Goodstart Ashfield

Goodstart Ashfield provides care for children six weeks through to six years. Each room has qualified and experienced staff monitoring the individual development and milestones of each child and ensuring a nurturing and caring environment is maintained.

Goodstart Early Learning Ashfield is a well-known children’s service in our local community. The service is a 3 minute walk to Ashfield train station, a stroll to Ashfield Mall and one minute to the bus stop.

The Centre Director Sandy Siljanovska-Umbrello leads a team, who are advocates for children, and are dedicated, passionate educators who strive for excellence. Our educators are from diverse multicultural backgrounds. These include team members from Columbia, Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Lebanon, Italy, Macedonia and Nepal. We are proud to have some longstanding educators who have been at the service for 18 years. We have a consistent number of hard-working educators who do their utmost to provide the best service for our children and their families.

We facilitate a key educator approach at our service that supports the building of a strong, secure, reciprocal, relationship between each child and their family. This is based on trust and respect with the key educator in our early learning environment. This relationship is supported also by a secondary educator when the key educator is unavailable.

This role of key educator will support the growth of secure attachments between the educator and child through rituals, essential care routines and the provision of experiences in small groups. The key educator relationships enrich a deeper understanding of each family’s uniqueness, faith and cultural beliefs to ensure we nurture and respond to each child’s holistic development and learning.

Our play based learning underpins the Early Years’ Learning Framework across our spaces - from Nursery to Preschool. Our enriched learning environments support the learning across Key Learning Areas which consist of language and literacy, mathematics, creative arts, socio-dramatic play, construction, science and technology, physical play, and social / emotional. We develop and intentionally engage programs with each child’s individual interests central to their design, however also considering children’s needs and strengths. With each step, we ensure each child at the space has all of the foundations for success in transitioning into school and for lifelong learning. 

Families who are using our service have been working collaboratively with service educators to support and promote a high-quality education and care service for our children.  We encourage families to be actively involved in the service by assisting in a working bee, sharing their knowledge experience with the children, and providing feedback and suggestions to the Quality Improvement Plan (QIP). 

Our Storypark platform, as well as regular family nights and emailed newsletters, enable us to stay in close contact with parents and families, ensuring open and clear communication. This also means we can tailor each program to the child’s individual needs, interests and strengths – as well as the strong level of cultural diversity in our service.

Outside, we have age appropriate play spaces and equipment, all geared to enhance the children’s awareness of their surrounds and the greater environment, as well as their understanding of the importance of sustainability. All of our educators strongly believe in environmental sustainability, the children are supported to become environmentally responsible and show respect for the environment through daily sustainable practice within the service.

We have a qualified cook who cooks fresh, healthy and nutritious meals for the children each day and is DEVINE! The service provides all meals during the day, including breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and a late snack

Goodstart Ashfield has a strong relationship with the local communities. There are many communities that are working in partnership with our space including SPOT Children’s Clinic Allied Health Services (speech pathology, occupational therapy, psychology, art and play therapy and dietetics). We also engage with the Transition to School Program with Ashfield Public School and Mr Damien Moran who is the principal of the school. The children who are transitioning are offered an opportunity to have an insight and an experience of what primary school will look and feel like; and the different activities and experiences they participate in. 

We look forward to welcoming you and your family. So, come in, and take a sneak peak, at all the great connections and relationships that are embedded in our service and how best we can support your early learning journey to giving your child the best possible start in life.