Mara Santo is the Centre Manager for Love Kids Chadstone, a light-filled centre which features a newly refurbished yard, pet rabbits, a worm farm, and vegetable gardens. Mara took a few minutes out of her busy day to share insights on her career background, her education approach and a few fun facts.

Tell us about your time working in early childcare and education so far and what inspires you each day?

I have been in the childcare industry for the past 20 years. I have always been interested in supporting the care needs for children and giving them a good start with education. I started as an Assistant Reliever for the local council, then went on to gain my qualifications in the industry. I was an Assistant Educator before becoming a Group Leader of a busy toddler room, and then transferred to a bigger centre as l moved. I became the Educational Leader of the service and went on to become the 3IC and then 2IC. I left the service before becoming a Centre Manager of a private centre for five years before joining Guardian.

The knowledge and experience I have gained over the years has been from working in rooms with my fellow Educators and spending time with families. I love really getting to know our families and having in-depth conversations with them. I always take the time to listen and be supportive to others and I consider myself to be a wealth of information. I am very passionate about my career which l feel shows through my work ethic. I continuously mentor my team of staff and Educators and support them to feel comfortable in their environment. I role model my team and maintain a code of ethics and provide opportunities for them to enhance their professional learning. I educate my team about the policies, procedures and standards expected as a professional in our industry.

What have you learnt about children during your early childcare and education career and how would you sum up your approach/passion to helping them on their learning, emotional, social and life journey?

I believe that I have strong leadership, organisational and problem-solving skills, which I apply in my day-to-day professional environment at Love Kids Chadstone. I organise after hours get togethers with my team to maintain strong relationships, create good rapport and support them beyond our typical work environment.

What are you most excited about working with children on/teaching children about and why?

I love nothing more than visiting the rooms and engaging with the children. I love the conversations we share and the learning that comes from this. I am always very excited to see children take their next steps in learning and watch how their journey unfolds. I believe children learn and explore in their own way through their own interests and experiences. We use their strengths and abilities through facilitating their learning and development with discussions and scaffolding their ideas in play. Children are more engaged in learning when the topic interests them. Our centre truly captures this and ignites endless possibilities of play-based learning through our various spaces, open ended resources and the atmosphere of the centre.

5 quick fun facts about Mara

1. I am a parent of two sons and l feel that being a parent myself helps me connect very well with my families.
2. My family loves to go to the footy and watch Richmond play.
3. I love catching up with friends over a lovely meal or going to the movies.
4. I also enjoy just being home and enjoying my home environment.
5. I live in the south east suburbs of Melbourne.