Who we are
Katoomba Leura Preschool proudly provides high quality, not for profit, community-based early childhood education for children aged 3-5 years. As a community we draw on our beautiful natural environment to inspire our children towards life long learning. We are proud of our Exceeding the National Quality Standard rating by ACECQA.
Our unique learning landscape is inspired by the educational project of Reggio Emilia in Italy; the Principles, Practices and Outcome elements of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework; Inquiry and Nature pedagogies. We endeavour to surround children with love, support and trust, acknowledging that they are competent, capable and curious about the world around them and affording pathways to explore this innate curiosity.
We honour the children’s right to play, as both a process and context for learning and acknowledge the importance of enjoying their childhood within an ‘unhurried’ environment with meaningful, authentic experiences.
Our unique play spaces foster a life long appreciation of nature and develop environmental awareness, inviting exploration, risk taking, discovery and connection.
Please accept our invitation to step inside our beautiful preschool community and join us in a journey of inspiration, wonder, insight and imaginings.
We acknowledge Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and will celebrate and embed their cultural richness, traditions and language into the teaching and learning at our Preschool. We respectfully acknowledge the traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and play – the Gundungarra and Darug people and strive to build our knowledge of and connection with Gundungarra and Darug people past, present and emerging.
Our preschool is a community-based preschool – a non-profit organisation run by a volunteer Management Committee, which is made up of parents/carers of children attending the centre, and sometimes includes interested community members.
It is vital that parents/carers be involved either on the Committee or by attending the General Meetings. You do not need to be a Committee Member to attend meetings. Meetings are held quarterly, and parents are encouraged to attend. Each family is required to become a Member of the Association (payment included in fees) and this gives voting rights.
The Management Committee is responsible for the overall performance of the Preschool. They determine the Preschool’s aims and objectives, set the strategic directions of the organisation with the Director/Nominated Supervisor, ensure staff and educators are employed in accordance with industrial obligations, ensure compliance with legal obligations, ensure the ongoing financial viability of the service, monitor and evaluate the Preschool’s performance.
If you would like to know a little more about our Management Committee, please see our previous President Kirsten's video below.
Ateliers
The atelier concept was introduced by Loris Malaguzzi in Reggio Emilia preschools. The ateliers have a special energy, a creative potential, a special way of finding meaningful ideas, material and techniques. At Katoomba Leura Preschool we take advantage of our spacious rooms, numerous small spaces and our beautiful gardens to provide a variety of engaging opportunities for children with music and movement spaces, art and creative areas, technology and investigation realms to encourage creative thinking experiences.
The ateliers provide spaces where children's experiences, connections, communications, and creativity can be made visible.
Connecting with nature
We believe in education for sustainability, actively engaging in sustainable practices everyday and the promotion of a sense of responsibility, respect, empowerment, enquiry and social change to make a positive difference. That a sense of wonder, belonging to and love of the natural environment, living things and animals is critical for young children to develop lifelong respectful, positive and proactive attitudes towards protecting our environment, caring for all living creatures and creating a sustainable environment.
We believe in surrounding children with beauty, a natural environment that includes plants, trees, edible gardens, sand, rocks, mud, water and other elements from nature, supporting open-ended interactions, spontaneity, risk taking, exploration, discovery and a connection with nature.
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