I have a passion for the Vygotskian notion of ‘learning through relationship’. Over the last 8 years, I have fostered a service-wide philosophy of respectful and responsive relationships between all participants. We value our daily chats with families, our respectful, collaborative interactions with children, with each other and with interested experts. I am a strong advocate for life-long learning, supporting staff to explore and experiment in their daily work life and in more formal educational settings. My contagious vitality for learning has shaped the formation of a vibrant learning community at Murdoch University Child Care and Kindergarten, where we embrace every minute of our days, exploring our natural and human environments, in the beautiful grounds of Murdoch University. Our children are provided with opportunities to link into the university learning community, collaborating with world experts in the following projects: The Campus Quenda Study, The annual Carnaby's Cockatoo Count, the Noongar Story Walk, Wildlife Campus Rescue, Theatre in Education productions, Reminiscence and Cognitive Development Research. We have regular learning experiences with academics in the Veterinary School, Animal Biology School, Communications School's Theatre in Education program and Murdoch University Library.

I have developed our Multilingual-Multiliteracies Program, facilitating service-wide, bi-cultural development in Deaf Culture and Auslan bilingualism. Through this process, we have recruited and trained a dedicated team, who are proficient in Auslan and well versed in deaf culture. This team, leads the whole staff group, in the development of Auslan communication and deafness awareness. Signing and talking are used throughout all days, simultaneously. We also use of all the languages spoken by the families in our service community. Currently, we have 12 languages in use, within the service. The team strongly advocates for children to hear and see their family's first languages. Non- English languages are prioritized in our staff recruitment, ensuring that children hear and see a range of languages in their play environments.

During this time we have developed a diverse team, who possess a range of expertise. As well as being qualified educators, our team members are also soccer players, yoga teachers, mathematicians, archeologists, scientists, artists, sociologists, musicians, historians, linguists and animal biologists. Other team members assist us with insight into other abilities and disabilities, by sharing their experiences of Downs Syndrome, Autism, Deafness. Together my team and I, seek out experiences, that immerse children in a sense of awe and wonder in the natural world. We sustain this honour of nature and Noongar culture through our environmental responsibility program: stopping the use of plastic bags by providing ‘wet-bags’ for families and growing organic vegetables and fruit, fertilizing them with compost and worm castings.

For me, being forward-thinking also means being "forward-doing": creating a community that we would like to live in. By creating ‘the future’ today, we are embracing humanity, cultures, abilities, languages and the natural environment in ways that value and dignify all aspects of our experience, in a sustainable and responsible way.