Long Day Care Services

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Council's Long Day Care Services provide a quality education and care program with a team of qualified educators for children aged zero to six years old.

The Long Day Care program (also known as child care) provides play based learning programs based on children's individual needs, interests and experience.

For further information, please read the Long Day Care Policy(PDF, 659KB).

Council currently runs four Long Day Care Services:

  • Craigieburn Early Childhood Service
  • The Homestead Child and Family Centre
  • Sunningdale Avenue Children's Centre
  • Westmere Children's Services Centre

Long Day Care Fees

Daily fee - $128
Weekly fulltime fee - $576

*10 hour sessions apply for eligible fulltime enrolments

For further information about changes to Long Day Care and the Child Care Subsidy, effective July 2023, please refer to our Long Day Care and Child Care Subsidy(PDF, 247KB) flyer.

 

Philosophy

At Council, we understand children are unique and our educational program caters to each child’s individual needs. We acknowledge the diverse traditional values held by families in our communities and within our centres we understand the importance of creating a warm and inviting environment.

Guided by Early Years Learning Framework, both children and parents’ feedback, current events and children’s interests, our educational program is a collaboration of many learning areas with the goal of providing opportunities for children to achieve all learning outcomes and relevant developmental milestones.

Our Educators are qualified and continue to grow in their roles through professional development and mentorship programs offered by our leadership team. Located in culturally rich and mature communities, we understand the importance of staff continuity and creating an inviting environment to cater to our returning families and all siblings in their learning journey.

Our team believes in building strong relationships with children and strives to provide them with consistent emotional support necessary in this skill development phase and to teach them the importance of positive interaction with others. We value our rich surrounding community, the knowledge shared by community members, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders; and strive to learn while educating the children of our community.

Our Educators believe in collaborative learning and believe that learning outcomes are best achieved through partnership. We are committed to building a strong and genuine relationship with families which leads to better exploration of learning potential in everyday events.

We have a holistic approach to teaching and learning: We pay attention to children’s physical, personal, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing while focusing on their cognitive skills. While focusing on delivering the required learning outcomes we understand that children learn in an interconnected manner therefore we have created sub programs about Indigenous and Cultural perspectives, sustainability, leading a healthy lifestyle, connecting with nature and respecting the environment. These additional programs allow our educators to incorporate all aspects of learning into our daily program based on children’s interests and through our centre and community events.

Curriculum

Nutrition