YWCA CANBERRA

Winyu Early Childhood Service

An inclusive, family-focused early learning service

Winyu Early Childhood Service is an innovative early learning centre in the heart of Gungahlin. The purpose-built centre features open plan spaces and state-of-the-art facilities. We provide education and care for children age six weeks to five years.

Winyu is a warm and welcoming centre where our learning spaces, routines and curriculum are designed to complement your family’s approach. We strongly promote children’s rights, autonomy, independence, curiosity and freedom to explore their world.

Our award-winning, inclusive service celebrates multiculturalism and individuality and supports a culture of diversity and inclusion. We celebrate and value our differences and support all families to participate in our community.

When you use any of our YWCA Canberra children’s services programs, you help to support our community activities such as our housing programs, community development, youth engagement, and education to prevent domestic and family violence.

Learn more about what we provide and how fees are paid. To enrol, please complete the YWCA Canberra Winyu Child Care Centre 2024 Enrolment Form.

Fees

The Winyu team is a mixture of educators and staff from around the world with diverse cultural backgrounds. We use this opportunity to build on our socio-cultural approach and include diverse perspectives in our teaching and learning on an ongoing basis.

We respect our differences and see this as our strength. There are many ways to do things, and different perspectives and values enrich our learning environment. We learn from each other and aim to maintain a strong team of educators to promote early years learning and development.

Children of all ages have access to a combination of early childhood teachers and professional educators.

Educators have been thoughtfully allocated to each age group to enhance the balance of teaching, and learning opportunities brought about by diverse knowledge and skills.

Director: Yu-Chuan Li (Finley)

Finley is a professional early childhood educator with a Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care. Born in Taiwan, she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Chinese Literature and has experience as a university reporter and Mandarin teacher. She is passionate about creating a warm and nurturing environment for children and considers each child as a unique individual with their own capabilities. Finley is a foodie, traveler, and nature lover who values laughter and conversation. She is dedicated to providing children with a home away from home filled with stimulating experiences and opportunities for growth and discovery.

At Winyu, we have a spacious, open-plan setting with state-of-the-art facilities.

Our outdoor environments include a beautiful and sustainable nature-based playground design. The exciting features of our outdoor environment include many green plants, bamboo bushes, vegetable gardens, an under-cover sandpit, reused tyres, repurposed timber climbing frame, slide and garden kitchen.

Our indoor environment and resources support inclusive play. Each area is carefully thought out to promote children’s independence in their play.

For example, the ‘practical life’ corner in each room is arranged to promote a sense of connection between the home and educational setting. It is open for children’s imagination to engage in pretend play and explore their social skills.

We are a multicultural centre and respect diverse cultural backgrounds, beliefs, traditions, practices and perspectives. Our educators bring their valuable cultural knowledge and skills that enrich our learning environment.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders past, present and future by singing our Acknowledgement of Country song with children in our yarning circle before mealtimes. We are thankful to have had the opportunity to enjoy our time here with our colleagues, children, families and community members, and will continue to embrace the beauty of diverse cultures.

Winyu is unique in that we provide mixed-aged playtime every day where all children get to freely explore other room environments, play with different resources and engage with educators who do not predominantly work in their room.

Mixed-age learning and play has significant benefits for children. It allows siblings to interact and gives children opportunities to play and learn from those outside their age group. Older children develop supporting and nurturing behaviours, while the younger ones learn social skills and language, and develop further confidence.

Our flexible learning environments and mixed-aged practices are inspired by leading international early childhood education research and innovation. We design our routines and curriculum with consideration to family practices at home, supporting each child’s individual routine and needs throughout the day.

We believe that young children learn through their interactions with the social world and their environment. To promote their learning and development, we build meaningful connections and engage with our local community spaces, people and organisations.

In the past, this has included visits from families sharing their experiences related to their jobs, working with Floriade to plant some beautiful tulip bulbs and annual seedlings in our backyard, and a visit from firefighters.

We feel very thankful for the families who have always supported our practice, going the extra mile to contribute their time and effort to make our learning more meaningful.

An inclusive, family-focused early learning service

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