At Malvern Memorial Kindergarten (MMK) we value respectful collaboration and reciprocal partnerships and relationships with children and their families to build upon children's interests, prior knowledge and cultural practices.Our aim at MMK is to develop a collaborative community of learners: children, families, teaching staff and the wider community, all of whom have valuable ideas and information to share and learn with and from each other.We recognise that positive transitions, in partnership with families, is the key to children's success, not just at kindergarten, but in their future learning endeavours.Our teaching staff view each child as unique, with the ability to achieve across all areas of development – physical, cognitive, language (literacy and numeracy), social and emotional.We believe children make sense of their world through play-based experiences that are meaningful to them, with the optimum environment for learning occurring when they are appropriately challenged, feel safe and secure, and where they can put experiences into context.We understand that for many children kindergarten is the first step in their formal education journey, with our role as teachers and educators being to provide a nurturing environment that is warm, inviting and conducive to opportunities for active engagement in open-ended indoor and outdoor play, intentional and spontaneous learning, making connections and holistic development in their own time.