SETTLING IN OF CHILDREN
All new and existing children are settling in to their rooms beautifully.
Please be aware of how normal it is to have some tears in the first few weeks. Even for the children moving rooms, it is normal to have a few tears throughout this transition time. We are very understanding of this and provide a lot of comfort to children settling in. If you have any concerns, please let us know.
Please know you are welcome to attend more orientation to help the break between attendance days e.g. Come and say hello on a day your child doesn’t attend for 30 minutes – you will need to stay. This does help in developing relationships, particularly with your child’s educators.
COMMUNICATION WITH FAMILIES
We believe in communicating with our families and passing on as much information as possible to you – without overwhelming you! Throughout the day we complete eat/sleep charts, write a daily diary for each room (on display in the foyer), complete observations and try our best to inform you about your child’s day. We always endeavor to speak to you about your child’s day upon departure. Some parts of the afternoon are peak times, so please be aware that our teachers may not have great lengths of time to speak with you (due to supervision), but we do our best to inform you of any developmental changes, incidents and achievements.
A separate email will come in February with room happenings.
CAR PARK
Just a friendly reminder that our car park is for use only on the days your child attends.
Please use the car park for drop off and pick up times of your child attending Hunny Pots.
Due to the cameras, we have noticed many families are picking up their school age child (parking in the car park) and then returning a few hours later to pick up their child from Hunny Pots (parking in the car park) – whilst we would love to provide this service, it is not practical as it is taking up valuable car spaces for families who are picking up their child from Hunny Pots at this time.
You are welcome to park in our car park and drop off/collect your school age child whilst drop off/collecting your Hunny Pots child.
We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
OFFICE HOURS
Office hours are: 8am – 5.00pm.
If we close the office earlier the centre remains open.
PAYMENT OF FEES
Many families have assumed we have direct debit – at no point have we asked for your bank details. You will need to organise payment of fees each fortnight.
Payments can be made in the office between 8am-5pm– EFTPOS (No American express)
Many families use bank transfer to make payments – our bank details are:
Bank: National Australia Bank
Account Name: Hunny Pots Early Learning Centre Pty Ltd
BSB Number: 082-356
Account Number: 175299729
Please reference your child’s full name.
INVOICES/ESTIMATING CHILD CARE BENEFIT AND REBATE
Please be aware that our software is linked with the family assistance office, it estimates what your gap fee is each week.
There are times that it will estimate your child care benefit and rebate HIGHER that it actually pays.
This is unfortunate as we have many families paying what they believe to be correct and there is a difference each fortnight that accumulates.
We cannot manually override this – we apologise for the inconvenience and encourage you to keep an eye on your invoices.
IMMUNISATION = ENROLMENT
Please ensure that throughout the year if your child receives an immunisation eg: 12 months, 18months or 4years, you will need to provide your child’s immunisation status record to us.
Due to Government regulations we are unable to enrol unimmunised children – failure to provide immunisation records = no enrolment.
We appreciate your cooperation.
LOCKERS FOR YOUR CHILDREN’S BELONGINGS
Please ensure you check the room locker chart on a regular basis. We are constantly updating the locker charts to accommodate extra days, new children etc. Your child may have a different locker for different days. Please put your child’s bag in the correct allocated locker.
We apologise for any inconvenience.
CHILDREN’S DIETARY REQUIRMENTS
This is our biggest year for dietary requirements for our cooks. We are catering to our menu, allergies, cultural requirements, anaphylaxis, intolerances and fussy eaters. Please be very specific in what your child’s requirements are so we can best assist them.
Regarding fussy eaters, our first priority is to offer them the centre’s meal. We find 98% of the time they will eat the meal with encouragement and role modeling from their educators. At first this might start with only trying the meal and working up to eating most of the meal. It is a process that we have seen work. If we go straight to offering another option, it does make it difficult for the child to continue trying a variety of nutritious meals.
We understand food preferences and hope to cater to all children being fed well.
Please understand that if we do one thing for one child in the room, we need to do it for all children. Our cooks do an amazing job providing our meals on time for 59 children each day in addition to catering to dietary and medical requirements.
ACTION PLANS
Action plans for confirmed allergies and anaphylaxis and prescribed medications for these plans are required BEFORE enrolment.
If your child has a reaction to food, please see a doctor to have this diagnosed and they will assist you in an action plan. To have undiagnosed intolerances makes it very difficult to know how to manage your child’s symptoms without an action plan.
Cultural requirements need to be specific also to be sure we can honour and respect this need appropriately.
ACTION PLAN SUGGESTION
I thought I would share a helpful tip with you.
Our daughter has asthma. Therefore each year, at a time that suits our family I arrange a doctor’s appointment to review her asthma, get a new asthma plan and a prescription for her puffers/medication.
This helps me for the year to provide a new puffer to the school that has the prescription label on it and prevent it from being over the expiry date and to provide the school with the most current information on how to treat my daughter’s asthma.
This appointment and collection of medications took less than an hour and we have helped the school with what they require and we are organized with prescriptions for the year.
If your child has asthma, please try this helpful tip.
CURRICULUM PLANNERS IN THE FOYER
Everyday our educators spend a lot of time typing up the curriculum planners for each of the rooms to show families what we have been doing with your children. The curriculum planner documents children’s learning, weekend book input from families, spontaneous experiences, learning stories and assists with future planning. We have some families who take the time to read their child’s room curriculum planner and contribute to the program and/or offer feedback. Please take the time to contribute to our weekend book – your valuable input allows following up on your child’s interest and creating valuable learning. Thank you to those families who contribute – our programming is better for it!
If you haven’t read the curriculum planner before – please take the opportunity to stop for
1-2minutes and read about your child’s day. There are pens beside the curriculum planners for you to provide feedback. You are more than welcome to take a photo on your phone to read later when you have more time – many families are doing this.
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.
ORIENTATION REVIEW
For families who have participated in our orientation program, we would love your feedback on how this may have assisted your child/family. What did you like? How did this help? What can we improve? Please send us an email with your feedback! Thank you.
GROUP CARE
Our Early Learning Centre is a Long day Care Centre. This means we are open for a longer day and follow the Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011.
Long Day Care Services are a group care environment. This means we follow ratios of:
0-2 year olds – one teacher for every four children
2-3 year olds – one teacher for every five children
3-5 year olds – one teacher for every ten children
These ratios are for the teachers who are actively supervising the children.
We are proud to say we do have additional staffing than what is required – this has been recognised by The Department of Education and Communities.
Group care means that whilst we plan individually and have small group interactions, our care isn’t one to one.
If you have any questions about group care – please speak to Monique.
STAFF NEWS
We welcome Miss Britney to our team! Miss Britney has commenced her traineeship in Children’s services Certificate three and will be with us during her 12 month contract.
You will see Miss Britney in all rooms assisting with program release, replacing rostered days off, annual leave etc.
PROVIDING FRUIT
Children in Tiggers Place and Pooh’s Corner are required to bring in a piece of fruit each day.
We are receiving a great variety of fruit and vegetables in our baskets this year. Thank you to our Tigger’s and Pooh’s Corner children for providing fruit and veges to enjoy! Keep it up.
CLOTHING/HATS/BELONGINGS
Please remember, our sun protection policy states for all children to wear a broad brimmed, legionaries style hat or bucket style hat – NO BASEBALL HATS ALLOWED!
Also, children should wear clothing that covers their shoulders – NO SINGLETS, STRAP DRESSES OR MUSCLE TOPS. NO THONGS ALLOWED.
This is to encourage lifelong sun protection skills for your child.
Please also dress your child appropriately for going to the toilet – no belts, buttons and not having lots of layers that need to be removed.
Please label EVERYTHING; we have many similar items eg. drink bottles, bags etc.
HYGIENE PRACTICES AND ILLNESS
We have many hygienic procedures we follow to help minimize cross infection. We take pride in our hygienic environment and our high standards of cleanliness to help your child stay healthy!
All children wash their hands before and after meals, from outside play to inside play, after going to the toilet (nappy changes), using a tissue and any other incident that occurs in between! It is encouraged to wash your child’s hands upon arrival and departure.
In regards to birthday cakes – at Hunny Pots we encourage cup cakes to celebrate birthdays. This is a more hygienic option. However, if you do provide a cake, we do use our common sense when it comes to blowing out candles. We don’t allow children who have a runny nose or dribble etc to blow out candles on a whole cake.
Following hygiene practices minimizes illness at the centre. Unfortunately, child care tends to cop the blame for children’s illnesses – however it starts in the community and comes into the centre.
Please help us keep illnesses away – please do not send your child if you have given them Panadol or Nurofen before attending. This just masks the problem and spreads infection.
If your child has had Panadol or Nurofen before attending, we are unable to have them stay at the centre.
Please be honest and keep communication open so we can keep informed of your child’s health.
We are not medical professionals, therefore we will inform you of symptoms your child is showing and you will need to see a doctor for a diagnosis.
Your child’s health and hygiene practices are a high priority to us and also to protect our teachers and other children attending.
UPCOMING EVENTS
MONDAY 8TH FEBRUARY – Chinese New Year. Wear RED to celebrate the Chinese New Year!