Welcome to Orange Emu! We hope your time with us is fun, educational and meets all your requirements.
Orange Emu is a privately owned and operated Long Day Care Centre catering for children aged between 0 to 5 years. It has been operating on these premises since 1994. The centre operates within the grounds of the Sylvania Uniting Church from Monday through to Friday. The centre is open at 7.30am til 6.00pm daily. The centre is open 51 weeks per year. We are closed between Christmas and New Year and all public holidays.
The carers at Orange Emu Kindergarten are a mix of full and part time workers. This relieves the pressure of full time work on our carers and provides the centre with a larger staff group and with it a wider range of skills, talents and personalities. This allows more carers for the children to bond with.
Continuity of care is maintained in the rooms by staff working consistent shifts and days. Children and carers become familiar with all staff as all are grouped together in the beginning and at the end of the day. We believe this is a useful arrangement as is decreases staff burnout and turn over and brings families into contact with a wider variety of carers.
The centre is licensed for 39 children aged 0-5 per day; 39 children aged 2-5years and up to 20 children aged 0-2 years.
The children are grouped in two rooms.
0-3's in southern room. There is 1 trained person in this room and 2 experienced assistants and a trainee.
3-5's in northern room. There is 1 teacher and 1 experienced assistant in this room and an extra when needed.
Orange Emu is governed by the NSW Govt, Dept. of Community Services, The National Accreditation Council, the Licensee and Authorised Supervisor and the community's needs.
Please feel free to drop in or contact us to discuss your child care needs.We look forward to welcoming you and your child to our centre.
At Orange Emu Kindergarten we aim to provide high quality care for children and their families. We realise that having children in a warm loving and safe environment that provides positive role models is most important to parents/guardians. The following beliefs are behind the day-to-day care that we provide for the children at our centre.
We believe that children need to be cared for in a loving and supportive environment that holds a balance between structure and boundaries, flexibility and freedom of choice. We believe that it is this balance, which helps children gain independence, reach their potential and develop a positive self-image.
We believe that parents / guardians and relevant extended family are the most important people in a child's life, therefore, we invite high levels of communication with parents / guardians concerning the care of their child. Family involvement in all areas of the centre is valued and encouraged.
We believe the children's learning environment has to be safe, appealing, stimulating and challenging.
We believe that play is essential to young children's learning. We endeavour to satisfy children's natural curiosity by providing opportunities for them to experiment, discover, problem set and solve, learn about their environment and themselves.
We believe in a child centred approach to education. Our programming will therefore be the result of daily observations of the children. From these observations, individual children's needs will be met, and areas of a child's development are monitored and fostered.
We believe young children imitate our behaviours, therefore we make it a priority to display positive relations between staff members and staff and parents.
We believe in teaching children to respect themselves and their familial beliefs, we therefore believe in using opportunities to ensure interactions are guided away from aggression or passivity and towards assertion.
We believe in an anti-bias curriculum and the philosophy behind it and we seek every opportunity to provide an environment and experiences that reflect acceptance and teach young children to tolerate and appreciate differences in attitudes, cultures and lifestyles.
We believe in constantly upgrading our quality of care by regularly evaluating all areas of the centre.
7.30am centre opens, breakfast served, quiet activities
8.00am breakfast finishes, all early children interact
8.30am Indoor play & children preparing to entre their age appropriate rooms and routines. (indoor and outdoor time are swapped over depending on the seasons e.g. summer ? outside earlier
0-3's room
3-5's room
9.00-9.30 Morning tea
8.15-9.30 - Outdoor play
9.30-10.15 Sunscreen Outdoor play
9.30 Morning Tea
10.3-11.15 Indoor program
10.20 Programmed activities
11.15 Group time language & music
11.30 Grouptime
11.30 Lunch begins
12.00 Lunch begins
12.00 Sleep time in the nursery
12.30 Rest time
12.30 Quiet activities
1.30 Quiet activities
1.00 Afternoon Tea & activities
2.00 Afternoon tea
2.00 Sunscreen & Outdoor play
2.30 Sunscreen & Outdoor play
4.00 - 4.30 (depending on weather) children will help pack away playground and then all playtogether in the 0-3s room
4.30 onwards Activities inside
6.00 Centre closes
This routine is a guide. It remains flexible in to allow for spontaneity, weather and children's interests. It is also individual to meet needs at the time. There are specific school readiness activities and programming for those preparing for big school.
A bag - llarge enough to fit all your child's belongings in. Please provide separate bags for each of your children attending - LABELLED
A lunch box / containers with your child's food inside LABELLED also label the individual foods so when you unpack the food into the appropriate baskets the staff know which packet of biscuits needs to be given to whom. You will need to send one container for lunch and one for morning tea.
Drinks for your child. This can be in a drink bottle, poppers or pop tops. There needs to be enough for the day, especially in summer when the children drink a lot more. We will replenish finished bottles with water as the children need - LABELLED
Any comforters your child may need. Such as dummies, blankets, teddies etc. This does not include general toys from home.
A sun hat. This is a must!! It is regulation that children stay protected from the sun. If your child does not have a hat they will not be allowed to play in the sun. You may send a beanie in winter. Make sure their name is on the inside of the hat.
At least two full changes of clothes. You may think your child will not have accidents throughout the day but almost every child has an accident at some point and it is usually the times they haven't got spare clothes packed. These clothes can be left in a plastic bag at the bottom of their school bag.
Infants require all the above including any liquid meals they are required to have such as:
Bottles of boiled water
Formula (if you want to send it unmixed this is fine and staff will mix it as needed), always send more than needed as staff will discard the formula if not taken.
Nappy rash cream - please notify staff if they are there and the instructions for their use.
Babies especially need a hat as their skin is very fair. Please provide a hat that can be secured e.g. with ties under the chin.
Anything that the baby may need to make their day comfortable.
Remember nappies are supplied by the centre.
Provide a teething plan and any teething requirements such as bonjela etc. The centre has teething rings for the babies to chew.
