Our Early Years
The Enhancing Learning team consists of 3 sisters who began their life in the small town of Collie. We grew up with a younger brother in a very close and nurturing family. We all have great memories of playing in the backyard, making up games, exploring the environment and finding our boundaries. Our family was very sport oriented and many of our after school hours and weekends involved playing, watching or coaching one sport or another.
As we got older and pursued our own careers (two as teachers, one as a speech pathologist and our brother in the golfing world) our family get togethers often became discussions about how we could change the world or at the very least help some of the children having a difficult journey through early childhood and school. We were young and idealistic! Although we always believed we would do something together we were never very clear on what that ’something’ would be. One thing we did know is that it would focus on fun, learning and language.
Near Tragedy
Little did we know back then that our ‘something’ - Enhancing Learning- would fall into place for us after a near tragedy. In 2016, our worlds were thrown into disarray when Sharna’s beautiful 16 month old daughter fell ill in Thailand. An 8 day holiday became an 8 week nightmare, when she was air-lifted from Phuket to Bangkok where she would remain on life support for more than 4 weeks. While we waited patiently in Australia for regular updates on our niece's diagnosis and chance of recovery from Mum & Dad, for the first 5 weeks, eventually we could wait no longer. With our own youngest children in tow we jumped on a plane to be with our sister and her family.
Finally came the amazing news that she was out of danger and although it would take a bit of time she would make a full recovery. We began to venture out and discovered some of the most imaginative play centres we had ever seen. On one of our outings we entered a room full of many amazing opportunities to guide children's creativity and learning through play in the constraints of a busy metropolis. One in particular was inspiring - the role-play avenue (although two of us preferred the giant ball pit). Each of us recognised how much need there was in our communities for new and different play experiences.
We each have a vivid memory of looking at each other and thinking 'THIS IS IT!'
Home in Australia
With Sharna’s daughter rapidly recovering and the family finally returning to Australia, the ideas grew and our ‘pop-up’ Let’s Pretend Play planning commenced. We increasingly saw imaginative pretend play as a lost art and as we believe every single learning moment can be included in a well designed role-play scenario, we knew we could help bring play back. There is nothing better than seeing a child uncover those learning moments naturally, building their understanding of the world and the words and concepts in that world, at the rate they need. Pretend play became the perfect vehicle for us to provide fun, engagement of conversation, movement, concentration and regulation skills, all the essential building blocks for more formal learning.
Here and Now
Nearly three years since our frightening experience, and the three of us continue to follow our dream of 'doing something together'. We have grown and evolved our little business and earlier this year changed our name from Let's Pretend Play to Enhancing Learning. While we still have a heavy focus on pretend play and use it as a vehicle for promoting connections, conversations and creativity, not only in children, but teachers, education assistants, educators, speech and occupational therapists, we have developed a broader outlook.
The HELPING component of our program, the 'Turn On Learning' framework has been extremely well received by those we have worked with so far. Through this approach we are able to help those children who find it so difficult to negotiate the learning journey, that we set out years ago to help. As we continue to grow, we hope to make this journey easier for more children.
We hope you will continue on this same journey, to push the boundaries of imagination and creative play, to ensure all children have the opportunity to connect, make conversations and create their best life.
The Enhancing Learning team consists of 3 sisters who began their life in the small town of Collie. We grew up with a younger brother in a very close and nurturing family. We all have great memories of playing in the backyard, making up games, exploring the environment and finding our boundaries. Our family was very sport oriented and many of our after school hours and weekends involved playing, watching or coaching one sport or another.
As we got older and pursued our own careers (two as teachers, one as a speech pathologist and our brother in the golfing world) our family get togethers often became discussions about how we could change the world or at the very least help some of the children having a difficult journey through early childhood and school. We were young and idealistic! Although we always believed we would do something together we were never very clear on what that ’something’ would be. One thing we did know is that it would focus on fun, learning and language.
Near Tragedy
Little did we know back then that our ‘something’ - Enhancing Learning- would fall into place for us after a near tragedy. In 2016, our worlds were thrown into disarray when Sharna’s beautiful 16 month old daughter fell ill in Thailand. An 8 day holiday became an 8 week nightmare, when she was air-lifted from Phuket to Bangkok where she would remain on life support for more than 4 weeks. While we waited patiently in Australia for regular updates on our niece's diagnosis and chance of recovery from Mum & Dad, for the first 5 weeks, eventually we could wait no longer. With our own youngest children in tow we jumped on a plane to be with our sister and her family.
Finally came the amazing news that she was out of danger and although it would take a bit of time she would make a full recovery. We began to venture out and discovered some of the most imaginative play centres we had ever seen. On one of our outings we entered a room full of many amazing opportunities to guide children's creativity and learning through play in the constraints of a busy metropolis. One in particular was inspiring - the role-play avenue (although two of us preferred the giant ball pit). Each of us recognised how much need there was in our communities for new and different play experiences.
We each have a vivid memory of looking at each other and thinking 'THIS IS IT!'
Home in Australia
With Sharna’s daughter rapidly recovering and the family finally returning to Australia, the ideas grew and our ‘pop-up’ Let’s Pretend Play planning commenced. We increasingly saw imaginative pretend play as a lost art and as we believe every single learning moment can be included in a well designed role-play scenario, we knew we could help bring play back. There is nothing better than seeing a child uncover those learning moments naturally, building their understanding of the world and the words and concepts in that world, at the rate they need. Pretend play became the perfect vehicle for us to provide fun, engagement of conversation, movement, concentration and regulation skills, all the essential building blocks for more formal learning.
Here and Now
Nearly three years since our frightening experience, and the three of us continue to follow our dream of 'doing something together'. We have grown and evolved our little business and earlier this year changed our name from Let's Pretend Play to Enhancing Learning. While we still have a heavy focus on pretend play and use it as a vehicle for promoting connections, conversations and creativity, not only in children, but teachers, education assistants, educators, speech and occupational therapists, we have developed a broader outlook.
The HELPING component of our program, the 'Turn On Learning' framework has been extremely well received by those we have worked with so far. Through this approach we are able to help those children who find it so difficult to negotiate the learning journey, that we set out years ago to help. As we continue to grow, we hope to make this journey easier for more children.
We hope you will continue on this same journey, to push the boundaries of imagination and creative play, to ensure all children have the opportunity to connect, make conversations and create their best life.