Childcare centre in Kingston ACT - laidback approach (good or bad??)

[Cass72]

So I've just been and had a gander around at a childcare centre in Kingston - it used to be the old ABC centre. The staff seemed very laidback and the kids seemed to be happy and laidback too ....but then, maybe they'd all just had a really big lunch.

They have an opening for DS2 and it would make life for us so much easier.

My concern is that they may just be a little too laidback as there doesn't seem to be a structure to the day. What I mean is that at of all the centres I have visited, I've been told about their learning programs and she wasn't overly forthcoming with any information on that, except that they follow the children's lead.

[The[cookie]Doctor]

That is the kind of centre I would choose.
Emergent curriculum is the way of the future; child interest lead, etc. - Check out the EYLF for more info.
It really depends what kind of approach to education you value.
If you want more structured curriculum then choose a centre that caters to that - but in terms of this centre - find out more.

You can ask them more questions; how do they encourage emergent, self-interested/selected and individual learning?
How do they expand on that? Do they plan experiences around the interests that are shown? How does this accommodate literacy/numeracy (if that is important to you - "Do you teach them numbers, letters etc..." - though the developmental areas encompass much more than that).
This kind of approach allows for much parent input, using experiences from home. You went to the zoo? Cool let's play with zoo animals together.
In a structured program, where it may be pre-planned this may not be an opportunity.

For me, I wouldn't want structured learning for my 2 year old, that would totally turn me off.
That said my preference is the Reggio Emilia philosophy and the centre of that approach is play-based learning.

"The Hundred Languages of Childhood

The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
A hundred languages
A hundred hands
A hundred thoughts
A hundred ways of thinking
Of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
Ways of listening of marveling of loving
A hundred joys
For singing and understanding
A hundred worlds
To discover
A hundred worlds
To invent
A hundred worlds
To dream
The child has
A hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
But they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
Separate the head from the body.
They tell the child;
To think without hands
To do without head
To listen and not to speak
To understand without joy
To love and to marvel
Only at Easter and Christmas
They tell the child:
To discover the world already there
And of the hundred
They steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
That work and play
Reality and fantasy
Science and imagination
Sky and earth
Reason and dream
Are things
That do not belong together
And thus they tell the child
That the hundred is not there
The child says: NO WAY the hundred is there--

-Loris Malaguzzi"

[Phteven]

At the age your DS is that seems like a great approach.

[Trillian]

I'd go for one like that over a more regimental one. Our preschool was like that and it was beautiful. A fabulous first learning environment for them. Soooo many parents whinged and *****ed that their kids weren't bringing home a painting (or two or three) every week but the preschool director put out an information sheet saying that they believed in child-led learning and nurturing the child's autonomy - giving them choice and not forcing them to do a particular activity just because they had to keep Mum/grandma/great aunt twice removed happy with the artworks LOL. My DS2 hated, hated drawing or painting and I can count on one hand the number of paintings I have from his two years at preschool, but now he's at school I can't STOP him from drawing! He discovered it in his own time and realised it wasn't so bad afterall. I think if he had of been forced to do it, then he would always find it a chore to do kwim? I think you will find though that the centre would have some structure to the day - I bet they still eat at a regular time and have outside/inside play at set times etc, but the choice of what to actually do is up to the child.

[Astrid]

I would go for happy and laid back.

With childcare, I want them to be happy, cared for, fed, cuddled when they have a fall, to have fun. If they just so happen to learn some stuff along the way, then that is great, but that is not to come first at the sacrifice of everything else.

[MummyNaomi]

Yep, this is what our centre is like too, and its perfect in my opinion, while activities and structure exist to some extent, its really not until the kids are kindy age that kids participate willingly. In the baby and toddler room its very much child led. They centre does however treat the 4+ year kids different as alot of the structure and learning is about school readiness (as these kids attend childcare instead of traditional kindy). Think about it, if you weren't working and your child was at home all day - how structured would your day and your childs day be? I bet its not more laid back than the home environment would be which is a great thing - more natural and relaxed which means your child will likely be too