With the Year 5 students being away last week it made for a quieter week at OSHC. We celebrated the warmer weather by having a picnic out on the new playground, as well as doing chalk drawings, having treasure/scavenger hunts, dancing, games of wall ball, racquet ball, and fruit salad.
At the children’s request we have also started a countdown to the festive season, currently there are only 61 days until Christmas, and only 41 more days of school for the majority of the students…not long to go now.
This term’s TCAF project is titled Education for all in Nepal. This is aimed at raising the children’s awareness of the plight of children in the Dolakha area of Nepal, where 85% of classrooms were destroyed or badly damaged by the 2015 earthquake. We will be running some activities to help children learn about the country of Nepal, as well as earthquakes, and they will be making some posters to be collaborated into a book with posters from other Camp Australia OSHC services across Australia that will be sent to the Dolakha region for school children there to view and learn about Australia.
Parents, please remember that if you know that your child is going to be absent from OSHC for some reason (Family Holidays/School Camp/ect) please ensure you cancel your bookings with more than seven days notice to ensure you don’t get charged.
Could all parents check their account details. There are some children no longer in Prep who are still marked as being Preps on their account. While the usual staff members at the service know who the actual Prep students are, and there is a Prep list on display, if for some reason another staff member is filling in for Lisa it might cause confusion. Also, if your child has two accounts, for example, in the case of separated families, could parents please change the way their child’s name is shown through their account to help differentiate between accounts. For example, John Smith (Mum), or John Smith M and John Smith D.
Also could parents check that EVERY person they want to pick up their child from the service is listed on their account on the Camp Australia website. We are legally not allowed to release children into the care of people that are not on their enrolment forms as approved pick up people. This is for the protection of the children. Your assistance in these matters is much appreciated.
A friendly reminder for parents that for staffing and catering purposes children should be booked into OSHC through the Camp Australia Head Office, or if it is impractical to do so, through a staff member at OSHC. Where possible bookings and cancellations should be made through the Camp Australia Head Office website or phone number, which is 1300 105 343. This is to ensure that we have adequate numbers of staff present to care for your children, and that we have prepared enough food to go around at snack time.
In related news, could parents be sure to notify OSHC directly, or the Camp Australia Head Office, if your child will not be attending a session they are booked in for. This helps streamline the session for everyone else as we are not spending time trying to track down children who are not actually coming. This includes days when your child is absent from school for whatever reason. The Camp Australia Drysdale Primary School OSHC mobile number is 0404 427 452.