Acknowledgment to country
We see you Dharug people
We hear you Dharug people
We thank you Dharug people
Hear is the land, here is the sky, here are my friends and here am I. We thank you Dharug people for the land on which we learn and play. Hands up, hands down we are on Dharug ground
MOTHER’S DAY MORNING TEA
We invite you a special morning tea on Friday 10th May 9.30-10.30am.
An invitation has been sent to all families.
STAFF NEWS
Miss Emma will be going on an adventure of a lifetime overseas for a few months. Miss Emma will leave June and we hope to see her return early next year. Miss Chloe will be moving to Tigger’s in June to work as a key educator alongside Miss Sophie and Miss Jo.
Miss Elle will also be going on a 11-week European holiday from June to September. Miss Elle cooks in our kitchen Thursdays and Fridays. We will continue with our nutritious menu – you will see our team and Miss Janelle in the kitchen still.
We welcome Miss Digisha, Miss Simran and Miss Pooja assisting us part time as educators in all rooms.
STAFF TRAINING
Chloe and Sophie our risk and safety officers have been completing different training on child safe standards. They completed a webinar on Child Safe Standards – what you need to know and how to make it happen 8/4/24 and a E Learning course on child safety through the Office of Children’s Guardian.
Jo, Allison, Rupinder, Rhiannon, Jess, Shubhi, Katelyn have also completed the Office of Children’s Guardian E learning Child safe.
Our Certificate Three, Diploma and Early Childhood teachers refreshed their child protection and practised using the mandatory reporter guide.
Jess has been working through a course on behaviours and emotional development through a course called phoenix support.
Over the next 9months Allison will be participating in professional development about the new EYLF through an interactive webinar called EYLF playground. This is a great opportunity for Allison to network with other centres.
Lots of professional development completed; this is something we are passionate about- learning, growing, applying our learning to practice.
COOLER WEATHER
We do go outside in the cooler months – we ask for children to be dressed appropriately for outside play. We encourage active play outside to stay fit and healthy!
ILLNESS
A timely reminder to ensure all children with an illness stay at home to rest and recover.
A very big thank you to our families for your proactive efforts in keeping your unwell children at home. We have certainly noticed many children absent due to colds and flu. By keeping your children home to rest and recover, you are helping your families and other children in our care and our team by not infecting others.
Please remember, if your child has Panadol or Nurofen in their system, they are not to come to Hunny Pots. You are only masking the symptoms and the illness will spread to other children and our educators.
We are unable to administer any over the counter medication at Hunny Pots e.g.: cough mixtures etc.
We can administer prescribed antibiotics (after your child has been taking it for 24hours); you will need to complete a medication form (near the sign in/out sheets in foyer).
We are only able to administer Panadol at Hunny Pots if a child has a temperature of 38 degrees or above and with parent consent/ once and arrange for immediate pick up.
If your child presents any illness symptoms, we will call you to arrange an immediate pick up. Your child will not be able to attend for a full business day after being sent home – eg: sent home at 10am Wednesday, they cannot return Thursday at all. This is to ensure the child is well and not passing on any infections.
We will also give you a courtesy call if your child is feeling “off” – no immediate pick up is needed.
Children are to stay home with any cold/flu symptoms. If they have a non-contagious symptom; a clearance from the doctor is required.
These practices are in place to protect all children, families and our educators from the spread of illness. We are consistent with our policies for all families.
We thank you in advance for your cooperation.
IMMUNISATION = ENROLMENT
Please ensure that throughout the year if your child receives an immunisation e.g.: 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 enroll unimmunised children – failure to provide immunisation records = no enrolment.
You are required to keep your child at home for 24hours to monitor any side effects after immunisation/flu shot etc. (please see policy).
We appreciate your cooperation.
UPDATING OF POLICIES
We have recently updated our policies on code of conduct, child safe environment, family grievances, complaint policy and additional needs policy. These policies have been sent to families via email.
Working in partnership with families and specialists (this paragraph has come from our additional needs/inclusion policy which we just added)
- As a centre we believe in working with families and outside specialists enhances the children learning.
- If families request a report to any specialist eg. Paediatrician, speech therapist, occupational therapist, schools etc. Our educators will provide this information to families to pass on.
- Families need to give a minimum 2 weeks’ notice for us to complete the report. We need to look at our roster to see when an educator can come off the floor to complete. We cannot jeopardise our ratios.
- Families are to specify what areas of development we need to focus on in the report so we can give the right information to the specialist.
- This report will be a form of observation/documentation which will be placed in the child’s portfolio.
CHILD SAFE STANDARDS
Allison, Chloe, Sophie completed a self-assessment tool on the child safe standards. This gave us a report on different actions we can implement to continue to implement this into Hunny Pots ELC. We have started implementing some new actions. We have now put together our statement of commitment to child safety. This was a holistic view where we asked educators, families and children. Our commitment statement is on our foyer for all families to read. We have looked at our policies which relate to child safety and have reviewed and added information. These policies are code of conduct, child safe environment and family grievances and complainants’ policy.
We are now looking into putting together a risk management plan regarding child safety. Our team will add their ideas and input into the risk management plan. Once it has been completed, we will display this for families to see.
Mandatory reporters
Do you know that all our educators at Hunny Pots ELC are mandatory reporters. Our reporting authority is Department of communities and justice
Child protection helpline
Ph: 132111 (24 hours)
Online
Mandatory reporters with less serious concerns can use e reporting.
WITHDRAWAL OF YOUR CHILD/REDUCING DAYS
Parents must give at least three weeks written notice to the Director before withdrawing their child from Hunny Pots. If the child does not attend the Centre during this period, fees are still payable (please see the below section: A child who has not yet received care or who has ceased receiving care) If the child is withdrawn without notice, three weeks full fees must be paid regardless.
Parents may reduce their child’s days of attendance by giving three weeks’ notice to the Director.
No notice period accepted in December and January for withdrawing or reducing days.
A child who has not yet received care or who has ceased receiving care
Below is from the Child Care Handbook Australian Government Department of Education and Training:
Child Care Subsidy will not be paid for absences where a provider charges a family to reserve a place for a child who has not yet physically started care.
If a child is booked in to start at a service on a particular date, and does not start on that day, no Child Care Subsidy will be paid until the child physically attends a session of care.
Similarly, a child care service is taken to have permanently ceased providing care for a child on the day the child last physically attends a session of care. This means that Child Care Subsidy will not be paid for absences submitted after a child last physically attends a session of care.
If a family has confirmed their child’s last day at a service, but that child does not attend their last booked sessions of care, no Child Care Subsidy will be paid for any days after the child’s last physical attendance at the service.
PLEASE ATTEND YOUR LAST DAY for child care subsidy reasons
If a provider continues to charge fees for sessions on days after a child has left the service because the family did not give the agreed period of notice, Child Care Subsidy will not be payable for these sessions of care. If absences are reported in the above circumstances and Child Care Subsidy is incorrectly paid, these amounts will be recovered from the service.
SELF ASSESSMENT TOOL
Our staff get time off the floor every week to look at our self-assessment tool documenting our key practices but also looking at goals for us to work on. We have set a new goal for quality area 2. below is our goal, our rationale for setting this goal and the steps we are going to use to achieve this goal.
Quality Area 2
Standard/element:
Standard 2.2 – each child is protected
Goal:
After receiving exceeding for quality area 2 we have done some reflections on how we can continually add layers to this area. We have started implementing the child safe standards through our risk and safety officers reading and understanding the standards and now giving out reflective questions for the rooms to answer and get a better understanding.
For everyone to gain a good understanding of the child safe standards to continue our learning journey and to look at goals on how we can improve our practices in these areas.
Priority (L/M/H): M
How will we get this outcome (steps):
Give our officers time to read and understand the standards
Officer will receive support and mentoring
Set up separate folders for the child safe standards where educators can be reading and answering reflective questions, adding notes
Educators to have training on the child safe standards
Complete the self-assessment tool
Reflect on the different standards through answering reflective questions
Set goals for the standards and add progress notes on how we are going achieving that goal
Time will be allocated to rooms for reading and answering questions
Read different articles and information on the OCG website
Inform families about the child safe standards
Success measure:
All staff will have a good understanding of the child safe standards
By when: ongoing
RECONCILIATION ACTION PLAN
At Hunny pots early learning Centre with our 3rd version of the Reconciliation Action plan, we have been working on the following goals and deliverables.
Goal: Continue to embed days of significance into our curriculum.
At Hunny Pots Early Learning Centre, we have a monthly calendar specifying events, celebrations and days of significance and the educators have implemented Children’s Day, International Mother language Day, Close the gap, Apology Day including the celebrations of Australia Day, Chinese New Year, Pongal Eid festival, Easter Hat Parade, Harmony week, Holi.
We continue to work on our Reconciliation Action plan journey by continuously reflecting and working on the goals that we have included in our Reconciliation Action plan. Your input is valuable, and we look forward to some ideas from our families that we can work on to achieve this goal.
EVENTS
May
Sydney Zoo – Friday 3rd May
Road Safety week 5th – 12th May
Mother’s Day Morning Tea – Friday 10th May 9.30am to 10.30am
National Families Week – 13th to 19st May – details sent via email.
National Simultaneous Storytime 22nd May
Outdoor Classroom Day – 23rd May
National Sorry Day 26th May
National Reconciliation Week 27th May – 3rd June
June
Bravehearts Ditto show Tuesday 4th June
World Environment Day 5th June
Ocean day 8th June
International Day of Yoga and Make Music Day 21st June
B Kinder day 22nd June
Save the dates:
Eye testing for 4 years – 5th and 6th August – details to come
Re-enrolments for 2025 –will be sent to all existing families August 2024.
Photos – 20th and 22nd August – details to come
Poohs Corner Graduation at Lollipops Playland – 12th December 6pm-8pm – details to come
CLOSURE – This year’s closures dates are:
Last day Friday 20th December 2024 – Reopening Monday 6th January 2025.