All children are unique, lifelong learners. They take risks and use their creativity to confidently explore their world.

Located in the grounds of the Junior School on Mitcham Campus, Mitcham, our Early Learning Centre offers children wonderful opportunities to participate in a wide range of engaging activities.

Focused on positive community relationships, best outcomes for children and continuous improvement, we provide a safe and supportive learning environment. Children are taught to respect one another and to value interactions with others through play and discovery, inspired by the philosophy of Reggio Emilia.

Children can access secure grassed play areas and enjoy supervised access to the creek, farm and campus animals.

Both indoors and outside, they can explore, manipulate, discover, experiment and express themselves in many varied ways.

Caring Staff

Our trained Early Childhood staff members provide a safe and happy environment where children can develop creatively, socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually.

They have an extensive knowledge of Early Childhood development and the principles of Positive Psychology including the wellbeing program, Program Achieve.

Personalised Learning

Children may start at our Early Learning Centre from the age of 3 years. They will be able to explore the world guided by a Reggio Emilia inspired approach with personalised learning programs for every child. Based on each child’s interests, these programs will help enhance the learning outcomes for each child and ensure that every child enjoys a curriculum that is inclusive and encourages their participation.

Once children turn 4 years of age, they will continue their journey to school-readiness, enjoying the group dynamics and shared learning of Specialist lessons in French, Music, Art, Dance and Library visits.

Wellbeing and a Positive Sense of Self

Our focus is on each child’s wellbeing, which includes assisting them to learn to self-regulate. We know that when children are not feeling safe, respected and valued as individuals, then their learning will be negatively impacted, regardless of intellectual ability. We use ‘You Can Do It! Education Early Childhood Program’ to explicitly and implicitly teach our children how to get along and be resilient, confident, persistent and organised.

Unable to source a tool that could be administered by teachers to measure the wellbeing of children aged 3-6, we developed our own wellbeing measurement tool Scotch ELC Wellbeing Scales in 2014. These are unique to us.

Through this tool we measure each child’s wellbeing (and thus the effectiveness of our wellbeing approach) each term. The Wellbeing Scales have set criteria that enables us to deeply observe each child, each term (three times on a given day) and accurately scale their wellbeing at that given time in different environments. We are then able to support them to be better able to manage their wellbeing during times that they may find challenging. 

The information (including raw data) gained from the Wellbeing Scales is shared with parents at Parent/Teacher Interviews. Parents and teachers are then able to work together to set goals for each child based on the rich data provided by this measuring tool of wellbeing.

Strong Community

Children at our ELC are a part of the Scotch Community and House System. As they grow older, they have the opportunity to establish relationships with an older student in the Junior School in the form of a buddy. This helps children to transition confidently to their school years and to also understand their connection and relationships with the wider community. Our focus is on creating positive community relationships and a safe, supportive learning environment.

Our "One School" approach enhances the wellbeing and learning opportunities for our students and allows families to feel connected with each other, the whole Scotch College community and also the wider community.

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience."

-- John Dewey