Our Program and Approach
At KU Phoenix, we provide a vibrant, play-based learning environment where children, families and educators feel welcomed and valued.
Our preschool uses the foundations of the national Early Years Learning Framework to underpin our educational program. Educators collaborate with children and families to ensure experiences offered relate to children’s interests, strengths and emerging development, and provide a balance of success and challenge.
Our program offers children the opportunity to engage in a wide variety of learning experiences and activities, each specifically designed to promote children’s confidence as capable, active participants in their own learning. Children are presented with a range of activities including gardening, arts and crafts, music and movement, physical play, block building, sand and water play, science experiments, early numeracy activities such as counting and measurement, and early literacy activities such as reading, drawing and writing.
Reflections and anecdotes relating to the day are recorded by our educators and are used to inform their planning for individual and groups of children. This documentation helps to evaluate and refine our program appropriately.
At KU Phoenix, we are proud of our reputation within the local community of providing rich education and care that concentrates on individual children in a family-focused and supportive way. We aim to establish immediate rapport and a sense of belonging in our community, as families arrive through the front door.
We greatly value the strong relationships between our staff, children and families, and we look forward to the opportunity of including your family in the life of our centre.
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 Phoenix our special interests are vast and include Indigenous culture, music, peer learning, the natural world and exploration of loose materials.
We incorporate this into our program by having a specialised music program at the preschool during terms two, three and four. In term three, we welcome a friend of KU Phoenix ‘Walangari’, an indigenous artist, to join us and share his culture through stories, song and art. Peer learning is something that happens with deliberate planning by our educators within our 35 place preschool. All the children find and fit with a group of children interested in the same thing, allowing them to develop their knowledge and extend their competency. We have a fantastic natural outdoor environment and we support children’s exploration of the natural world by having fish and leaf insects in the preschool. We also hatch eggs and have been lucky enough to have tadpoles growing with us. This supports our exploration of life cycles, including our own. In both our outdoor and indoor environments we encourage a culture of inquiry and support this by providing materials that children can manipulate in an open-ended way.
We feel that the children benefit from these interest’s because they are exposed to ideas and experiences they have never had before. They are also free to think and experiment with ideas and theories.
Our Quality
Our centre has been independently assessed by the Department of Education NSW under the National Quality Standards, and are proud to be rated as Meeting the National Quality Standard.
However what matters most is what our families think...
“KU Phoenix is a fun, stimulating, yet nurturing environment, where my children have learnt through play and left prepared for a successful transition to school and life generally.” - KU Phoenix Parent
“For us as a new family as KU Phoenix, the staff have been wonderfully welcoming. The gradual enrollment days were a great idea.” - KU Phoenix 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.
We are an architecturally designed, purpose built preschool that was first built on site in 1917. You can still see the planning and thought that went into this beautiful space then and now. It is dynamic and has been renovated to meet the educational wishes of the modern educational system.
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 Reconciliation Action Plan
KU was proud to launch its inaugural Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in 2016. At KU Phoenix, we began our journey to develop our centre’s RAP in 2018 and we are proud to launch it now. Please view it here.
