Mardi is the Centre Manager for Richmond, a light-filled centre which features an art atelier, yoga program, a tinker yard, and alfresco dining. Mardi 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?

Before starting my early childhood career, I was in marketing and promotions for radio. I fell into early childhood, and have been in the sector for 16 years since. I began my journey when we moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. I couldn’t get my son and daughter into care, so I started my own Family Day Care and had a huge wait list.

I studied my Certificate III and Diploma while running my Family Day Care, and was offered a job by the local council I contracted to. I ran their ages three onwards activity group and did a maternity leave placement, which began my journey into inclusive practices, diversity and leadership. I became one of the Group Leaders for the council, in addition to starting and running OC centres, and supporting the Family Day Care team.

I left to become a professional support consultant – my role was supporting services to achieve meeting their expected targets. I delivered training sessions to Centre Managers, striving to succeed. Eventually, I decided I wanted to use everything I knew from supporting and training and go back to running a centre. I’m currently studying my Honours Degree of Early Childhood so I can further support my team at Richmond with current research and practice.

My biggest inspiration is seeing my team grow and develop as Educators and as teachers. I love seeing children on the trajectory of their learning, and building those relationships with families and communities. It’s also seeing how our learning spaces and places here at Richmond are really meaningful to children, particularly in terms of their learning and how they engage with the materials.

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?

Throughout my career, I’ve learnt that every child is unique and that they all need to be embraced and included. We all come from different contexts and backgrounds, so we really need to support each individual child in a way that celebrates their diversity whilst learning and developing. That means really observing and listening, and being present with the child. Then we can take on the role of teachers who shape and modify their learning to suit their specific needs.

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

It always excites me to see children become confident and competent within themselves. Seeing them as social actors within their environments and watching how they transform the spaces that they’re engaging in is always exciting too.

5 quick fun facts about Mardi

1. My favourite food is any kind of curry.
2. My favourite place in Australia is Port Douglas, and I have a holiday home up there that we visit every year.
3. I love researching the early childhood sector and learning new theories and practices.
4. I’m passionate about leading, but leading with my team.
5. I’m a mother with son, daughter, dog, cat and a husband.