What a fantastic week we’ve had weather wise this past week. We’ve been enjoying spending time outside during after school care, with the children enjoying chalk drawings and going for walks around the oval, due to the playground equipment not being available for use.
The other highlight of the week was making special glow in the dark slime. The children then scouted around for a dark area to test their slime out. They were very impressed with their results.
Other popular games and activities have included Uno, Night and the Musuem, Dead Fish, Minecraft dramatic play, landscape drawings, basketball skill building and anime drawings. Some of the children even decided to do some of their school work during their time at OSHC to get ahead for the rest of the week.
We understand Outside School Hours Care is vital for many parents that are not able to work from home, so that you can continue to provide essential work for the nation. Our OSHC service is open and operating for those that need our care, and will provide your children with much-needed familiarity and continuity through our engaging programs that have an increased focus on hygiene and social distancing. We offer a safe environment at your school for children to get active, try new things, connect with friends and relax.
As per the recent State Government advice, from the start of Term 2 all students who can learn from home must learn at home. This means our service is open to all children of parents who cannot work from home, vulnerable children, or children that are not able to be supervised at home on certain days and no other arrangements can be made. For these families, childcare will be provided free of charge until 30th June as per the Federal Government’s announcement on the 2nd April..
Whilst care is free, we still need to know if you are coming. We ask that you get your bookings in as soon as you can, so that we can staff and resource the service appropriately, to best care for your children. We ask that, even though parents are no longer physically signing their children into the service (for the time being), they still need to bring their children into the service, instead of just dropping them off at the door and letting them walk into the service alone.
We have received feedback from parents about not being happy with the service not providing hand sanitiser for the use of children. This is unfortunately, in line with instructions and policies we have been given, and must adhere to, as well as being in line with the National Regulations and Laws that we must obey. While we understand that this is very concerning for some, especially those who work in high risk environments, or those with at risk family members, we are taking steps such as making sure the children use hand sanitiser in the classroom when arriving to and leaving school, and ensuring that children are washing their hands regularly during the session.
OSHC at Drysdale Primary School operates out of the School hall, We open at 7:00am each school day, and currently we are walking the group over to their assigned classroom at 8:50am. Unfortunately we are unable to accept children into our care earlier than 7:00am. Families can access the service through the hall glass door that faces out onto Stonehouse Place (tennis courts carpark).
At 3:30pm, once the school bell goes, children attending after school care walk over to the hall from their classrooms and we provide a safe place for them to play and engage with other children until they are collected. Our closing time is 6:00pm.
Parents please be reminded that in order to use the service they need to be registered with Camp Australia. We are unable to accept children into the service who are not registered with Camp Australia.
A friendly reminder for parents that for staffing and catering purposes children should be booked into OSHC through the Camp Australia head office, and that should you need to cancel their booking please can this be done through head office as well. This works out much cheaper for you, as there are additional fees involved if children do not attend sessions they are booked in for. Bookings can be made or cancelled by logging into the Camp Australia website https://www.campaustralia.com.au or by ringing 1300 105 343.. The team are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except National Public Holidays).
We look forward to seeing you and your family soon!
From the Team at Camp Australia