North Star - Guiding Growth
At North Star, your child enjoys a distinctive advantage by benefiting from Finland's globally renowned early education system
Our Vision
North Star introduces internationally acclaimed Nordic childcare practices to the Australian childcare market, establishing a new standard for the childcare experience for children, parents, and staff. We uphold a ‘best in class’ philosophy across child experience, curriculum, centre design, and personalised learning, ensuring excellence in all aspects of our childcare services.
Our Philosophy
We are firm believers in holistic learning, where every child should have the freedom to learn and flourish within a nurturing and stimulating environment. This environment not only supports their unique traits and interests but also fosters the self-assurance necessary for their future development and success.
Exceptional Education
What sets us apart is that we provide a meticulously designed daily learning curriculum crafted by genuine education and early childhood experts, a feature not commonly found in other childcare centres across Australia. This curriculum is thoughtfully delivered through a play-based approach, ensuring your child's learning experience is both joyful and intuitive.
A typical day at North Star
Going the ‘Extra’ Mile
We offer a variety of extracurricular activities for your child as part of our daily routine.
Music classes in our centre offer children the opportunity to explore the world of sound, rhythm, and self-expression. Through engaging activities and play, these lessons nurture a lifelong love for music, boost cognitive development, and enhance social skills as children collaborate in making joyful melodies together.
We provide cooking lessons in our centre as it provides children with valuable life skills while fostering their creativity and confidence in the kitchen. These hands-on experiences not only promote healthy eating habits but also encourage a sense of independence as children learn to prepare simple, nutritious meals.
Our sports programs promote physical activity, teamwork, and motor skills in children, featuring activities such as soccer, basketball, yoga, dance, and more. These programs foster active play, social skills, and enjoyable experiences. Ensuring age-appropriate and safe activities, qualified instructors or staff members supervise and lead these activities.
At North Star we preach community engagement at our centre through maintaining open communication with parents, hosting family events, offering volunteer opportunities, collaborating with local organisations, using social media, establishing parent committees, celebrating diversity, and seeking feedback to create a supportive and inclusive environment for children and families.
Nutrition
Nutrition forms a crucial part of a child’s development and is at the forefront of the North Star offering.
Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and a late snack are all provided as part of our service. We have partnered with a local paediatric nutritionist to ensure that our varied menus provide a balanced and healthy diet for all the children, and caters to all dietary requirements. Our nutrition program sets the gold standard in childcare healthy eating.
We help our students develop healthy habits around food, setting the pattern for the rest of their lives. All our food is produced fresh daily on site by our own chef, and we pride ourselves on using seasonal produce and high-quality suppliers. Weekly meal plans that your child will be eating are always provided to parents via our communication app.
As a parent of our centre, you will receive biannual information sessions from our nutritionist with tips about making the best eating choices for your family in the supermarket, a selection of child-friendly recipes and a sample meal plans.
Nutrition and Dietary Considerations
At our center, we prioritise the health and well-being of all our participants, which is why we take allergies and dietary preferences seriously. We understand that every child has unique nutritional needs, and we are committed to accommodating those requirements safely.
Allergy Management and Cross-Contamination Prevention
Our team is trained to handle a variety of dietary restrictions, and we have stringent protocols in place to minimise the risk of cross-contamination. We proudly cater to the following dietary needs:
- Nut-Free: All meals are prepared in a nut-free environment, and we monitor all ingredients closely to ensure safety.
- Dairy-Free: We offer delicious dairy-free alternatives and ensure that all meals are free from dairy products.
- Vegetarian: Our vegetarian options are hearty and nutritious, featuring a variety of plant-based ingredients.
- Vegan: We provide flavourful vegan meals that meet the dietary requirements of our plant-based participants.
If your child has specific allergies or dietary restrictions not listed here, please let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate their needs. We believe that everyone deserves a safe and enjoyable dining experience.
Always Connected
We recognise that, as parents, you have a natural desire to stay informed about your children’s daily activities. That’s why we utilise a specially designed childcare app, StoryPark, to offer real-time updates on your child’s experiences, including details about their sleep, meals, and a wealth of delightful photos taken throughout the day. This technology allows you to stay closely connected to your child’s journey and well-being while they are at our centre.
Educator to child ratios
The educator to child ratio is dependent on the age of your child
We aim to secure continuity for your child with the same teacher throughout the week. If for any reason staff are absent, our main priority is to inform parents as soon as possible of the replacement for that day, to ensure there are no surprises for you or your child.
The daily FinlandWay® programme also ensures continuity and helps all children to feel comfortable and settled with the staff who support them.
Ratio for on-site activities
Want to know more about North Star?
Let’s talk! We’d love to tell you more about our childcare centre.