Clovelly Out of School Care News: June 2008
WELCOME to our second newsletter for the year – June 2008 and the
release of the July school holiday care program. A lot of
effort goes into keeping the program fresh for our children, many of
whom come back every break. It’s hard to come up with new ideas
all the time, so if you’ve got a good one or your child has a great one
- then please share it with us!
World Youth Day presented a bit of a challenge these holidays. If week
2 seems a bit low-key, it's because we didn’t want the children to spend
the week in traffic jams.
Please note we cannot accept any payments if you have
outstanding term fees and all bookings made before the holidays start,
must be pre-paid to reserve your place.
Management of the Centre
The AGM was held at 6.30pm on Thursday March 27 in the Out of School
Care Rooms. At this time audited accounts for the 2007 financial
year were signed off. The budget performed very closely to
projections. The Centre made a small surplus overall, which is a great
achievement on the considerable income of approximately $300,000,
annually.
Capital expenditure has been allocated as follows:
1. Refurbish the lower “art” room for use by older children
2. Purchase of a commercial dishwasher
3. Replacement of the carpet in the aftercare rooms
4. Construction of a storage shed for the large chess pieces in the lower playground
Elections were held for election of the 2008 Management Committee with appointments being:
David Callaghan President
Melinda Rosenberg, Vice-President
Libby Baulch, Secretary
Sonya Stewart, Treasurer
Richard Lou, Treasurer
Wendy Field (Policy), Suzanne Schacht, David Lesmond (Centre
Refurbishments) and Celia Donovan (Holiday Programming and
Communications): Parent Representatives
Melinda Rosenberg has since agreed to take on the role Secretary, leaving
the Vice President role open again. Libby Baulch will continue to
maintain the Centre website. The committee would
welcome any nominees for Vice President from registered families.
The President thanked the committee for their continuing participation,
and praised the Centre’s excellent staff for creating a stable, safe
and fun recreational environment.
Smartfees and Paying for Childcare
Smarfees is the childcare management IT system we use at the COOSC. It allows us to meet the complex reporting requirements of Family Assistance Office, is a
database of parent and child related information including emergency contact details, plus it manages the booking and invoicing of child care.
There have been some continued performance issues with Smartfees over the last 12 months, which have led us to benchmark it against other accredited childcare
software options. The results of this benchmarking were:
• Smartfees is written in old code, and uses old technology to enable some of its advanced functions (specifically the on-line enrolment, booking and
payment capability).
• The functionality the COOSC values, as an efficiency for both COOSC and parents (on-line enrolment, booking and payments) is unique to Smartfees – no other software currently offers this package of functionality.
• Smarfees is currently being rewritten to meet new requirements imposed by CCMS (a federal government initiative)
The COOSC Committee identified only one other software option that was potentially suitable for COOSC needs. This product however does not have the online functionality that Smartfees currently supports. The Committee plan to discuss modifications with this alternative software supplier, as well as review the rewritten Smartfees. We expect to be able to make a decision on the future software supplier by the end of the year, and will update parents of the decision.
In the meantime we request that parents remain patient when dealing with Smartfees idiosyncrasies, and understand that the Committee is working towards a solution.
Numbers for 2008
As expected, the Centre has seen demand for aftercare grow again.
Before School Care has also grown a lot. The Management Committee
has decided to cap afternoon numbers at 100 children. Considering
space and resources, we believe that 100 are the maximum children that
can be accommodated within our current capacity. Consequently the
Centre is full on Tuesdays and near full on Thursday and
Wednesdays. Families are urged to confirm permanent bookings on
these days rather than rely on casual care. Of course,
there are always absentees so if you need casual care on these days
please contact the Centre.
A big challenge for the Centre has been parents/carers picking up after
the closing time at 6.00pm COOSC need to re-enforce that the
Centre closes at 6pm and there is no ability to provide care after this
time.
Communications
COOSC keeps families up to date on what is happening at the Centre by
the following methods: website, e-news, school newsletter, emails and
direct communication. Please ensure we have your most recent
contact details at all times including your email address. The
Centre welcomes your feedback and suggestions.
Staffing
Paula Gray returned to the Centre from maternity leave as Coordinator
in February 2008. Mark has remained with the team as Assistant
Coordinator. Scott is furthering his practical skills in
child-care by undertaking a formal course of study. The Centre
also has a committed team of casual staff ranging including University
teacher trainees and retired teachers.
Programming
The Centre was successful in attaining a grant for older children’s
activities and special activities at COOSC in Term 2 have included:
1. Capoiera Brazilian Martial Arts
2. Visiting Magician
3. Fizzics Education
4. AMF Bowling
5. Entry in the Hilaire Lindsay Young Writers Poetry Competition
6. Rock Climbing
7. WAYs with Waverley Council
8. and Barefoot Bowling
Special thanks for Mark for obtaining this grant and putting together these activities.
Implementation of the refurbishment of the lower room for children 9+
has lagged for various reasons but will certainly be implemented by
Term 3.
5-8 Programming is ongoing and includes two sports sessions again in
2008 – Coaches Isi and Liana are at the centre on Tuesdays and
Thursdays to lead the children in active and fun skills development.
Children spend many hours in school every day and the Centre’s primary
goal is to provide a fun and sociable recreational service.
We welcome your feedback on any aspect of programming; do you have new
ideas for 9+ children or 5-8 years? Please let Paula Gray know
your ideas.
Centre Validation Visit and Accreditation
The service received the Validator for the Validation Visit on 31 March
2008. During this visit, the Validator observes practices happening
within the service and completes a report that is used with other
information the service has provided . Together these documents are
used to access the services continuing improvement in the National
Childcare Accreditation System.
The service received the letter, improvement plan and Accreditation
Certificate at the start of May. The service will continue to work
through the improvement plan and goes through the process again in
2010.
