Goodstart Early Learning Ocean Reef

Strong relationships are the foundation for confident, curious learners 💛

Goodstart’s key educator approach ensures every child is known, supported and feels safe - through consistent, nurturing connections with educators and meaningful partnerships with families. These bonds help build wellbeing, resilience and a true sense of belonging from day one.

Discover how this approach supports your child’s learning journey: https://brnw.ch/2

Did you know we invested $65.5M into our social purpose last year, a 14% increase on the year before? 👏 At Goodstart, we're proud of the impact we have on children, families and communities. As a not‑for‑profit, every dollar we earn is reinvested to improve outcomes – from high‑quality learning and educator development to extra support for children who need it most.
Because when we put children first, the impact goes further 💛

⚽🥄 Learning through play in our Nursery room!

Our nursery friends had a wonderful time exploring with balls and scoops today. As they carefully scooped, carried, and transferred the balls, they were developing important hand-eye coordination skills while having lots of fun!

Activities like these help strengthen fine and gross motor skills, improve concentration, and encourage children to practise controlling their movements as they track, grasp, and move objects. These early experiences are essential for building the coordination needed for everyday tasks as they grow.

⚽🥄🌟

🔤📚 Building early literacy skills through play!

Our Kindy children have been busy exploring letters through fun matching and recognition activities. As they identified letters, matched them together, and practised naming them, they were developing important early literacy skills that lay the foundation for future reading and writing.

Letter recognition helps children begin to understand that letters have names, sounds, and meaning. Activities like these also support memory, concentration, problem-solving, and confidence as children become familiar with the building blocks of language.

You can support literacy development at home by pointing out letters in books, on signs, or around the house, and encouraging your child to find and name the letters they recognize.

📚✨🔤

✂️📰 Cutting, creating, and building important skills!

Our Kindergarten children have been busy cutting pictures and shapes from magazines, strengthening a range of important developmental skills along the way. As they carefully snipped and cut, they were developing fine motor strength, hand-eye coordination, concentration, and scissor control, all essential foundations for future writing and self-help skills.

Magazine cutting also encourages creativity, decision-making, and language development as children explore different images, discuss their choices, and bring their ideas to life through art and play.

Want to continue the learning at home? 🏡 Simply gather some old magazines, child-safe scissors, and let your child cut out pictures that interest them. They can create collages, sort images into categories, or even make a vision board of their favourite things!

Learning opportunities are everywhere, and sometimes the simplest activities can have the biggest impact. 🌟

✂️📰✨

🏃‍♀️🌟 Jumping, balancing, and having fun!

Our Kindergarten children had an exciting time taking on hurdle challenges today! As they leapt over obstacles and navigated the course, they were building their confidence, coordination, balance, and gross motor skills in a fun and engaging way.

Physical activity plays an important role in supporting children's overall wellbeing. Activities like hurdles help develop strength, agility, spatial awareness, and resilience, while encouraging children to stay active and challenge themselves in a positive environment.

There were plenty of smiles, determination, and celebrations as our little athletes gave it their best effort! 💙💪

🌟🏃‍♂️

Watching little hands do big things! 🍌✂️

Our Nursery friends have been busy developing their fine motor skills as they carefully practised cutting bananas today. Using child-safe utensils, the children strengthened their hand muscles, coordination, concentration, and independence while exploring healthy foods in a fun and engaging way.

These everyday experiences help build important foundations for future skills such as writing, self-help tasks, and problem-solving. Most importantly, our little learners were proud of their efforts and enjoyed tasting their delicious creations! 💛

🍌✨

💙🧸✨ National Pyjama Day... or should we say National Pyjama WEEK! ✨🧸💙

Our Ocean Reef team are celebrating all week long, with both children and educators joining in the fun by wearing their favourite pyjamas! We have loved seeing everyone embrace the spirit of this wonderful fundraiser while creating lots of smiles and special memories together. 😊

By participating in Pyjama Week, we're helping raise funds for The Pyjama Foundation, an organisation dedicated to supporting children in foster care. Every donation helps provide a child with a dedicated Pyjama Angel mentor, giving them the support, encouragement, and opportunities they need to thrive and dream big. 🌟

A big thank you to our amazing educators for getting involved and showing their support for such an important cause. 💙

If you'd like to contribute, donations can be made here: 📲 https://fundraise.thepyjamafoundation.com/st/14278/23321

Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of children who need it most. 💙✨

💙🧸👕🌟

💤🌟 Ocean Reef's Pyjama Week is Coming! 🌟💤

We're celebrating National Pyjama Day on Friday, 24 July by turning it into Pyjama WEEK at Ocean Reef! 🎉

We invite all children to come dressed in their favourite PJs throughout the week while we raise funds for The Pyjama Foundation, helping children in foster care feel safe, supported and inspired to dream big. 💙

Every donation helps provide a child with a dedicated Pyjama Angel mentor, making a real difference in their life.

📲 Donate here: https://fundraise.thepyjamafoundation.com/st/14278/23321

📍 QR codes will also be available throughout the centre.

Thank you for helping us make a difference, one pair of pyjamas at a time! 🥰

💙💤

The research is clear 📚 reading aloud is one of the most powerful things we can do for our children.

When we read with a child, we’re doing far more than sharing a story. We’re building the foundations for language, confidence, curiosity and a lifelong love of learning.

Decades of research shows that children who are read to regularly:

💛 Build stronger language skills
Hearing rich varied language in books exposes children to far more words than everyday conversation alone. This growing vocabulary helps them understand, communicate and make sense of the world.

💛 Develop early literacy skills long before they learn to read
Through stories, children learn how books work – that print carries meaning, that pages turn left to right, and that stories have a beginning, middle and end. These early understandings make learning to read feel familiar and exciting.

💛 Strengthen phonological awareness
Rhymes, rhythms and playful sounds help children hear the building blocks of language.

💛 Grow their comprehension and thinking skills
Talking together about a story, predicting what might happen, wondering how a character feels, and connecting events to real life helps children develop memory, problem-solving, and higher-order thinking.

💛 Experience connection, comfort and joy
Shared reading fosters calmness, closeness, and moments of joint attention. These warm interactions support a child's sense of security and belonging.

Most importantly, children who experience positive, engaging reading moments from a young age are more likely to develop a genuine love of books - something that matters even more than early literacy skills alone.

Reading is simple, joyful, and sets children up for success in school and life.

Here is a list of some of our favourites below 👇