Who we are

When you visit Friends’ Early Learning we hope – we really hope – that you are left shocked by the mess! The good kind of mess, that is.

We hope you see a mat with a partially built tower abandoned halfway through its construction, dress-up costumes discarded near the door and overturned buckets of pine cones or similar scattered across the floor.

We trust that you are surprised by just how much of the outside has found its way in and how much of the inside has found its way out.

Friends’ Early Learning is passionate about the importance of play.

We hope these things because Friends’ Early Learning is passionate about the importance of play. You see, play is how young children learn. Play is how, when you were young, you learned. So, Friends’ Early Years is proud to proclaim that we are an outstanding provider of play-based learning in all its many forms.

We do physical play. We do play with objects. We do symbolic play. We play games with rules. We play in the mud. We play in the water. We play in wind. We play in the rain. We also do something else – we give children the time and space to play.

So, if you are a parent who is not in a hurry for your children to grow up, does not feel compelled to rush your children with a frenzied haste into formal schooling, does not view play as a waste of your child’s time and understands that child-initiated, educator-supported, play-based learning is the best educational foundation for your child, then Friends’ Early Learning is the early learning centre for your family. 

As Fred Rogers states

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning.”

Don’t interrupt him, he’s learning.

So, as you walk past our centre, please consider this – that boy you glimpse over our fence playing with a doll might just become a father one day, so don’t interrupt him, he’s learning.