Early Learning Centre

Celebrating the Joy of Childhood

Childhood is a time of celebration, a time to question, probe and investigate. At the ELC, teachers create an environment for the children that treasures childhood. They are given time to explore, time to discover, time to interact with their peers, time to play and time to ‘just be children’.

Young children live in the moment, and are enthusiastic and eager to experience all that life has to offer. ELC teachers intentionally create meaningful learning experiences that embrace the pedagogy of imagination and creativity, in pursuit of each child’s right to optimism, playfulness, and more pertinently, joy!

There is so much to celebrate in these early years - first steps, first birthdays, first friends, first day at Kinder, and first time away from the home environment.

The ELC is a community that celebrates the everyday simple, joyful moments in the lives of our youngest citizens. Mastering the monkey bars, building a block city, the awe of a butterfly shedding its chrysalis and the simple act of being a friend. Each day is a new adventure filled with endless possibilities.

The sheer joy and delight that children convey through their determination, their optimism, and their sensitivity, all help to create a wonderful vision of hope. These qualities are the province of childhood. Classrooms that promote joyful learning and supportive interactions are safe and welcoming spaces that children feel have been created just for them to learn and to grow.

Our ELC teachers help children to learn, but also to love and to laugh and to enjoy every moment of every childhood. Nothing without joy. Nothing without love. It is the children’s enthusiasm and openness that teachers harness everyday in the ELC to assist children to move forward in their understanding of themselves and the world around them. Inherently, children have a sense of joy about learning, growing and doing. The priority for the children is to always maintain their innate sense of fun, curiousity and imagination and that their experiences nurture the unique thoughts and skills of each child, so that the natural freshness of the child’s mind never disappears. ELC teachers are reminded daily of the ingenuity, promise and potential of the children in their care. Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia Pre-Schools, states that young children “have a hundred ways of marvelling, of loving… a hundred worlds to invent and a hundred worlds to dream” as they celebrate the joy of life.