“State-of-the-art Learning Centres”

With competition increasing, good customer service has become a core principle for any business to succeed. But delivering a quality service alongside outstanding customer service is a big challenge. Getting it right means total buy-in from everyone involved. Australian, Kids ELC’s support team comes up with flexible solutions, adapting to the particular demands of each situation. “We place trust in our team. Let them find ways to better serve our customers. In turn, the company reputation continues to excel,” says Cassie Hobbs, General Manager of Kids ELC.

Kids ELC first launched as a group of mainstream centres, until in 2013, it was decided by the owner and managers that the centres would move in another direction that was more in line with their vision and values. Kids ELC were very passionate about The Reggio Emilia approach to education which is derived from a town in Northern Italy. The team started attending Study tours in Reggio Emilia, Italy, learning more about the philosophy and finding ways to translate the philosophy into the Australian context of their educational programs. “We invested in our educators to support and embed the philosophy throughout our centres. With time we become well known owing to the successful implementation of this philosophy and culminating into change makers within the Education sector throughout Australia,” adds Cassie. “We successfully achieved the highest rating throughout the Assessment and Rating process, achieving the Exceeding result across all of our centres. We have won multiple awards including a National Award, Leadership and Mentoring, Most Nurturing Early Years Provider and recently an International award being Top 50 Organisations in Education.”

"Kids ELC invests with loyalty and commitment in it’s educators through professional development. We believe that it is only through equipping our educators fully with the tools required can they in turn become successful in their roles and thus creating the highest quality environments and programs for our children."

Kids ELC believes in staying true to who they are, including their philosophy, vision, and values to guide all aspects of their decisions. “We are not in competition with anyone, only always reflecting and bettering ourselves. Kids ELC are very particular in which technology we implement into our centres. And everything being done is aligned with our vision and values and assess how well it will meet our needs. We are particularly committed to adaption and change management strategies,” elucidates Cassie.

Adoption and change management are critical elements in ensuring any new project is a success, but it’s not enough on its own. Kids ELC believes that there are some key factors within each successful project. They have strong sponsorship to ensure that the ‘motivation to change’ flows down from the top and that the right resources are assigned. Strong project management to deliver the technical initiative according to timeline and budget. And, of course, adoption and change management focuses on the people and the way they work. All of these elements need to be considered and effectively implemented to ensure a transformation project’s success. Children desire to acquire knowledge, have much capacity for curiosity and amazement, and yearn to create relationships with others and communicate. “How are you fostering the same? This is part of our philosophy, based around The Reggio Emilia approach to education. We view children as competent and capable. We foster their growth and give them the freedom and rights to become into their own person. The rights of each child is valued and advocated for,” explains Cassie.

Kids ELC believes that only through equipping educators fully with the tools required can they, in turn, become successful in their roles and thus create the highest quality environments and programs for children. They believe that an investment into their educators and people is an investment in the children's future. Kids ELC have been heavily influenced by leaders such as Julie Cross, The Training Store, Sandi Phoenix and Bruce Sullivan to support a positive culture within the organisation. Kids ELC believes that providing the educators with the knowledge and tools supporting the world-leading Reggio Philosophy will, in turn, arm them with the knowledge to deliver their programs successfully.

Kids ELC are in a stage of major growth. With the rising success of all of their current centres, they intend to continue to open state-of-the-art Early Learning Centres over the next few years. “We are also planning and in the development stage of opening our very own R.T.O which has been in the pipeline for some time and we are looking forward for this to come to fruition,” adds Cassie. IE