Meet Our Team

Founder & Director

My connection to Steiner education began long before Let’s Play existed. I was fortunate to experience a Steiner education from preschool right through to the end of school, so the childhood I knew was one filled with creativity, imagination, nature and play.

It was a childhood where getting dirty was encouraged, climbing trees was normal, creativity was woven into everyday life and there was time and space simply to be a child.

But when I look back now, I realise it wasn't only the environment or the philosophy that stayed with me. It was the relationships.

The teachers who knew me as a little girl became people who remained part of my life long after I left their classrooms. Three decades later, I am still in contact with my preschool teacher and school teacher. They have celebrated milestones with me, attended my wedding and have now met my own children.

Those relationships have shaped so much of what I believe about early childhood.

They showed me that when a child is genuinely known, cared for and connected to the adults around them, that relationship can reach far beyond the years they spend in care. The people who help shape a child's earliest years can become part of the story they carry with them for life.

When I finished school, I already knew that working with children was where my passion lay. I began studying my Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care, later continuing on to my Diploma, and started working within the early childhood sector.

And that experience changed everything.

I was genuinely surprised by how different early childhood care could feel from the childhood I had known.

What I had assumed was simply childhood - long periods of play, beautiful natural environments, creativity, imagination, meaningful relationships and an unhurried rhythm to the day - I began to understand had been deeply influenced by the Steiner philosophy I had grown up within.

The further I moved into the industry, the clearer something became to me:

I wanted to create the kind of place I remembered.

A place that felt warm and nurturing. Where children could spend their days playing, creating, exploring, getting messy and being outside. Where educators had the time to genuinely know the children in their care. And where childhood wasn't treated as preparation for what comes next, but as something deeply valuable in its own right.

That idea stayed with me throughout my studies and my years working in early childhood, until eventually it became something much bigger than an idea.

It became my mission.

In 2018, I opened Let’s Play Daycare.

I created Let’s Play because I wanted other children to have access to the kind of childhood that had shaped me so profoundly - while creating something uniquely our own for the children and families who would eventually call Let’s Play theirs.

Today, my role extends far beyond the classroom, but I remain deeply connected to the heart of Let’s Play: our philosophy, our educators, our environment, the families we welcome and, most importantly, the experience of childhood we create here.

Nearly three decades after I first experienced this philosophy as a child myself, I believe in it more strongly than ever.

Because I know first-hand that what a child experiences in these early years doesn't simply disappear when they leave the classroom. The relationships, memories and sense of belonging we give them can stay with them for a lifetime.

And that is what I want every child who comes through our doors to carry with them.

Co-Owner & Accounts Manager

Shanti and I are high school sweethearts, so I’ve had a front-row seat to the story of Let’s Play from long before it had a name.

We met around the time Shanti began studying her Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care. I already knew how deeply she valued her own Steiner upbringing - I’d heard the stories of the teachers she loved, the creativity, the freedom, the time spent outdoors and the kind of childhood she had been fortunate enough to experience.

Then she started working in early childhood.

I still remember her coming home and telling me how surprised she was by what she had experienced. It looked and felt nothing like the childhood she knew, and nothing like the kind of environment she believed young children deserved.

That was really the beginning of Let’s Play.

Over the years that followed, I watched an idea become a determination. Shanti continued her studies, gained experience within the sector and worked tirelessly towards creating a place of her own.

And in 2018, together, we brought that vision to life.

Since then, Let’s Play has very much been a partnership. Shanti leads the educational heart of the service - our philosophy, our team and the magic and wonder that families have come to know Let’s Play for - while I work largely behind the scenes, supporting the business and financial side of the service and looking after our family accounts.

My involvement might look different to Shanti's, but we are building the same thing.

As a co-owner, husband and now a father myself, I've watched Let’s Play grow from an idea we talked about when we were young into the community it is today. I've also had the privilege of seeing the philosophy Shanti believed in so fiercely become something real for another generation of children.

Of course, according to the children, none of those are my most important credentials.

When I visit Let’s Play, I'm usually greeted with plenty of laughter and requests to be picked up - apparently being lifted into the air by someone “as tall as a giraffe” is particularly exciting when you're three. (For the record, I’m a modest 6'5".)

And that's probably my favourite role of all.

Let’s Play may have begun with Shanti's vision, but building and protecting what it stands for has become very much our shared story.