Lancaster & Frank Hartley House Child Care Centre Prahran

At Lancaster House Childcare and Kindergarten we aim to provide high quality care and education for all children at our service in a safe, secure, supportive, nurturing and stimulating environment.

• Lancaster and Frank Hartley House Child Care Centre is located on the corner of Malvern Rd and Orrong Rd.
• The centre provides all meals which are cooked on site by our cook.
• Lancaster House provides both long day care as well as a funded 4 year old kinder program run by a qualified kindergarten teacher.
• The centre boasts excellent relationships with families and a high focus on the needs of the child and helping them to learn and develop in a positive, family-oriented environment.
• The centre draws on Reggio Emilia philosophies in the planning of the program.

We Believe:

• Respectful and trusting relationships between families and the centre enable us to provide a holistic approach to the development of each child as a unique individual.
• High quality in childcare is essential for development in the early years, and to set children up for success in all aspects of their life into the future– their heath, development, learning, and wellbeing.
• In acknowledging the religious, cultural and spiritual diversity among our families, educators, and the wider community that we belong to.
• Encouraging resilience, positive self-esteem, and high self-worth will provide children respect for themselves and their peers, and give them a basis to cope with challenges in life.
• It is important for children to learn and develop through play, exploration, imagination and curiosity, in an environment that encourages them to take risks, try new things, and make decisions about their own learning.
• The importance of natural play spaces – giving children the choice between indoor and outdoor play as much as possible, and encouraging a love and respect of the natural environment and the large outdoor space that our centre offers.
• That it is important to role model sustainable practices, and imbed them into our daily routine, to promote the development of lifelong skills and attitudes.

We will achieve this by:

• Responding to differences with respect and an understanding that everyone is unique.
• Providing a stimulating and evolving program & environment that is based on the interests and strengths of individual children, which includes input from families, and enables them to feel supported in their learning.
• Creating an emergent curriculum that is based on an understanding that children have agency, and learn best through play – exploring using their own ideas, imagination, taking risks, problem solving, and working collaboratively with their peers to scaffold each other’s learning.
• Creating an environment that embeds diversity into the daily programming and planning – developing awareness of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage of Australia, and encouraging families and children to bring elements of their own culture into the room.
• Building positive relationships with families, and engaging in shared decision making where possible to respect the needs and right of the individual child, their families, and the other children in the room.
• We will respect children’s right to choice, taking into consideration their individual ages and developmental needs. This will help build children’s confidence, independence, sense of wellbeing, and self-worth.
• Implementing sustainable practices into our program as much as possible, encouraging the children to participate, and discussing why this is important.
• We will create a team environment by treating other staff with respect, being open minded to ideas and suggestions from colleagues, and not defining ourselves or each other by the role we have or the room we work in.