Three local day care educators came together for a combined playgroup on Monday to celebrate National Family Day Care Week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Jay Marriott’s Little Monsters Family Day Care at Weston hosted children from Ashly Missingham’s Toddler Town Family Day Care (Weston) and Melanie Connolly’s iCare Family Day Care (Heddon Greta).
National Family Day Care Week runs from May 7 to 13, with hundreds of providers around the country holding activities to highlight the benefits of family day care.
Mr Marriott said family day care allows for quality care in a home-based environment.
“With a smaller child-educator ratio, the needs and interests of the individual children are programmed and catered to accordingly,” he said.
Mr Marriott said he is an advocate not only for the family day care sector, but especially for male educators in the industry.
In line with the National Family Day Care Week for 2018 – ‘Every child is a star’ – Monday’s playgroup featured star-themed activities and experiences – glitter stars, paddle pop stick stars and painting shooting stars.
“The children were also asked who the heroes and ‘stars’ were in their lives, Mum being a common person amongst them all,” Mr Marriott said.
More than 200,000 children are enrolled in family day care across Australia.
Family Day Care Australia chief executive officer Andrew Paterson said this week’s activities will provide an opportunity for services, educators and families to come together and showcase the important role family day care plays not only in their community, but in shaping and supporting the lives, hopes and dreams of children.
“National Family Day Care Week is a nationwide event that celebrates the uniqueness and diversity of family day care and how strong relationships and a nurturing home learning environment support the development of a child’s own individual qualities, and which make family day care the natural choice for quality early childhood education and care,” Mr Paterson said.
Family day care is an approved form of early childhood education and care that operates under the National Quality Standards and the National Quality Framework.
