About Us
We are Claire and Craig. We moved to the greater Bendigo region from Kilmore in 2013.
Right from our first moments in the area, we have had an overwhelming sense of community spirit thrust upon and around us. This community is filled with compassion and camaraderie.
It is because of this great community spirit & our wanting to be part of the bigger picture (we firmly believe it takes a village to raise a child.) We initially started with providing Family Day Care again from our new home (Claire also previously provided FDC in Kilmore).
Very quickly we realised the urgent need in the area for quality outside school hours care at school sites. For a good portion of both of our careers we have held full time jobs that required long commutes and travel. The demands of modern life make it hard for families to balance the needs of the family and many schools have trouble setting up and running outside school hours care, due to the increasing amount of legislative and administrative requirements in running a service under the regulations. Lets face it, Outside School Hours Care isn’t really the school’s core business anyway. There are already enough demands on the time of the staff and parents running the school.
Towards the middle of 2016 we commenced establishing our own company as an authorised provider of children’s services under the National Education and Child Care Law and Regulations, and after lots of hard work and countless meetings and discussions with stakeholders, we were very excited to be accepted as an approved provider to operate an outside school hours service at our inaugural site, Axedale Primary School, for the start of the 2017 school year.
Founders Bio’s
Craig
Craig recently discharged from the Australian Army after 23 Years service. Craig’s service included operational deployment, overseas representation and instructing at the Royal Military College, Duntroon as a tactics instructor and the head of the Leadership faculty. Craig brings a strong background in management and leadership. His role is the organizational oversight of Turner Strategies and ensuring regulatory and managerial compliance for the service.
Claire
Claire has had previous employment with Australian Federal Police in an operational role as an Explosive Detection Canine Handler and later as the Team Leader Corporate Service at Melbourne Airport Office, she has also worked at the Department of Defence in a Governance role. In addition to her government employment she ran a successful restaurant and café business out of the Historic Kilmore Town Hall and has owned and operated 2 successful Family Day Care small businesses, the first being SchoolBells in Kilmore, under the Mitchell Shire Council scheme and more recently Axedale Family Day Care in Greater Bendigo..
Claire has a Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care. Claire is the nominated supervisor and Educational Leader across our Outside School Hours Care and Family Day Care Network.
Claire oversees the ongoing development of the philosophy and values of the educational services of Natural Learners. She has a strong interest in approaches to learning, and her role will be to develop the delivery of the services across multiple sites.
