National Quality Standards: Enhancing Children's Learning and Development

The National Quality Standards for children's education and care services provides standards to which centres regardless if the are outside hours school care, family day care or a long day care centre must comply with. The National Quality Standard 3 focuses on the physical environment of a service. An environment that is inviting and well-designed supports children's growth and development, therefore it is essential for a service to pay close attention to the physical environment within their centre. The EYLF has five learning outcomes, all of which support a holistic approach towards children's learning and their development. The EYLF provides early childhood education and care settings with information and details on environments and settings

Children can greatly benefit from having chances to create connections to the real world in their play space, waiting for the fruit on the fruit trees to ripen or continuously checking to see if their seeds have sprouted all provide both connections to the real world ,as well as expanding developmental skills and knowledge. An ideal learning environment for children does not necessarily need to cost a lot of money to establish and maintain, using items found out the natural environment can often spark creativity and connections with children. Children don't need to always be surrounded by the newest and fanciest plastic toys, natural ideas such as wood blocks can but used instead of lego pieces or rocks for painting on, items such as those can be cheap easily found and yet still provide children with the same if not more developmental skills and learning. From young age children need to be presented with opportunities to take safe risks in order for them to grow and