By championing our children’s learning through thought-provoking and creative encounters, we construct meaningful experiences that meet our families’ and community’s expectations.
Children breaking new ground
SOEL is a family-run business first established in 1974.
We pride ourselves on understanding the needs of our community while providing quality education and care to children and their family groups.
SOEL draws perspective and insight from many different disciplines, philosophers and pedagogy from Australia and overseas.
The Municipal Schools of Reggio Emilia, Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessori, as well as our own observations and interactions, influence our philosophy and practice.
SOEL has centres in Nedlands, West Leederville, Subiaco, North Fremantle, North Perth, Como, and Attadale.
We act with honesty, confidence and fairness, with respect for the dignity and rights of others. We take responsibility for ourselves, our decisions and our actions.
We are explorers of the world: open-minded, asking questions, researching, investigating, being innovative and learning through wondering, trial and error and experimentation.
We show empathy, compassion and respect as we thoughtfully consider the world, our own ideas and experiences and those of others, and take responsible action.
We overcome challenges through our own resourcefulness and determination, as well as the support of others.
We advocate for children and childhood, exploring new ideas and developing innovative strategies that enable local, national and global citizenship.
Our Schools of Early Learning are important, decisive places where families, educators, children, and the environment support all those involved to be themselves: original, individual, and whole.
We believe children are strong, capable, and resilient researchers, exploring themselves and their environment. We believe children have the ability, dexterity, and passion to devour knowledge, requiring only the freedom to explore and experiment. We are nurturers and caregivers, providing a safe environment for this exploration to take place, but we are also collaborators and co-researchers.
We believe that children are competent individuals, each of whom we seek to know and respect. We gain insight into each child's characteristics and the interests through collaborating with families, listening to the child, and observing their actions and interactions.
Based on these discoveries we build environments and opportunities for them children to explore and develop their thoughts and understandings safely and to express these in any of the hundred languages of children, which include drawing, sculpture, dramatic play, movement, and music.
We believe it is vital that children feel they have ownership over their own space and learning so they feel confident and comfortable. We facilitate this by planning routines, activities, and projects around children’s own sense of time and rhythm rather than the clock. We provide beautiful and well thought out environments, which the children become directly involved in creating and caring for.
Although our practice is primarily influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach to early learning, we believe our children are best served by drawing perspective and insight from many different disciplines, philosophers, and pedagogy, from Australia and overseas. We stay abreast of the research into early childhood, regularly assess and examine our processes and practice in the light of new ideas and seek to integrate the best elements of each.
Our philosophy and practice is thus informed by that of the Municipal Schools of Reggio Emilia, research into children’s rights and advocacy, anti-bias approach, attachment theory – Circle of Security and Phoenix cups, other best practice which we engage with, as well as our own observations and interactions.