Service

Nature Play

Direct sunlight, tree shadows, real soil and grass, wooden play equipment — at Marino Early Learners, your children can enjoy the fantastic nature play environment.

Nature contact and children’s health is a relatively new field of research, however evidence to date indicates that a variety of mechanisms exist which enable natural environments to enhance children health, learning and behaviour. For instance, nature enhances sense of peace and restores attentional stress (stress from constant attention), increases social cohesion and support, increases learning opportunities, provides diverse learning environments, provides exposure to important micro-organisms, increases physical activity and has improved air quality. With a playground of 1000 square metres in the centre, we are proud to offer children under our care a nature play environment.

Evidence shows nature enhances children’s learning and development – programs increasing nature contact have identified beneficial effects on children’s personality development, cognitive functioning, attitude and school behaviour.

Playing in a natural environment assists with building children’s motor skills – better motor performance has been identified in kindergarten children who had access to a more natural play environment when compared to children with access to a more urban play setting.

Nature is associated with good mental health – contact with nature, especially during middle childhood, has been indicated as having an important role to play in children’s mental health.

Recourse: Martin K (2011), Putting Nature back into Nurture:
The Benefits of Nature for Children. The University of Western Australia.

Service

Low staff to children ratio

Children are our focus and priority. Therefore, we commit to offering our service with a low staff to children ratio. Unlike the ratio required by the Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority (1 educator to 4 children aged 0-2; 1 educator to 5 children aged 2-3; 1 educator to 10 children aged 3-5), our ratio is always better than required (1 educator to 3 children aged 0-2 and 1 educator to 4 children other ages in average). We believe low ratio is the key of our service standard, which also means a high quality care for your child.

Service

Family orientated centre

Being a small centre, all of our children have close relationships with staff and other families. Some families have been with us for years and we have looked after their first, second and third child. We work closely with our families to develop our learning program. Over the years, our lovely families have also been actively participating the centre’s activities and contribute their time in the centre for presentations, music instruments demos and workshops. We honour, respect and encourage the relationship development between our children, families and staff members within our community.