OUR PHILOSOPHY

At Little St Margaret’s, we believe children need to experience challenges that strengthen their confidence in themselves as learners and in their abilities. These experiences provide a sense of success and develop a willingness and excitement for new experiences and a thirst for learning.

The educational philosophy of Little St Margaret's is based on the following firm beliefs:

DEVELOPMENT: Children pass through sequential stages of development at different rates and require programs that reflect and cater to each individual's needs and strengths.
DOING: Children learn best by doing – active thinking, participation and experimenting to discover first-hand about the world we live in.
PLAY: Play provides the foundation for learning and enables staff to achieve the key goals of an early childhood curriculum. Play is the work of early childhood.

Download Little St. Margaret’s full Philosophy statement

OUR HISTORY

Little St Margaret’s Kindergarten was first established in 1929 as the kindergarten of St Margaret’s School, now in Berwick. After a year in the Toorak Presbyterian Church Manse, the kindergarten transferred to the bluestone building at 19 Mayfield Avenue, Malvern. In 1940, when St Margaret’s School had transferred wholly to Berwick, Misses Margaret Paton and Maisie Cooper entered a partnership agreement to manage Little St Margaret’s Kindergarten.

The kindergarten moved once more, this time to its current site at 29 Mayfield Avenue, Malvern. Misses Paton and Cooper ran the kinder successfully for the next thirty years until their retirement in 1970, at which point a meeting was held to decide the future of the kinder. The outcome of the meeting was to keep the kinder going and establish a council of parent representatives – the structure we still use today. In 2014, we celebrated the 85th Anniversary of Little St Margaret's with many people who began their formal learning journey here, both past and present. To this day, we still have many children who have had grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, parents, aunties and uncles who have previously attended Little St Margaret's.