Early learning centres are intended to fill the gap between a child’s early years and their entry into kindergarten. In this view, education begins at birth and a child’s parents and his or her family are their first teachers along with the wider community and provide their formative learning experiences. Early Learning is thus the stage at which children are first introduced to teachers and other education providers beyond those that exist within their own families.
In a well-resourced early learning centre, the child experiences an education model that shifts from their primary caregivers and family members to trained professionals that have researched and studied how to approach the cognitive and developmental milestones that are faced by three and four-year-old kindergarten children and seek to prepare them for this in an environment that has been designed to spark their curiosity and give them the resources to explore further.