Owner-Operators leading experienced educators

Our education and care service is owned and operated by Amanda Roberts and Sabrina Bombara, two locally known Early Childhood professionals with over 20 years’ experience in the industry. They lead their team with a hands-on approach.

Dedicated and professional educators

Our educators are motivated and dedicated to providing the highest quality care and education to children and families in our community.

Our educational space

The learning environments within our space our carefully thought out and created to enable them to be the third teacher. These environments are reflective of the individual children within that space and promote the development of confident and involved learners.

Established natural outdoor environment

We are fortunate to have a large natural outdoor environment enabling our children to have access to and make connections with the natural world. We encourage our children to extend and challenge their physical skills through careful and considered risk taking.

Partnerships with families

We view families as the first and most influential people in their children’s lives and therefore strive to collaborate and work in partnership with them.
With an open door policy, we encourage parents to engage in experiences within the service and foster a sense of connection and belonging.

Partnership with the school

We are situated on the grounds of Narraweena Public School and operate as part of their wider community. Through the community garden, visits to the classroom and participation in school events, our children become familiar with and comfortable in a school environment.

My children have been at Explore and Develop Narraweena for over two years now and they love it! The teachers are great and are always so helpful, my children have flourished at this centre, nothing is too hard for them. Number three will be going as well!

The directors are always on site and always involved with the children which is great to see.

If you are looking for a centre that is nurturing and where your children will flourish (and be well fed!) this is the centre for you. We wouldn’t go anywhere else.

Michelle Fifita

My little girl joined the E&D family at the beginning of the year in the 1-2’s room. This was the first time she would be apart from me and I was initially concerned how we both would cope with this transition. I needn’t have worried as we were treated like family from the first stage of the enrollment process. We were allowed to pop in together to visit and meet the children and staff on numerous occasions and this really helped my daughter begin to feel safe.

We are warmly welcomed every morning by her educators and they take the time to talk with both her Dad and I at pick up about her day and progress. We appreciate the time educators take to prepare written communication and we are able to receive feedback about her development and achievements regularly.

I love that nature and the natural environment plays such a huge role in the children’s everyday experience-the children have access to real natural play spaces!!! You can really see how nature based learning is valued by management and educators in each room.

Amanda and Sabrina are always onsite and are available to help and guide you through the early learning journey.

My daughter now asks every day if she is going to “school” and I can not wait for my son to also become apart of the explore and develop community.

Jessica Godyn

We can’t speak more highly of Explore and Develop Narraweena! We have been part of the centre for four years now. Both of our kids go there and absolutely love their “kindy” days!

The owners, Amanda and Sabrina, are friendly, welcoming and hands-on. They are always happy to answer any questions and are an active part of the daycare. They are onsite everyday and involved in the educational programs.

The educators are passionate, caring, nurturing and most of all they are invested in our children. They always go that extra mile and this shows in their close relationships with the children and how well they know our kids.

The educational programs are engaging and allow the children the opportunity to develop their interests. They also have a strong focus on the natural environment which we love. The outdoor play area is incredible and perfect for the children to run, explore and get messy!

We feel incredibly lucky to have found such a brilliant centre and are so grateful to be part of the Explore and Develop Narraweena family. We will be sad to leave in two years time!

Peta Cruise

Our kids love it here. How can they not with all the outdoor space, the staff are lovely, genuine & thoughtful. They get treated like if they are their own kids.

When our kids realise they aren’t going to kindy on the weekends, they get upset and want to see their favorite people (their teachers)

Keep up the hard work

Geoff Lai

I started my journey with Explore and Develop in Narraweena 5 years ago when my eldest started there. I didn’t realise how lucky we were at the time to get a place in the nursery room, and have since come to realise why it’s such a highly sought after centre. The directors are personable, responsive and have such a caring nature to my 3 children who all attend. Having a child with anaphylaxis presents additional challenges for our family, but the centre could not be more accommodating to his needs. My children love attending the centre, which is so important given how much time they spend there. The playground is large and the activities are endless, but most importantly it is the staff that make this centre such a gem.

Megan Bowman

My twin ‘but opposite’ boys have attended E&D Narraweena for 2 years. They’ve been through many typical phases of growing boys in the last 2 years there, but I can clearly recall my areas of concern for both as individuals two years ago, and can clearly see how they’ve progressed with the support, attention and genuine interest of the educators and directors. I barely recognise the confident, rowdy little monkeys that tell me stories, invite the whole class for playdates and sleepovers (awkward) and floor me with their grown up opinions or counter arguments as 5 year olds. They’re most definitely not always angels, but they know who they are, they are firmly and safely connected to their not-at-home carers and are getting very close to big school ready… All I’ve had to do is drop them off and pick them up and communicate with E&DN openly. The team know what’s important to me specifically and what’s not, and I don’t have to seek someone out or ask a million questions, it’s a definite two way street, and I feel like we are collectively invested in my boys social and emotional progress – academics has never been important to me in preschool, yet while all this play and exercise has been going on… They’ve somehow got a firm grasp on all sorts of beginner English and maths smarts too!

To be fair – I’d have sent them there just to have my fussy eaters try and consume all kinds of delicious, fresh and healthy meals 4 days a week since they refuse at home… But that just ended up being the silver lining ? I highly recommend this natural, fun based, connected community and early learning facility – we love it

Chantalle Taylor

LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Explore & Develop Narraweena

0 – 2 years

In our 0 – 1 and our 1 – 2-year old environments, we foster a strong sense of connection and belonging as we focus on building secure and trusting relationships with our children. With high educator-to-child ratios, we can provide a flexible routine to cater for the individual and ever-changing needs of the young children in our care.

With a focus on independence and autonomy, we view our children as capable and competent little people. We constantly offer opportunities for children to extend their skills and knowledge, in meaningful context and based on the world in which they live. Connections with nature and sensory experiences, feature in our program on a daily basis to provide children with the opportunity to make meaning using all of their sensory capabilities.

2 – 3 years

In the toddlers’ room, we acknowledge their very strong sense of autonomy and we endeavour to foster this at every opportunity. As we support independence we not only build their self-help skills, but also enable them to develop a strong sense of self.

With their developing imagination and growing curiosity we seek opportunities to feed their inquisitive minds. In both the indoor and outdoor environments we offer an array of experiences that cater for the many different languages and learning styles of the children within this space.

3 – 5 years

Our preschool environments offer challenge and promote children to extend their own interests, skills and abilities. Through supportive educators and stimulating environments, children within these rooms engage in hands on exploration and considered risk-taking. We believe that this supports dispositions for learning and will, in turn, create confident and involved learners who are able to resource their own learning.

Our ‘Transition to School’ program begins from birth as we support all areas of development and prepare children not only for school, but for life beyond it. Literacy and numeracy is embedded into everything that we do. This allows it to occur in meaningful contexts, which are more readily absorbed.

Outdoor environment

We are fortunate to have an abundance of space in our large natural outdoor environments. We call it our ‘Adventure Playground’ as it offers the children the right balance of risk and adventure. It affords the opportunity for children to run, climb, jump, explore and experiment.

We encourage children to develop a love for and affinity towards nature as they engage in the outdoor environments. Children learn best through hands on experiences and this is achieved through the many sensory experiences we offer, including our mud kitchen which features in our outdoor spaces.

We have both a community garden with the school as well as a worm farm and vegetable garden within our own outdoor space. This allows children to develop positive attitudes towards food as they connect to the process from the earth to the table.