Play-based learning

Our qualified early-childhood educators create a play-based program that focuses on each child’s ever-changing needs and interests. Play provides the foundation for young children’s learning.

Our indoor and outdoor environments are well resourced and thoughtfully arranged to engage and entice the children’s natural appetite for learning. To make the most of our peaceful surroundings, children are free to play inside or outside concurrently.


Program Style

Indoor-Outdoor
Children are free to choose whether they play inside or outside. The environment is well-resourced with thoughtfully chosen materials designed to engage a range of abilities and interests. The environment is peaceful because the group (up to 22) is widely dispersed and this calmness supports a deeper level of engagement and learning.
Child-centred
Observation and staff consideration of each child occurs continually so that resources, information and human interactions can be adjusted to meet the changing needs of individuals within each group. In this way, the curriculum is shaped around the ideas, interests and needs of the children as they interact with all aspects of the learning environment.
Freedom of choice
Choice is offered to children in abundance. We believe that when children decide for themselves when and how they do things, their level of engagement will often be much deeper. Problem solving skills and lateral thinking will be developed. Feelings of confidence, a spirit of adventure, and feeling in charge of one’s actions are fostered. This greatly enhances the child’s journey towards independence and emotional maturity.
Expressive arts
A strong emphasis on drama, stories, music and the visual arts has evolved at Chapel Hill Community Kindergarten. These activities encourage children to be creative and to express their own ideas. An annual Art Show of children’s work has become a tradition here.

Goals of the program

An important goal of the Chapel Hill Community Kindergarten is the development of social human beings. An atmosphere of real warmth and empathy amongst the children and adults is fostered.

Three to five year old children have a lot to learn about how to get along with each other; about valuing themselves and others; about friendship; about kindness to all; and about peoples’ similarities and differences. Our program offers a marvellous context for the development of these social and emotional skills as children go about their play having good fun, responding to conflict, and observing the behaviour of others while developing an awareness of their own.

Against a background of emerging self-control, sociability and growing emotional maturity, the staff and environment offer children an array of opportunities to develop their bodies’ strength and dexterity; their abilities to think, imagine and express ideas and feelings; to increase their understanding of the world around them and the delights and obligations that awareness brings.

Our Kindy program incorporates our award-winning Bush Kindy program in terms two and three. You can find out more about Bush Kindy here.

We want children to develop a positive disposition as lifelong learners.
We want children to respect the feelings and rights of others and to value human differences.
We want children to emerge from these experiences with joyful self-confidence and a strong sense of their own worth.
We want children to take delight in the detail and variety of the world around them and develop attitudes of respect and care towards both the natural and human environments.
 

Come and visit

Our 2027 Kindy waitlist is now full. If you would like to join our 2028 or 2029 kindy waitlist, please contact us.

Join 2028 Waitlist

How Kindy places are offered

As a small community kindy with limited places, our waitlist can fill well in advance. When allocating Kindergarten places, priority is given in the following order:

  1. Current Kindy children who are delaying their transition to Prep

  2. Children who attended Chapel Hill Pre-Kindy throughout the previous year

  3. Children on the Kindy waitlist, in order of registration for that year

Places remain subject to availability and are confirmed through our usual enrolment process.

See Kindy life in action

Each month, our teachers share stories from our Kindy and Pre-Kindy groups, offering a genuine glimpse into the projects, questions, friendships and everyday discoveries shaping children’s learning.

Explore Kindy Life

Timetable

We are a one-unit centre, catering for approximately 22 three and a half to four and a half year old children in each kindergarten group (Blue and Yellow groups); and approximately 16 three year old children in each pre-kindergarten group (Red and Green).

  • Blue Group - Kindergarten (Pre-prep) attends: Monday, Tuesday and (alternate) Wednesdays 8:25am – 2:35pm

  • Yellow Group - Kindergarten (Pre-prep) attends: (alternate) Wednesdays, Thursday and Friday 8:25am – 2:35pm

  • Red Pre-Kindergarten Group Monday and Tuesday 2:45pm – 5:00pm

  • Green Pre-Kindergarten Group Wednesday and Thursday 2:45pm – 5:00pm

Our centre is open five days a week, Monday to Friday.

We follow the State School year with the same holiday breaks, although please note that we do not share the State School pupil free days, we do have our own pupil free days, please refer to our Kindergarten Calendar.

Listening and Learning Together: C&K Curriculum Approach

The staff of Chapel Hill Community Kindergarten use the Queensland Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines (QKLG) as a framework for their practice.  

They are also guided by C&K’s “Curriculum Approach” which is a child-centred, collaborative approach to early education and aligns with the QKLG and the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). The curriculum is negotiated by early childhood professionals in consultation with children and families. Together they fill it with life in a way that is meaningful to their lives and their contexts.  There are no prescriptions or formulas to follow.  Rather, educators use their professional knowledge supported by the principles inherent in the framework to guide them as they explore the many possibilities that arise on a daily basis when educators, children and families come together to explore, discover and learn.

A copy of the QKLG and C&K Curriculum Approach is available in the parent library for perusal.