Skip to main navigation
Skip to content
From birth to the age of three, your child is a baby or toddler: a competent, curious young citizen, already exploring, playing, learning and connecting.
When you enrol your child in a Nursery or Toddler program at your local Goodstart, our educators and environments facilitate outstanding care, education, and relationships, working in partnership with you at every step.
Our Birth to 3 Practice Framework honours the fact that you and your home learning environment have the most influence on your child's development. It provides a guide for tailored programming, carried out by qualified teachers and educators at our centres.
Nursery and Toddler programs at Goodstart
Your baby or toddler is a competent, curious young citizen, already exploring, playing, learning and connecting
During the first three years, children grow and develop at an extraordinary pace – physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively (acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses) – while building their communication and language skills.
Their brains and bodies are highly receptive to experiences. Relationships, language, movement, exploration, and secure attachments formed during this time lay the foundations for future learning, wellbeing, and citizenship.
Research shows that high-quality experiences in these early years support development and set the stage for lifelong growth. So, we developed our evidence-based Birth to 3 Framework with in-house PhD researchers and early childhood experts specifically for this age group, specialising in the nuanced needs of infants and toddlers.
The Goodstart Birth to 3 Practice Framework guides how we nurture and educate babies and toddlers in all of our centres.
It's linked to the Early Years Learning Framework and National Quality Standard , which apply to children up to the age of five. But our Framework is designed especially for children from birth to the age of three – translating research into everyday practice.
Unique to Goodstart in its depth and consistent implementation across our centres, our Framework ensures all children enrolled in Nursery and Toddler programs experience quality, child-led care and learning, supported by families and skilled educators, that sets strong foundations for success in life.
Supporting babies and toddlers to grow and thrive
We understand that:
- Stable connections make babies and toddlers confident. Our educators enable children to feel safe, valued, and ready to explore by building warm, secure relationships with them.
- Children are unique, capable learners who thrive when their interests, choices and voices are honoured. They're not passive recipients – they're active in their own learning.
- From tummy time to exploratory movement, listening to stories and engaging sensory play, each moment is a learning opportunity. To support this, educators foster play-based, intentionally planned experiences in rich, enabling environments.
- Babies and toddlers benefit from programs and environments that respond to their pace and interests – whether they are just discovering movement as a newborn or bravely stretching themselves and making imaginative sense of their world.
- Child-directed play, educator-supported interactions and intentional teaching embeds learning across all areas – from social-emotional, to language, physical, and creative development.
- Every child, regardless of background, ability, or culture, has a right to access high-quality learning and care tailored to their needs. So, we embed inclusive practice to facilitate this.
- Children are young citizens already participating in their world. We uphold their rights to dignity, agency and belonging.
'The importance of early years practice for the first 1,000 days is often neglected. Meeting the developmental care and education of toddlers and babies to support their learning and wellbeing outcomes sets the best foundations for all later learning and gives children the best start on a trajectory of success to develop their human potential.'
- Prof. Iram Siraj, PhD OBE Professor of Child Development and Education University of Oxford and Goodstart Thought Leader
Parents and caregivers: Our primary partner
We partner with parents and caregivers to create continuity, so your child thrives at home and in-centre with consistency, familiarity, and trustYou know your child better than anyone. Your role is foundational and irreplaceable. We aim to partner with you as allies for your child’s wellbeing by listening and aligning with you throughout our service.
To support you and create a meaningful partnership between home and centre, we:
- Design orientation and transition experiences that are gradual, flexible, and responsive, recognising that starting care is a significant change for both your child and your family.
- Spend time with you at enrolment to understand your child's routines, preferences, interests, and aspirations. We honour and respect your voice in guiding your child's experience at Goodstart.
- Embed cultural safety and inclusion by respecting your family's culture, language, dietary practices, and beliefs. We collaborate to make your child feel at home and valued.
- Provide easy-to-understand updates and collaborative planning, including resources to support your child at home, so you are always part of what's happening.
- Invite you to participate in observations, reflections, next-step conversations, and celebrations, and share your child's rhythms, strengths, and goals so we can write their story together.
- Build consistency and trust for your child and family through key educator relationships. These relationships form a bridge between home and centre, strengthening attachment, security and learning.
Together, we create continuity, so your child thrives at home and in-centre with consistency, familiarity, and trust.
Enabling educators, resources, and environments
Our educators are highly trained, reflective, responsive and committed to quality. We partner with you and your child to support their optimal outcomes.
Key elements of our practice include:
- Relationships: Educators build authentic, connected relationships with each child, gaining deep knowledge of their temperament, interests, and ideas. That knowledge drives the learning experiences we provide. Learn more about our Key Educator Approach.
- Enabling environments: Our spaces – both indoor and outdoor – are thoughtfully designed to invite play, exploration, sensory experience, movement and communication. Every moment, from routine care to free play, is a learning opportunity.
- Attentiveness and dialogue: We listen to children, observe keenly, ask questions, respond with intention and reflect on our practice. Through professional dialogue and ongoing reflection, we continually improve.
- Holistic teaching and learning: We see care and education as inseparable. For babies and toddlers, feeding, nappy changes, sleep and routine are rich learning moments.
- Programming, planning and assessment: Educators plan Nursery and Toddler experiences based on each child's interests, group goals, family input and community links. Observation and evaluation enable us to identify children's emerging strengths and determine their next steps.
- Safety and wellbeing: Ensuring children feel safe is foundational. We actively supervise, tailor support to each child's autonomy and ensure restful sleep, healthy eating, and secure care routines.
- Sustainability and citizenship: Even at this early age, children are encouraged to see themselves as part of a wider world – culturally, socially and environmentally. We embed practices that nurture respect, responsibility and curiosity about the world.
Nursery and Toddler routine: What you can expect
We plan learning and care programs underpinned by predictable routine and warm connection
A trusting welcome where your child is greeted by an educator who knows their name, routines and family story, to begin the day with recognition and warmth.
- A rhythm aligned with your child's home life, recognising that for babies and toddlers, predictability and connection underpin security and learning.
- Rich sensory, movement and communication experiences from tummy time, crawling, exploring textures, books, songs and outdoor discovery through to emerging walking, talk and symbolic play.
- Responsive care moments: feeding, changing, sleeping, and interacting become intentional teaching moments, where educators observe, reflect and extend children's learning.
- Mealtimes full of joy, communication, choice, and explorative interaction – not just feeding, but a chance to develop autonomy, language, and healthy habits.
- Restful, safe sleep and rest periods that support development, wellbeing and consolidation of learning.
- Regular communication with you: updates, observations, invitations to reflect together, and suggestions for how you might notice and extend your child's interests at home.
- A strong partnership between home and centre to ensure consistency, security and trust: your family's voice matters.
From birth to three years, children deserve high-quality, responsive, inclusive early education and care that will benefit their future learning.
By prioritising your child, partnering with you, and enabling our qualified, passionate educators to plan Nursery and Toddler programs based on our evidence-based Birth to 3 Framework, we can deliver exactly that.
Together, we build a secure, rich, playful, respectful, and empowering foundation for your child's lifelong learning, wellbeing, and participation.
Your child's most important years are here – let's make them count.