Shenton Park

Our Shenton Park centre was the first Smart Start center and has been running since 2004. As we approach two decades in Shenton Park we feel like we have firmly established ourselves as a part of the community! We love the community feel of Shenton Park and feel so lucky to have been able to share these wonderful facilities with the Onslow Park Tennis Club for so long as well as having been able to enjoy the company of the friendly locals! For our students who go on to Rosalie Primary School, it has been so nice for us to be just next door and to have been welcomed into that part of the community. Being able to go and visit the chickens at Rosalie or seeing their lovely kitchen garden has been a really nice way to start talking about starting 'big school' and getting them excited about the next step of their learning journey.

Call 0410384651 or email admin@smartstarteducation.com.au to book a tour or enrol your child for the start of 2025.

Opening Hours/ Fees:

The centre is open every day from 8am to 4pm

We are approved providers and so parents can claim the Child Care Subsidy for this centre. The fee for the full day, without the childcare benefit or rebate, is $125 per day.

Childcare Now:

Smart Start has connected with ChildcareNow, so that parents can notify the centre if they will be absent for their booked in days. An incentive of $115 is returned to the families account if another family books into a spot that has been marked absent.

Location:

We are located within the Onslow Park Tennis Club complex on Onslow Road, between Rosalie Primary School and Rosalie Park.

The Inside Classroom

Our lovely open classroom provides for easy supervision of all the children and has lots of natural light and a view that extends beyond the greenery of the courts, to the surrounding Onslow Park and Kings Park beyond. We have a mixed age range from 2 years old until the end of the kindy year that share the classroom area. We believe your child's age does not define what they can do, so we provide all learning in little steps, from the simplest to the most complex. In this way children are always able to extend on their current knowledge, without feeling defeated by being asked to do something that is beyond their abilities. Creating confident, enthusiastic learners who have the ability to work independently, with deep concentration, is one of our biggest goals.

Practical Life

Practical life activities teach children the fine motor and real-life skills that form the foundation of the Montessori Education Program. Children love these activities which help them develop their independence and concentration skills. Spooning, pouring, using tweezers, pegs, hammering, screwing, juicing and threading are just some of these fantastic activities!

Sensorial

Sensorial materials in a Montessori school are designed to engage children by activating their five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. The development and refinement of our senses are greatest during the earliest years of development.

1/17

1/12

Literacy

Preschoolers are at an age where they are absorbing all aspects of language. There is no better time to learn to read and write. Watch our videos on the Learning at Home tab for exactly how we take little steps to big achievements, leading your preschooler to excel at reading and writing!

Our educators apply the Montessori method, combined with Accelerated Learning principles to make learning to read and write easy, exciting and fun.

1/9

Numeracy

The Montessori materials for learning mathematics give children a concrete experience, so they gain a deep understanding of the processes involved. They always work first with concrete materials and move at their own pace toward abstraction with paper and pencil, or towards mental arithmetic. This helps them to internalise concepts at a deeper, more lasting level than if they had memorised them by rote. In our classroom the children work through a well thought out curriculum of steps from learning their numbers to complex manipulations of numbers beyond a thousand.

Painting, drawing, sewing, threading, cutting, glueing, tearing, stamping...

Art & Craft

1/6

We find that art and craft is a fantastic way to develop children's creativity, fine motor skills, pre writing skills and concentration. We always have a large collection of art and craft activities on the shelves from which the children can choose.

Music and Dance

We find music is such a great way to learn things, have fun together and help the children develop their confidence. We have a music and movement session every afternoon and at the end of each year we have a Christmas concert for the children to perform for their families.

Cultural Studies

Children have an intense curiosity for the world around them. The Montessori materials help them to make sense of their environment and improve their observation skils by giving them concrete materials, such as puzzle maps and sorting activities. There are puzzle maps of the different continents, sorting cards to classify animals in categories, such as mammals, birds, etc. There are puzzles and cards to learn different parts of plants and animals and so much more. Gardening activities also help them to learn to care for our environment.

The Outside Classroom

We believe children need plenty of time outside to develop their social skills, gross motor skills, coordination, basic sports skills, gardening, care of animals and just for all the fun that comes with being out in nature!

Our staff are trained in the UWA Kiddo program, a specialist program developed by academics at The University of Western Australia to help prepare children to be active and healthy for life.

1/4

Puzzles, construction, matching, playing...

We set up our classrooms so that the children can have the freedom to choose what they want to work on and follow their own interests. They can work independently or collaboratively around the rooms. It might just look like play, but all these activities are developing their ability to make choices, source what they need to complete an activity, concentrate, work independently and pack away once they have finished.

1/16

Our Educators

Staff

We have a team of highly qualified and experienced educators. We always strive to keep educators very stable and have the same educators present for as much of the week as possible. This enables children to make secure connections with the educators and makes it easier to settle in if they haven't had a lot of experience being left before.

Aku:

Aku has a Diploma in Early Childhood as well as a Diploma in Montessori education. She is a passionate and experienced educator with a lot of experience working with preschool aged children. Aku has a wealth of experience and has been with us here in Shenton Park and our other centres for many years now.

Dipti:

Dipti started working in our Shenton Park centre in 2004 already being an experienced educator at that point. She is a passionate and engaged educator with a Montessori Diploma in early childhood education.

Sarah:

Sarah is a Quailfied Early Childhood Teacher who has specialised in Montessori. Sarah also has a bachelors degree in Communications and Anthropology. She obtained a high school scholarship to play the violin, has enjoyed playing with the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra, the Perth Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the West Coast Philharmonic Orchestra. Sarah started with Smart Start as an assistant educator in 2004 and her passion for setting preschoolers up with the life long learning skills for success is what drives her passion for her work.

Special Extra Activites:

Dance
Gardening
Care of Animals
Music and dance session every day
Brain Gym
Yoga
Full Montessori program provided by Montessori qualified staff

We also have the optional extra of Happy Feet dance classes as an extra cost option, once a week.