OUR PHILOSOPHY

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 At Cuddly Bear, we believe the Learning Environment plays an important element in children’s learning.  It provides opportunities for children to experiment, discover, explore, create, investigate, practice theories, solve problems and express their ideas. Through effective use of the learning environment, children are able to achieve a sense of wonder, feeling of belonging to, and love of learning by being provided with rich and meaningful,  inquiry-based learning. We do this by:

• thinking outside of the box
• trial and error – utilising critical reflection
• providing clean and organised learning spaces which we hope will create a sense of belonging
• supporting holistic development
• creating homely, enjoyable, educational experiences which allow for children’s interests to grow while promoting children’s learning and development

At Cuddly Bear, we develop relationships with our community and understand that the children have a right to belong to many communities. At Cuddly Bear we want our learners and educators to develop an awareness of the wider community. We do this by introducing them to local community experiences including the library, dentist, local schools and local community events. We understand that these experiences allow children to co-operate with others, learn to negotiate roles and relationships in play episodes and group experiences. This leads children to then developing respect for different people. We aim to achieve a sense of wonder, a feeling of belonging to a wider community so that young children will develop positive attitudes towards others in the local community.

At Cuddly Bear, our staff are appreciated for their cultural diversity, knowledge and values, contribution of skills, their vision for children, their delight in seeing children learning, and their commitment to families.

We believe in sharing our vision and passion for diversity, and feel a child’s first language should be celebrated, we feel it is important to greet and talk to children and families in their first language whenever possible. We believe in participating in a wide range of culturally significant days that reflect the diversity of our service and community. We believe in developing menus that reflect the cultural diversity of the children in our care.

At Cuddly Bear, our staff are appreciated for their personal strengths by :

• Identifying individual strengths in each room/program area and in using the program
• Using regular “catch up times” to explore staff’s strengths and build knowledge and skills through collaboration
• All room educators contributing to programming
• Room meetings

At Cuddly Bear, we believe our children should be happy, healthy and connected to others. We do this by:

• Having consistency, continuity of care/educators and having a safe and secure environment for them to learn and be able to communicate/voice their needs. We encourage positive behaviours, show respect to all children and challenge them.
• Listening to children’s voices and ensuring the basis of the curriculum is built on their interests. We believe that with the consistency, continuity of educators we are able to build positive, nurturing relationships that result in children feeling welcomed and a sense of belonging which, therefore, encourages a positive and confident transition process into their future.

At Cuddly Bear, we believe our children should be valued for their ability to do meaningful work, their wonder and curiosities, and their need to play. We also acknowledge that through this play, children have opportunities to  experiment, discover, explore, create, investigate, practice theories, solve problems and express ideas with the support of other children and the educators.