About Ambrose
Ambrose Centres are positive places where children flourish, parents feel supported and staff love to be.
We are a social enterprise of the Community Ventures, a not-for-profit charity supporting families of all religious beliefs in Sydney’s West, Hills District and Blue Mountains.
Ambrose offers best-practice, faith-based Early Learning, School Age Care and Vacation Care guided by Catholic values of Respect, Encouragement, and Care.
Your children are cared for by qualified, diligent and capable educators who use their unique qualities and experience to improve the learning outcomes of each child and inspire learning for life.
We believe that children organise and make sense of their social worlds through play, so we use innovative, play-based learning opportunities.
Our daily program is guided by children’s interests, abilities, knowledge and culture. Your children will learn through “hands on” experiences that involve doing, creating, experimenting, predicting, imagining, achieving, and investigating.
Not just services for all Catholics, but Catholic services for all
Our Name
St Ambrose in Parramatta (Icongrapher: Mary Clancy. Indigenous artwork design: Leanne Watson)
Our name honours St. Ambrose (c. 340–397).
Saint Ambrose is a Doctor of the Church. He was the Bishop of Milan, a renowned scholar, hymn writer, and the Patron Saint of Learning and Beekeepers.
He is known for his compassion for children, captives and the poor. Some believe that when Ambrose was an infant, a swarm of bees visited him and left a single sweet drop of honey on his lips.
To his father, this was a sign that Ambrose would become an eloquent orator, with words “as sweet as honey”. For this reason, he is often portrayed with bees and holding a beehive.
This imagery is central to Ambrose.
The beehive is a safe, communal structure – a hive of activity where many honey bee species live, work and raise their young.
The ‘A’ of our logo is an open-door beehive. It symbolises the safe, nurturing community nature of Ambrose – open to all families regardless of their religion or the Primary School their child will attend.
The hexagonal cells of the honeycomb fit together perfectly to create one of nature’s strongest structures. They represent the strong, secure, and inclusive environments of our services.
St Ambrose in Parramatta
Renowned iconographer, Mary Clancy, was asked to write an icon of St Ambrose of Milan, the patron saint of Ambrose Early Years Education and School Age Care.
The icon, St Ambrose in Parramatta, is rich in tradition and symbolism.
Ambrose is shown wearing a toga, signifying his former life as a Roman official. His role as Bishop of Milan is expressed through the pallium and his priestly vestments. He holds the book of the Gospels as a sign of his renown as a preacher, while his hand gesture and the blackboard background reveal his identity as a learned teacher. The resplendent halo behind his head symbolises his divinity and eternal life.
The border places St Ambrose within the Diocese of Parramatta.
At the base, the gathering of little eels symbolises Parramatta itself. The emu, flying fox and possum across the top are totems of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples, who have inhabited Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains for tens of thousands of years. The blue-banded native bees and their hives serve as a reminder that St Ambrose is recognised as the patron saint of beekeepers, as well as of learning.
“I appreciate how you included both the creatures native to Australia and the bees that so richly symbolise Ambrose.
This speaks to the universal call to find God in all of creation while honouring the particular gifts of your Australian context.
For me, this is beautiful because, just as bees work together to create something sweet and life-giving, your Ambrose centres nurture communities where children can grow and flourish together.”
– Professor dr. Didier Pollefeyt
Full Professor, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
The Iconographer – Mary Clancy
Mary Clancy joined the Varroville OCDS community – lay people living the Carmelite spirit – in 2009, and made her definitive promise in 2015.
She felt drawn to iconography for some time. In 2011, Mary attended a weekend course at the Mount Carmel Retreat Centre in Varroville, presented by Melbourne iconographer Anna Prifti. The following year, she began pursuing iconography more seriously, first studying with Anna, and then with Philip Davydov and Olga Shalmova, who travel annually from St Petersburg to Australia.
Carmelite and icongrapher Mary Clancy with Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Ngyen OFM Conv Bishop of Parramatta.
"Just as honey from the comb is sweet on your tongue, you may be sure that wisdom is good for the soul. Get wisdom and you have a bright future."
Proverbs 24: 13-14
From the Bishop of Parramatta
