Carter Early Learning Centre

Mission

Our mission is to provide high quality childcare and education in a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment which supports healthy childhood development. Our team members work in collaboration with parents and neighbourhood community stakeholders to achieve optimal outcomes for children and extending to the larger community.

Vision

Our vision is for a community where all children are safe, respected, loved, and encouraged to develop to their fullest potential. This will strengthen the foundations for learning, behaviour, health, and future success as productive, engaged, contributing citizens.

Values

• Compassion

• Trust

• Respect

• Inclusion

• Quality care

• Lifelong learning

• Collaborative partnerships

Our mission aligns with the Indigenous sacred teachings of trust, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility and truth, all working together to address growth and development of the whole child.

Governance

Carter was established from the onset as a charitable, not-for-profit organization, managed by a Board consisting of parents, community and Bethel Church members. We are provincially licensed, following all current best practices and strive toward excellence well beyond these requirements. As we are a publicly funded organization the Board reports to the Early Learning and Child Care Provincial office who assess and monitor the budget and the annual required independent audit.

In 2010 the centre initiated a name change from Carter Day Care to Carter Early Learning Centre, aligning with the vast growth in research and knowledge we now have in the importance of development in the early years as a foundation to all future learning and life success.

Centre history

Carter Daycare Centre Inc. was established in 1974 by Bethel Mennonite Church, at the forefront of the many programs opening at that time. It was at the start of the creation of the entire Provincial Government system and Carter was one of the first two centers to receive government funding. The center opened as a 30-space preschool program and was entirely staffed by Bethel Church members and volunteers from Mennonite based organizations. Furnishings were primarily provided by volunteer prison inmates. While housed in the then existing parsonage on the church lot Carter offered a kindergarten program in the Bethel Church building for the first number of years. Carter has now been in close partnership with Harrow School, collaborating to support families in the area.

Carter relocated in 1980 upon completion of the Bethel Place building and resided there until 1992 when the centre once again relocated into the existing facility in the lower level of Bethel Church, now licensed for 32 preschool children and twenty-five school-aged children.

Philosophy

We are committed to providing every child with a sense of belonging, connectedness and worth in a family like environment that offers love, valuable learning experiences, beauty and nature. Our acknowledgment of the whole child aligns with the four aspects of our being, mental, emotional, spiritual and physical.

We believe children are valuable citizens in their own right. We view children as competent learners with brilliant intelligence. We see our role as educators to provide, in partnership with their parents, every opportunity for each child to explore, discover and learn, each in their natural pace, ability and according to developmental level.