Our Commitment to Child Safety
You may have seen last week’s episode of 4 Corners on ABC. This program identified some startling safety issues in some childcare services. It is important to remember that not all services are like the ones identified in this program.
At Engadine Preschool, we believe there is nothing more important than ensuring the safety of children. We cannot accept an education and care system in which a family has a one-in-ten chance of their children attending a service that does not meet minimum standards.
We are constantly working to deliver quality early education and care every day. As best practice, we ensure that our teachers and educators are annually trained with a registered training authority in all aspects of Child Protection. All teachers and educators also hold a current “Identify and Respond to Children and Young People at Risk”. Engadine Preschool has robust policies and procedures embedded in our daily program to support all aspects of child safety whilst children attend our service.
Our educational team and management committee are trained annually in implementing The Australian Child Safe Standards. Our Educational Team and all casual staff sign a “Code of Conduct” that ensures all contact staff follow strict procedures to protect the children in our care. We have a written commitment we make to children to ensure their safety on display in the foyer. This commitment is discussed with the children so they know how we will keep them safe.
Engadine Preschool promotes high quality and safety in early education and care on behalf of our community.
We maintain an annual subscription to a sector-specific peak organisation called Community Early Learning Australia (CELA), which provides our training and is our trusted source for guiding our advocacy toward quality early childhood education.
CELA is again calling for governments to adopt urgent changes that will put children at the center of a high-quality system including:
- address the impact of services that consistently do not meet standards through an administration model that is paid for by the service
- a robust, nationally consistent child protection system
- compulsory and comprehensive annual child protection training for every service that focuses on embedding a culture of child safety
- establishing an independent ECEC Commission
- a properly funded early education and care system that is affordable for families now and into the future, no matter where they live
- ongoing professional pay and support for capacity building professional development
- support services to deliver staff ratios aligned to the needs of children and their community
- growing community-managed services that deliver the highest return on investment for the government and the lowest fees for families.
Quality doesn’t just happen. To achieve high quality, qualified, suitably supported teachers and educators operate under sound governance structures and make deliberate decisions about every aspect of service delivery.
Our sector has done the work and we know what needs to be done.
Engadine Preschool and CELA calls for urgent actions that support high-quality safe education and care services for all children in Australia.
Introducing our new member of the team
We have employed a brand new position at Engadine Preschool starting Monday 24th March. Our new Family Engagement Leader is Kristy Hickey. Kristy has a strong background in marketing, office administration, customer service, and volunteering in her community. Kristy will work in the office Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 8.30 am to 1.00 pm. Her role is to primarily engage with our families by answering emails and phone calls, maintaining child and family records on OWNA, conducting service tours, marketing our service by communicating how we deliver quality early childhood education to our community, etc. She will achieve this through such activities as direct engagement with our families, conducting family polls and surveys, OWNA posts, organising guest speaking engagements both internally and externally, keeping our website current, and writing social media postings etc. We look forward to welcoming Kristy to our team.
Health and Development Checks
This is the first year we have participated in the state government-funded health and development checks. Parents have already completed their documentation to participate in this valuable program. They will be held on Wednesday 2nd April and Thursday 10th April. If your child does not attend on either of these two days alternate arrangements will be made with the Health and Development team. They will conduct the Monday visits in term 3 at this point (unless a cancellation becomes available). Each service is only allocated two days; unfortunately, the ones we were assigned did not match our attendance patterns.
Reunion Afternoon 2025
Reunion Afternoon for children who went to school in 2025 will be held on Thursday, 10th April, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Preschool will provide the food this year. This is to ensure that current children attending the service with severe food allergies will remain in a safe environment while at preschool. We are looking forward to catching up with everyone and hearing about their new school and the friends they have all made.
A special Guest to our service on Monday 31st March
Next Monday Kerry Maguire will be visiting our service. Kerry is the Learning and Development Manager from CELA. Kerry will be consulting with our team regarding our service delivery and how we deliver quality education and care. She will be with us the entire day after observing our embedded practices, gathering information and reviewing our documentation. She will then write a comprehensive report that we will be able to use to identify our strengths and also further enhance our educational program and practices. We are looking forward to this valuable feedback and opportunity to learn.
Preschool Photo Days
Preschool Photo days will be on Monday, April 7th, and Friday, April 11th, starting with Family Photos at 8:30 a.m. The booking sheet for family photos is posted on the pin board in the foyer. Please add your name to a timeslot if you want a family photo taken. A separate note will follow regarding the organisation of photo days.
We are looking for volunteers to assist with some maintenance of the preschool
We have three jobs that we would love some help with.
- Gurney the cement at the preschool’s front entrance. The cement has some build-up of moss, and it will be slippery over winter if we do not attend to this now. The preschool has a gurney that can be used to do this job for us.
- Gurney the back wall in the outdoor learning environment. The Besser block wall has some build-up of black mould, which is both unsightly and a potential health risk. Preschool has a gurney that can be used to do this job for us
- Our wooden driver bench seat needs sanding back and varnishing. The children love this piece of equipment, but it is showing its age and needs some TLC. Preschool will pay for all materials needed to repair and maintain this much-loved driver seat. It can be taken home to work on.
Term 1 and 2 Dates
The last day of term will be Friday, April 11th. We hope you and your child have had a fantastic start to the year at Engadine Preschool and that you have seen their growth and educational development during this time. During the break, the entire team will be meeting to work on the term two programs, staff development and training, quality improvement planning, and reviewing our Self-Assessment Tool. Preschool will resume after Easter on Monday, April 28th, 2025.