Bellbowrie Kindy provides children with a safe and nurturing environment in which to play and learn. Our philosophy is centred around the principles of connecting, enlarging, listening and exploring.
The Bellbowrie Kindergarten is a community kindergarten established in 1971 by a group of dedicated parents. Since opening its doors, many children in Bellbowrie, Moggill, and surrounding areas have developed their playing and learning skills while using the facilities of our Centre.
We are affiliated with the Créche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland (C&K). Our qualified early-childhood educators create a flexible play-based indoor and outdoor program to meet the needs and interests of each child. We are a well resourced centre with a large shady playground, quality equipment and established trees and natural grass.
We encourage parents to become actively involved in the centre. As a community based not for profit organisation, we are run by a management committee elected from our parent body each year.
The first formal kindergarten activities in the Kenmore-Moggill area started in 1967, situated in a private home.
In 1971, with no other facilities in the general area, a group of parents formed a committee to look for a new premise. A new venue was found in the vacant headmaster’s cottage attached to the Moggill State School.
The new Moggill Kindergarten opened its doors in 1972. Funding for the Kindergarten was from parents’ fees and many fundraising activities to provide all the necessary equipment and facilities required for affiliation with the Crèche and Kindergarten Association.
Activities continued at the Moggill State School for two years at which time, thanks to the generosity of John Booker, the original developer of Bellbowrie, the land and existing premises were offered as a donation to the Bellbowrie community.
The new Bellbowrie Kindergarten was scheduled for completion early in 1974 but was delayed to August 1974 by the devastating floods early that year.
History repeated itself in January 2011 when the area was badly flooded and the Centre left with significant damage to the building as well as the loss of valuable resources. The flood waters inundated the building right up to its ceiling.
With the assistance of the Queensland Reconstruction Authority and other generous donors the Centre was re-built while children and staff temporarily relocated to Pullenvale State School for 4 months.
Brookfield Multiplex Queensland regional director John Shepherd described the damage. “It was a complete war-zone, this garden had contaminated mud all over it and the water had just receded from the top of the roofline and basically everything had to be stripped out,” he said.
Rebuilding the kindergarten which took a ‘mammoth’ effort from the community. Half the materials used in the six-week reconstruction were donated, with Brookfield Multiplex paying for the rest of the materials along with the labour.
In 2015, an idea surfaced to design and create a new play space within the kindergarten. Many of these ideas were directly sourced from the kindergarten children themselves. In May 2016, this exciting and quite unique new space was completed.
In 2021, we opened Stage 1 of our amazing new tree-top play space.
Though much less severe than the 2011 floods, it was all-hands on deck again in early 2022. The community came together with cars and trailers to rescue kindy belongings, then with mops and brooms to clean up after the waters receded. We are so proud of our community working together to bring kids back to our great kindergarten.