Waratah 2

Welcome to Tillys Play and Development Centre – Waratah 2

Established in 2014 in the beautifully renovated former Waratah Rugby Club, Tillys Waratah 2 is an outstanding 162-place long day care service. We cater to children aged 0 to 6 years, operating from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm, 51 weeks a year.

Conveniently located just 15 minutes from Newcastle, we are situated close to public transport and the Waratah Shopping Village.

We work in close partnership with our smaller sister service, Waratah 1, to provide high-quality early childhood education to our local community. To further enrich our educational offerings and cultivate a unified learning community, Waratah 1 will merge with Waratah 2 in 2026, bringing our teams, resources, and families together as one holistic service.

Our Educational Philosophy & Nurturing Environment

At Waratah 2, we believe a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development are interconnected. Your child’s safety, best interests, and wellbeing are paramount in everything we do. Our program is designed to cultivate inner confidence, natural curiosity, and a lifelong love of learning by:

• The Waratah 2 Children’s Council: Central to our approach is ensuring children have a meaningful voice. Through our dedicated Children’s Council, educators consult actively with children on important matters that affect them. Proving how capable they are, our Council has co-created a welcoming handbook for new families and actively participated in writing real-world risk assessments.
• Empowering Young Voices: By actively listening to their ideas, valuing their choices, and involving them in shaping their routines and projects, we empower children to become active contributors to their own learning journey.
• Mindfulness, Slow Pedagogy, and Shared Values: We deeply embed mindfulness and slow pedagogy into our daily rhythms, allowing children the luxury of time to deeply engage, explore, and co-construct learning within unhurried play environments. Mirroring this intentional approach, our Values Statement is a vibrant, lived document that was co-created in authentic consultation with our educators, children, and families to ensure our community’s shared aspirations guide our everyday practice
• Circle of Security Framework: Our educators use these principles to establish a secure base, creating a warm, calm, and predictable haven where children feel completely safe to explore and return to for emotional comfort.
• Centre Aquarium: Children love helping to care for our large centre aquarium. By feeding the fish and our resident yabbie, they build empathy and practical life skills. Our thriving aquatic environment has been running since 2014 and even supplies baby fish to other Tillys centres!

Embedding Multiculturalism & Inclusion

We are proud of our diverse community and actively embed multicultural principles into our daily practice to ensure every child feels an immediate sense of belonging:

• Inclusive Learning Environments: Our classrooms feature diverse books, puzzles, dolls with varied skin tones, and multilingual signage that reflects both our enrolled families and the broader global community.
• Linguistic Diversity: We support home languages alongside English by using bilingual greetings, songs, and routine charts, which actively aids cognitive flexibility and validates each child’s identity.
• Authentic Family Partnerships: We engage families as active collaborators rather than occasional event visitors, inviting parents and caregivers into the centre to share stories, songs, recipes, and traditions in meaningful ways.
• Reflective Practice: Our educators engage in continuous professional development in cultural competence. We critically examine unconscious biases to avoid tokenism or cultural stereotyping, ensuring our inclusive approach is authentic and deeply felt.

Hands-On Cooking, Dining & Mindful Sustainability

• Nutrient-Dense Meals: Our commercial-grade kitchen features skilled in-house cooks who prepare fresh, wholesome meals daily to nurture every child’s physical growth and overall wellbeing. To ensure our catering aligns with the highest standard of early childhood nutrition, our seasonal menus are intentionally designed in reference to leading public health frameworks, including Munch & Move, Caring for Children, Nutrition Australia, Feed Australia, and Good for Kids, Good for Life.

• Interactive Culinary Experiences: Children participate in hands-on cooking to build a positive relationship with nutrition and practical life skills.
• Family-Style Dining: Our expansive dining room mirrors the warmth of a family home. Educators and children sit together to share meals and engage in relaxed conversation, reinforcing social development.
• Centre Library: Located within our dining space, our library invites families and children to borrow books together to foster early literacy at home.
• Playground Worm Farm: Sustainability is woven into our daily rhythm. Children sort their vegetable scraps and kitchen leftovers for our worm farm, learning firsthand about composting, recycling, and minimizing food waste to landfill.

Enriching Programs & Community Connections

We believe that feeling grounded builds a secure sense of identity and belonging. We expand our core curriculum through strong local partnerships, unique experiences, and regular excursions:

• Nature Excursions: Our preschool children take regular trips to the nearby Waratah Community Reserve gardens, learning to plant, grow, and harvest crops while discovering water conservation.
• Grassroots Alliances: We proudly partner with Newcastle’s LIVE free Project to support local vulnerable families through trauma-informed care and essential services. Deepening our community connection, we also partner with We Care Connect as a major collection point, gathering premium second-hand children’s essentials that are redistributed directly to local families in urgent need
• Community Visitors & Celebrations: We host interactive visits from community services like the Police and Surf Life Savers, alongside joyful community events like our annual Mother’s Day Markets.

Cultural Respect & Reconciliation

We hold an enduring, heartfelt respect for the cultural histories, heritages, traditions, and ongoing contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We are deeply committed to nurturing authentic, lifelong relationships with the wider community and the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we play, learn, and grow together. Our progress is driven by a passionate, dedicated team:

• Published RAP: We are proud to have successfully published our official Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), embedding meaningful practices directly into our daily operations.
• Community Leadership: Due to the strength and success of our RAP journey, our team is now regularly approached by other early childhood centres and external organisations seeking consultation, guidance, and inspiration for their own reconciliation paths.

Commitment to Child Safety & Continuous Reflection

At our service, the safety, wellbeing, and rights of every child are at the heart of everything we do. We have established a comprehensive Statement of Commitment to Child Safety that guides our daily practices, operations, and service culture. Rather than viewing child protection as a static checkbox, our educational team actively engages in regular, meaningful critical reflection regarding the Child Safe Standards. This continuous evaluation ensures our policies and environments evolve to remain deeply protective, responsive, and fully compliant with all current government and legislative requirements.

Commitment and Development of Educators

We view our educators as dedicated professionals and place immense value on their continuous growth and wellbeing. To cultivate a sanctuary of wellness, our service partners directly with a dedicated Be You consultant, ensuring that our environment stands as a positive, mental health-aware space for our children, our staff, and the wider community.

As part of our commitment to delivering the highest calibre of early education, our team comes together after hours for our Critical Reflection Forums. These collaborative sessions provide a sacred professional space to critically evaluate our practices, debate contemporary pedagogy, and integrate the latest regulatory updates. By actively challenging ourselves and refining our approaches, we ensure our collective knowledge remains current, responsive, and deeply aligned with evidence-based frameworks—ultimately driving continuous improvement and the delivery of high-quality care and education.

 

At our Annual Awards Ceremony on Saturday 28th February, celebrating our educators for 2025, Tillys Waratah 2 and it’s educators were nominated as finalists and won a number of awards for their excellence and dedication to Early Childhood Education and Care. These include:

• 0-2 Room of the Year Finalist – Wattle
• 2-3 Room of the Year Winner –  Kookaburra
• Pedagogy and Practice Award 0-2 Finalist – Taylah Tromp
• Pedagogy and Practice Award 2-3 Finalist – Karen Morgan
• Pedagogy and Practice Award 3-6 Finalist – Andrew Dates
• Cook of the Year Finalist – Kacie Standen
• Trainee of the Year Theory Finalist – Bella-May Hughan
• Trainee of the Year Practical Winner – Andrew Dates
• 0-2 Programmer of the Year Finalist – Sona-Maree Harris
• 3-6 Programmer of the Year Finalist – Abbey-Rose Everingham
• Educator of the Year Winners – Abbey-Rose Everingham & Sona-Maree Harris
• Educational Leader of the Year Finalist – Lauren Driscoll
• Nominated Supervisor of the Year Finalists – Kayla Tracey & Ann-Joran Atkin
• The Anne Bourke Memorial Award for Community Engagement Finalist
• Whole Service Commitment to Excellence Award Finalist
• Overall Service Presentation Finalist

 

For more information on Tillys Play and Development Centre Waratah 2 or to enrol, please complete the online enquiry form via the link below, or contact:

Ph: 49 677 399

E: waratah2@tillyschildcare.com.au

Or visit us on Facebook and Instagram to see the amazing experiences we have been involved in: