Early Education Centres

Current Early Education Centre fee schedule.

Unlike private childcare providers, Council's childcare services do not make a profit. Fees are reinvested back into our centres, to fund upgrades and initiatives such as new centre playgrounds. 

Child Care Subsidy

Please visit the Australia Government's Services Australia website to determine your Child Care Subsidy eligibility and how much financial assistance your family would receive.

Inclusions 

Cloth Nappy Service

We provide a free eco-friendly Modern Cloth Nappy service to babies and toddlers, at no extra cost. The Modern Cloth Nappies are reusable and professionally laundered. Our service saves many tonnes of landfill annually.

Nutritious Meals

Our qualified cooks prepare fresh, nutritious meals onsite for the children each day. All meals are included within fees, including:

• breakfast cereals and milk (cow’s, rice and soy milk also provided).
• morning and afternoon teas which can be a mix of vegetable platters, homemade slices, fruit plates
• lunch (hot meals such as pasta bakes, stir fry, vegetarian frittatas and homemade pies)
• late afternoon tea and snack including veggie sticks and fruit pieces to tide children over to dinner time
• all day fruit bowls

Our cooks also cater for children with allergies.

We follow the NSW Health Nutritional Guidelines, providing a minimum of 50% of children's Recommended Dietary Intake each day.

Terms & Conditions

For families' reference, here is a copy of our Early Education Centres' Terms and Conditions.

This dedicated and familiar replacement team promotes consistency of care and ensures familiarity for the children and families. The Educators know each child’s specific needs and routines. 

We welcome and accept children with diverse needs into our centres. Our Children's Services Inclusion Support specialist collaborates with families and our centre Educators from the outset to ensure each child has a successful and smooth transition into care. We also work with families to apply for funding which may include additional Educators to support their child's ongoing inclusion at the centre. Our expertise and focus in this space ensures inclusive practices where all children actively participate in our program. Educators working in this additional capacity are over and above our regulatory ratio staffing numbers.

The Quality Practice team’s close collaboration with our Educators leads to continuous quality improvements and ensures full compliance with National Law and Regulations.

NATIONAL QUALITY STANDARDS

The governing body for childcare assesses all childcare services against seven quality areas of the National Quality Standard (NQS) and gives each service an overall rating based on these results.

Our industry-leading internal safety and compliance practices has resulted in 100% of our Early Education Centres operating at or above the industry’s National Quality Standards.

Here are some important components of our guidelines which outlines our inclusive approach.

We share it here to give families an understanding of the holistic perspective we adopt when placing children into care within our Early Education Centres.

• Children’s Services works towards supporting an enrolment based on the child’s needs, availability of positions, facilities, resources and a suitable environment for the child. Our aim is to collaborate with families to provide a positive transition into care and ongoing participation in the program.

• Our early childhood specialists within the Children's Services management team will assist the service to ensure there is suitable resourcing available, and ensure training and awareness of children’s individual needs is built in to the process of staff induction and ongoing professional development. We work with our Educators to support practices that maintain the safety and wellbeing of all children in the care environment.

• Once enrolled, each service works individually with each family to develop an individual support plan for the child that provides strategies to strengthen the child's developmental and learning journey.

• Wherever possible, assistance and guidance will be sought from inclusion support agencies relevant to the child’s placement. If applicable, Inclusion Development Fund (IDF) will be applied for to assist with any barriers to inclusion. This may include funding for the provision of an additional Educator to build Educator capacity and capability to include children with additional needs. The funding is not available to provide 1:1 support for the child.

• While every effort is made to provide placement to children with additional and complex needs, Children’s Services will take into account, and make decisions, based on the overall needs of all of the children attending the service.

• This includes considering factors such as the capacity to adequately staff a service to cater to children’s needs, the ongoing needs of children already enrolled in the service, level of staff training and experience, access to suitable support services and other factors as they arise. Decisions regarding placement take into account the safety, wellbeing and interests of all children using the service, the availability to adequately supervise the environment and the capacity for the service to access suitable resourcing.

• We acknowledge that at times, we may be unable to accept an enrolment as the service is unable to access the essential resourcing required to meet the unique requirements of the child's specific additional needs in a safe manner.

• Enrolment requests are considered in light of the capacity and capability of the respective service to safely and successfully meet the individual needs of the child prior to accepting an enrolment.

Your Role

At the outset of applying for care, it is critical that families provide us with accurate information to support the inclusion of their child to the service. This includes additional needs and abilities, any challenging behaviours and medical needs (as requested in the enrolment form and agreement). 

The effective enrolment of children into our services relies on families providing clear and factual information about their child. A child’s enrolment or ongoing placement may be at risk where a family does not provide us with information relevant to the inclusion of their child in the service.

Families/guardians will provide:

• Accurate information regarding their child to our Educators and Children's Services management and customer service team.

• Updated medical or additional needs records to the service.

• Open collaboration and communication with Educators at the service to ensure individual needs are met and the service has the knowledge and capacity to include the child in the program.

 Families/guardians will be provided with:

• Efficient, accurate and timely/current information about the whole child and family.

• Relevant information from health professionals and other support agencies.

• Time to meet with the service prior to the child commencing care.

• Equal opportunities to be involved in decision making concerning their child’s program and its implementation and whenever possible the service of an interpreter.

• Opportunities to share their own culture, knowledge and skills to help children appreciate and welcome similarities and differences.

• Opportunities to express their expectations of the inclusive program through open and ongoing lines of communication.

More Information

You are welcome to call our Children's Services team on phone 9710 0466 should you have any queries regarding inclusion within our early and middle years education and care services. 

Services are assessed on the following seven quality areas:

1. Educational program and practice
2. Children's health and safety
3. Physical environment
4. Staffing arrangements
5. Relationships with children
6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
7. Leadership and service management 

Each quality area contains standards and elements which services are assessed and rated against. Services are given a rating for each quality area, and one of the following overall ratings based on the collective result:

• Exceeding National Quality Standard
• Meeting National Quality Standard
• Working Towards National Quality Standard
• Significant Improvement Required

For more information on the National Quality Standards, please visit the ACECQA website.