under a structure made of wooden blocks and planks on a carpeted floor.
Children playing at a sandbox, scooping and pouring sand with small shovels, with some cups and a coconut shell filled with sand.

Our curriculum is developed from the national Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF). Intentional teaching is delivered by staff in the environment of an emergent curriculum.

Our teachings are informed by the work of leading educational theorists and we are inspired by Froebel, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Steiner and Teacher Tom Hobson.

We believe parents are their child’s first teachers and proudly uphold the tradition of the parent run kindergarten. We see the success of your child being achieved by a true and equal partnership with parents and families.

Parents and families are always welcome and your input is vital to your child’s success.

The sense of community your family develops with us here will last a lifetime.

Group of young children in colorful clothing and blue hats sitting on a blue and white striped mat, gathered around an adult woman with a purple hat, possibly during an outdoor activity or learning session in a backyard with a wooden fence and green trees.

Policies

To view our full policies please click here.