HomeJuly Newsletter
From the Office
Hello families and welcome to another edition of our newsletter.
Welcome to our new families who have joined our centre community. We hope you are all settling in well. Please do not hesitate to approach your children's educators with any questions you may have.
Story Park
We are very excited to be implementing Story Park into our centre. Story Park will now replace the XAP Journeys aspect of the curriculum. As you are all aware we were having many issues with the XAP programming side of things. We have found Story Park to be a lot more user friendly for both educators and parents. From this point on all of your curriculum communication and updates for the children (eg: nappies, toileting, food, rest etc) will be communicated through Story Park rather than XAP. With Story Park, parents are able to add their own input and stories/photos and we encourage you to do this so we can incorporate them into the curriculum. If you need to reach out to your educators, can we please ask that you please use the "notes" section rather than "conversations" as we have not yet understood how to monitor the conversations section.
All admin and accounts information will still be handled by the XAP application though.
SIGN INS: Just a friendly reminder that signing your child in and out is very important and a government regulation. We are aware that our XAP system can be a little temperamental. If you get the message that your number is "unrecognised" please log out and re-enter it again. we are not sure why it does this for some people but 9 times out of 10 this strategy works. if you are still having trouble, please let one of our staff know and we can sign you in or out. We do find that sign out misses are more common than sign ins. Please be aware that if you miss a sign out, our late staff will sign you out at 6.15pm as a part of their late close duties. if you are on a session this is ging to pose a problem as you may receive a late fee if your sign out is after your session time. so please let us know if you have difficulty with the kiosks.
Medical Conditions and Risk Assessments
As part of our medical conditions policy- all children who have a medical condition or allergy/intolerance are required to have a medical risk assessment completed before they begin at the centre. Any child who requires medication for their condition must have this provided to the centre "every" day they attend. All medication needs to be in date. Out of date medication will be sent home and you will be required to provide up to date medication before your child returns to the centre. This includes antihistamines, EpiPens, Ventolin etc etc.
In regard to food allergies and intolerances-please complete the forms that are given to you regarding the risk assessment. These plans are given to staff in the rooms and the kitchen, and we need them to refer to. We simply cannot just have a list of what children can and cannot eat-we need the medical plan.
All medical plans also need to be accompanied by a doctor's letter which is updated regularly (we do this annually).
Upcoming events
August 1st-30th-Share the Dignity Drive- we will be collecting feminine hygiene products to donate to the Share the Dignity Charity. This charity collects and distributes feminine Hygiene products and essentials and delivers them to women and girls in need who may be homeless or living in shelters. Please donate to this very worthy cause. With the ever-increasing housing crisis within our country-people need our assistance.
August 4th: Jeans for Genes Day- wear your denim in support.
: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Childrens Day
August 14th-20th: National Science week.
August 16th: EKKA Public Holiday- our centre will be closed.
August 18th: Monster Raffle donations due into the office.
August 22nd: Book Week Parade: Theme this year is "Read, Grow, Inspire".
August 23rd: Monster Raffle tickets out. Lets get to selling everyone!!!
August 28th-1st September: Fathers Day Stall open- grab a gift for Dad!
August 31st: Kindergarten 2024 Information Evening: 6.30pm
Monster Raffle Fundraiser
We are creating a Monster Raffle for centre fundraising, BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP PLEASE!!!. We need donations to contribute to our prize pool along with our major prizes. Donations can be anything new and non-perishable (toys, clothes, food, Manchester, ornaments, books, tickets etc) anything you can think of. We also ask any of you who work for your own businesses or know any business owners to think about what you may be able to donate in regard to vouchers for services. (e.g.; restaurant vouchers, carwash or hire, hairdressing or beauty treatments, toy vouchers, hardware vouchers, book vouchers etc). Could you please bring all donations to the office by Friday 18th August. Raffle tickets should be out by Wednesday 23rd August with the draw scheduled for Friday 8th September. We would really appreciate your help and participation. Our fundraising efforts will be going towards some new larger resources such as new cubby houses for the outdoor areas and large magnetic educational whiteboards for the rooms.
Kindergarten 2024 Information Evening
Date: Thursday 31st August
Time: 6.30pm
Once again, we would like to congratulate Miss Sarah and Miss Gabby on the successful completion of their Bachelor's degrees. As previously mentioned in our Story Park community updates, our top end classrooms will be a little different in 2024. Miss Sarah will be running Kindy 1 program(3-5years) and Miss Gabby will be running our Kindy 2 program(4-5years). This information evening is designed to outline curriculum plans and provide more information to parents about our programs. If your child is aged 3-5 years we encourage you to come along to find out more. we are so very excited about what is in store for 2024.
Friendly Reminders
Breakfast and Late Afternoon Tea: Our cut off time for breakfast is 7.30am. Please do not send your children in with breakfast after this time. We become very busy at this time in the morning and unfortunately, we cannot have children sitting outside amongst paint and activities eating breakfast. Late afternoon snack is for children who are here after 5pm. we encourage parents to send in a small non-refrigerated snack in a small container or bag for this time. If you do not want your child to eat a snack this is of course OK. Please let our staff know. We would also like to remind parents that we encourage healthy eating at the centre so please refrain from sending in chocolates, lollies, lollipops etc.
Naming Childrens Items: We seem to have an abundance of socks and bit of lost property lately. Please ensure you are naming all of your children's belongings so that we can return them to their rightful owner. Please understand that staff cannot be held responsible for items that are not labelled or named.
Thought for the Month
