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Elder Street Herald
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Nov/Dec 15
End of Year Celebration
Thank you to all the families who joined us to celebrate
Christmas and the end of another great year at Elder Street.
We had a lovely, busy and hot afternoon of the usual fun stuff,
like face painting, sausage sandwiches, ice blocks, Santa, presents and catching up. It is so wonderful to see our community
have the chance to chat, share and enjoy each other. Thank
you also to all the families who passed on their thanks and appreciate for our Xmas celebration—it is our pleasure!
All the staff at Elder St wish the families a very safe and happy Christmas. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2016!
Love Mel, Kim, Donna, Kate, Karen, Teagan, Catherine, Carley,
Paula, Nicola , Mikenzie, Maddy,
Lauren and April
MERRY
CHRISTMAS!!
STAFFING 2016
Our team will have some changes when we re-open in January 2016. We will have some room
changes and a few new faces :)
Here is our team line up for 2016
Nursery Possums—8 children
Paula Rosenkranc:
M, T, W, F
Lauren Byrne:
M, T, W, Th, F
Karen Adamthwaite:
Th
Toddler Joeys—10 children
Preschool Wallabies—21 children:
Carley Chippington:
T, W, Th, F
Nicola Aitchison:
M, T, W, Th
April Brown:
M, Th, F
Tegan Murison:
M,T, W, Th, F
Mikenzie McManus:
M, T, W
Mikenzie McManus:
F
Lauren Berwick:
M, T, W
Donna McRae:
Th, F
(floating Thursday)
We have big plans going forward for Elder St and to make these plans a reality we have made some changes to our team roles. Kim, who has been in our Joeys Toddler room for many years and also co-directs the
centre with myself, will be taking on the role of office based Director, IT, HR and assisting me in all other areas of the operation of the service. You will still see Kim downstairs in the mornings and afternoons
as she will continue to work her same open and close shifts to stay in touch with the families and children.
I will remain working as a non contact Director with Kim, but will be able to take on a bigger role as Educational Leader with the teachers. One component of our team vision is to embrace the educational approach of Reggio Emilia even further. To do this we need to have time where an educational leader can
support and collaborate with teachers whilst undertaking educational project work. This is a very exciting
new chapter for our centre which we believe will benefit the children and families enormously. To foster
these plans, we also need to have more staff on board to fill the gaps. 2016 also brings with it a change
to child/staff ratios through our National Regulations. We will therefore continue to have 3 educators in
our preschool room to meet these regulations. In practice, this will mean that in addition to our current
team we will have 3 trainees working differing shifts over the week. Lauren Berwick will be joining our
team as a full time trainee working in the Wallaby room and other supporting roles. Jade Avis will join our
team 4 days per week to assist in covering staff breaks, shift beginnings and ends and overall support.
Maddy will sadly finish up with us in March as this is when her traineeship ends, and at this point we will
employ another part time trainee to also support our team in her absence. Kate remains on maternity
leave until September 2016.
Our team has had a year of great growth in 2015. We have set many goals and are committed to keep
working towards them. We are proud and committed to our team vision and feel very confident that 2016
will be another amazing chapter in this very special place, that is Elder Street Early Childhood Centre.
If you have any questions regarding staffing, please don't hesitate in speaking to Mel or Kim.
Finally, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude for the endless support and collaboration we receive
from our Elder St community for the work we do. I personally feel hugely privileged to be sharing part of
your lives with us every week - Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year Mel xx
2016 ENROLMENTS AND END OF YEAR ACCOUNTS
We have all enrolments finalised and are ready to start
the new year bursting at the
seams.
We have carefully noted all
the internal waiting list days
that are still sought after by
families and will advise if
there are any changes as soon
as they occur.
Most of our families who have
children leaving the centre
have had their bonds allocated to final fee balances. Anyone who indicated they would
like their bond refunded just
need to ensure that they have
a nil balance by next week and
then I will deposit monies into
directed accounts.
All accounts need to have a
zero balance by 22nd December 2015.
I have issued
statements recently, but if
you are unsure of your outstanding amount please send
me an email and I will let you
know what is owing.
Please feel free to contact
Mel or Kim regarding anything
to do with your account—we
are happy to work with families especially at this time of
year as long as we have opencommunication regarding plans
to finalise accounts.
accounts will take a little
while to return to normal.
Please feel free to check in
with office staff regarding
account balances, but if in
doubt please pay your normal
2015 payment so that we have
some fees being covered. We
will issue statements towards
the end of January to advise
confirmed weekly fees.
We will be billing weekly
throughout January to avoid
too much confusion.
Thanks Mel and Kim
Please be aware, that as usual,
public holidays and close down
weeks will effect the accuracy of CCB/CCR and therefore
School Leavers 2015—Graduation Day and
Farewells...
We had a lovely afternoon in the Wallabies celebrating 21 beautiful and clever little people
who are ready and raring for big school next year. We would like to farewell…
Isabella, Ava P, Eamon, Caitlin, Iris, Jacob,
Natasha, Jasmine, Thomas, Harry, Claire,
Millie, Luisa, Sam, Ava G, Ruby, Tara,
Jaxson, Genevieve and Shyla
Other friends that are moving on from Elder
Street in 2016 are:
Callum, Evan, Lily
Class of 2015
We will miss these children more than you
probably understand but wish everyone the
best of luck and happiness and hope to see you
soon for a visit xx
Birthdays
November
Liam 2
Penny 2
Josephine 3
Aidan 4
Tilly 4
Sam 5
JOBS OVER THE CLOSE DOWN BREAK

Our gardener will be laying some fresh new
turf in our current dusty dirt patch between
the beautiful trees (fingers crossed it lasts
the year!)

We will be having our “quiet room” in the Joeys
transformed into an Artists workshop which is
known as an Atelier—this will become a very
special place for the children to work on ongoing projects. “The atelier is a place of research, invention and empathy expressed by
means of the “100 languages” which extend beyond childhood to include adulthood” - we will
focus on the language of creative arts, sculpture, drawing, painting (as opposed to music or
other art languages) within our Elder St atelier.

Our team’s staff room will also receive a big
makeover. We will be transforming this space
so it can be used as a place of collaboration,
planning, meeting and discussion.
Tom 5
Luisa 5
Claire 5
Millie 5
December
Beau 4
Ava 5
Ruby 5
WE WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED WITH OTHER
IMPROVEMENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
We have a new Elder Street Early Childhood Centre logo from the one we have had
since 2005. We feel our new logo reflects who we have evolved into being. We will
have a new sign at the front of the centre and new hats are being made that should
be ready by January. Any new enrolments will receive a new logo hat, but if the
order happens to run late, we have many spare old logo hats that we can use in the
interim.
Final words for 2015…………….
Please ensure that all belongings are taken home on our last day of operation, ie, drink
bottles, sleep bags, spare clothes, art work etc. We hope to have the centre lovely and
tidy for when we reopen in January.
Our first staff on bright and early on Monday 11 January 2016 will be Paula and Mikenzie and
Kim and Nicola will see you off on the late shift.
Once again, have a lovely Christmas xxxxxxxxxxxxx