Our Program and Approach
At KU Fox Valley Preschool, we pride ourselves on our quality learning environment and our strong sense of community in which our pre-schoolers thrive.
We know that the highest quality early childhood development and education occurs when children are learning from their own experiences and when learning occurs in a meaningful context for the child. As a result, our experiential, play-based curriculum reflects this.
Our centre is adjacent to a bush reserve and opportunities abound for the children to explore and traverse our large playground and to be at one with nature through our regular bush walks. Our indoor environment is rich with inviting spaces and evolving interest areas and our back garden, with our bountiful vegetable garden, is an awe inspiring place to be.
Learning at KU Fox Valley is exciting and intriguing. We plan intentionally to make learning fun and diverse so that children enjoy a range of different paced experiences across different physical, cognitive and sensory domains. Active outdoor games, tending our veggie garden, weekly yoga sessions, stories, music and movement and other aspects of our day all allow us to thread literacy and numeracy through the program in meaningful ways. We value coming together as a group and working in small groups for more individualised learning.
With strong relationships surrounding each child; between the staff, child and family, we strive to know each child well. We promote a sense of belonging within our community, connected with community groups including Wahroonga Waterways Landcare and Greenwood Aged Care. These connections enrich the children’s learning and development and their sense of belonging in our space.
We warmly welcome your interest in joining us at KU Fox Valley Preschool.
Our Special Interest
In addition to the high quality well-rounded programs we offer, all KU centres are also encouraged to develop an area of special interest.
At KU Fox Valley Preschool, our special interests are embedded in our community connectedness and our love of the natural world. We incorporate these special interests into our program in the way we present our learning environment and in how we engage with the world around us in meaningful ways.
This engagement with the world around us includes people and places. We gain community connectedness by reaching out and inviting in residents from Greenwood Aged Care and by venturing out on regular walking excursions. We immerse ourselves in the bush of nearby Wahroonga Estate on our regular bushwalks with the children and we learn from the educators at Wahroonga Waterways about this amazing bush land.
We have a qualified children’s yoga teacher on our team who shares afternoon yoga sessions with the children.
We feel that the children benefit from this special interest because our teaching teams promote interactive, hands-on learning where children learn by doing.
Our Quality
Our centre has been independently assessed by the NSW Department of Education under the National Quality Standards, and are proud to be rated as Exceeding the National Quality Standard.
However what matters most is what our families think...
“KU Fox Valley is a nurturing environment where no child gets left behind. Connections with nature and the local community are fostered in a very gentle way and children feel that they truly belong. We are very grateful to the amazing teaching team who gave our children so many special moments to remember.” - KU Fox Valley parent
“The staff are all exceptionally intelligent, caring, enthusiastic and innovative. We feel very lucky that our children have begun their school years among these amazing teachers.” - KU Fox Valley parent
Our Environment
Each KU centre is unique. The best outcomes for children are created within relationships and interactions between children and staff, and children and their families, not within four walls. We work hard to create beautiful, interesting, homelike learning environments for children – whatever our setting.
KU Fox Valley Preschool was established in 1968 by a group of parents who valued early education for their children in a beautiful, natural learning environment. Our outdoor and indoor environments are dappled with natural light and we shoulder a calm bush reserve, a haven in a busy world. We have a native stingless bee hive in our main playground and a productive vegetable garden in our back garden, where the children learn to be custodians of the crops.
Our playground is designed to maximise the use of the natural environment and allow children to play and explore as they would in their own backyard. We offer stimulating activities that arouse children’s curiosity and encourage them to choose from a variety of planned experiences, expanding their learning potential. Our playground includes natural elements such as sand, water, grass, mud, leaves and twigs, and we also offer gross motor experiences such as climbing, jumping and physical play. We foster the holistic development of each child so they feel inspired to create, imagine and play.
Our Awards
The Annual KU Difference Awards were introduced a number of years ago, as a way of acknowledging KU staff who have made a significant contribution to KU. These annual awards are open to all KU staff, at any level (either individual staff or a team), who have worked above and beyond their normal duties.
In 2018, the team at KU Fox Valley was awarded the Making “the KU Difference” Award for Communities.
Our Reconciliation Action Plan
KU was proud to launch its inaugural Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in 2016. At KU Fox Valley, we began our journey to develop our centre’s RAP in 2018 and we are proud to launch it now. Please view it here.
