“ My sisters, cousin and I grew up in Lismore on a farm in Richmond Hill. We were all very close. I went too St Carthage’s in Primary School and Trinity in High School so I’ve always been very much a Lismore girl.
When I finished school I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I took a big leap and went to London and did some nannying there. It was a big decision for an 18 year old. I booked a ticket, lined up a job before hand and went on my own. I left mid year 2013 straight after school and landed in Perivale, London. I boarded with a Sri Lankan family. I was there for almost a year and it was a great experience. It was also a cultural shock being a Nanny for a Sri Lankan family. The children were 2 and 5 years old. The family took me on a pilgrimage which was so great to Europe. That was amazing as I would never have been able to do that otherwise. We went to Lourdes in France, Spain and Portugal. It was incredible.
I returned around Christmas and I was really wanting to do something with children. I’d had a taste of working with little ones in the UK so I started a traineeship at Bumble Bee in Goonellabah which I did for a year. I had amazing support form Paula Dunn and Kerrilyn Goode. They were great mentors. I went on to do my Diploma through the centre and I had the incredible opportunity to go to New Zealand with NSW Tafe to experience how other centres run over there with their culture. I took a lot of those experiences back with me and implemented that into my practices in our centre.
Today I am at The Learning Cottage in Keen St and I’m the Director here. We are getting set up for opening in February. This building was a hospital once and it was owned by the Dardengo family, so it used to be a family home which you can certainly feel when you walk in. Since the flood we have painted, revamped and polished the floors , etc. We are getting a team of great educators, great leaders together.
We are taking enquiries, everybody’s welcome to come and check the centre out. We are having open days on the 7th and 8th of February 8am to 4pm. Family and friends are welcome to come and have a look through. It’s so exciting. We will have a pre-school room and our baby and toddler room which will cater for 0 – 3 year olds.
Growing up on Richmond Hill my sisters and I were always outside. Our imagination ran wild and those are memories which are so important to me. I really want to provide that to the children here. To explore and use their imaginations. That’s what we are going to achieve at the Learning Cottage. It’s going to be a no screen centre, the children won’t be exposed to technology. We will obviously have computers but we won’t be using that as a learning tool.”