3 year old and 4 year old kinder at daycare

[Trillian]

They should all be following this program Early Years Learning Framework | Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations so in theory, it shouldn't matter where you send them because everything is going to be based on this program. Can I ask though what you are planning on doing once he starts school? Kinder/preschool is meant to mimic school in their hours etc so eventually as a working parent you are going to have to deal with the shorter hours kwim? The only other benefit is that at kinder, they are only going with their peers, not babies. Now I know at school there will be older kids etc, but it's completely different to be at kinder/preschool with your own age group compared to toddlers and babies at childcare. Really, it's just what you want for them. The benefits are probably negligible for either one anyway so you'd be better off just finding a place where they are happy .

[wysiwyg]

Can I ask though what you are planning on doing once he starts school? Kinder/preschool is meant to mimic school in their hours etc so eventually as a working parent you are going to have to deal with the shorter hours kwim?

If that is the case why do so many have fifteen hours spread over four days? - e.g. 9-12 three days a week and 9-15 one day a week. School hour shortness is one thing to manage - but so few kinders operate with full school length days.

Depending on the center being only with their peers can be applicable to daycare programs too. Ours has five rooms, in a kinder program they may mix with what are called senior toddlers for outside play because share outside space but they are never with under 2.5 year olds (apart from prior to 8:00 and after 17:30), as they have a separate outdoor area.

[Astrid]

The structure they have gone to in my area is 8:30 to 2:30 for two days per week (so finishes one hour earlier than school, so horrid for pick up) and one 3 hour session 12:45 to 3:45. So not really school like overall. So even for someone like me who is able to work school friendly hours, the hours still don't fit in that well. I was very vocal at them providing 2x 7.5 hour days, so we could then use childcare on the other days, but an even more vocal group of not yet working parents shot it down (and these were parents who had not yet gone through a 4yo kinder year so really had no concept of what goes on during the kinder and also how to handle kinder when you have a school age child as well)

[wysiwyg]

The structure they have gone to in my area is 8:30 to 2:30 for two days per week (so finishes one hour earlier than school, so horrid for pick up) and one 3 hour session 12:45 to 3:45. So not really school like overall. So even for someone like me who is able to work school friendly hours, the hours still don't fit in that well. I was very vocal at them providing 2x 7.5 hour days, so we could then use childcare on the other days, but an even more vocal group of not yet working parents shot it down (and these were parents who had not yet gone through a 4yo kinder year so really had no concept of what goes on during the kinder and also how to handle kinder when you have a school age child as well)

Wow those hours are rubbish - is almost like they have tried to make them as awkward as possible. Was there any decent rational behind those hours and not the 7.5 for two days? If the ones round here published the reasons why then maybe I might understand why like they are but so far haven't heard a decent answer apart from that is way has always been. The system of individual kinders determining their own hours seems odd to me as I don't think is very forward thinking - people are always looking at their own current situation not thinking about future trends etc. I hope they align it more with working hours before my DD is having kids as if she is local I bet it will then be me running round doing kinder drop off and pick up , even as a grandparent I would prefer long days, that then gives me time to do fun stuff with grandkids on the other days :-).

[Astrid]

Their ideal scenario was 3 x 5hrs, but that does not fit with 2 groups per week. So they went with the other combo, one group with Monday morning, the other with Monday afternoon, alternating the long days.
I pushed for two different sets of hours. 3 x 5hrs for group one and 2 x 7.5hr for group two. That way both parties would be happy.

The main argument was that they are precious little flowers and could not way cope with a long day and parents should have thought ahead back in the uni days and picked a profession where they could have flexible hours specifically for the kinder year. They seem to have no concept that many parents have no choice and that many children are already doing long days. So they went with the silly hours and after kinder care. (I still want to slap people after that consultancy session)

The long days are an issue as the teachers have to take a break, so they have had to arrange travelling kinder teachers who move between the centres relieving the kinder teachers for their breaks. Think there are about 10 kinders overall run by the council.

When I spoke to one of the awesome kinder teachers that DD1 had, she was initially opposed to the long days, but when she found out about the hours with after kinder care, she said she would have supported to the 2 long days so she give the children two great quality days.

[buliej]

I was indeed asking because "everyone" seems to opt for Community Kinder...when it works for them and to be honest, I was feeling guilty that we weren't going down that path because we both work.

After reading these posts, I took a hard look at the hours offered in the Community Kinder program and they are too all over the place (as per Astrid's comment) to make it work. I've run some numbers and total care cost for our 2 children if I had to work around the Community Kinder hours...and this is taking into account the 1 day they actually have after hours care until 4...and the fact that my little one will need all day care (right now we do a combo of daycare days and nanny days for both) by hiring a babysitter as well as having a sitter/nanny during school holidays would be just about the same as having my toddler attend a private ELC for 4 year old kinder while my little one had a combo of nanny/daycare - and on nanny days, the 4 year old would not need after school care. The after hours care fees at the ELC are reasonable, and cover the same extended hours as daycare...plus they have a school holiday care program also at a reasonable fee (perhaps the private schools assume both parents work whereas the community kinders still assume there is a parent at home). I could not believe this, but I double checked my numbers and it is so. If we just had 1 child, it would work out completely differently as we would only need after kinder hours care on 2 days and then daycare or sitter on another 2 days.

So I guess I'll do what is suggested - pay close attention to what 3 year old kinder is like at the daycare and maybe ask to speak to a 4 year old kinder parent next year. Daycare kinder will be so much easier for us as we can keep what we know - 3 days daycare/2 days nanny and both children will be at the same daycare on the same days. DS1 will not have the sense of "change" to start school, but on the plus side, he's very happy there and we are happy with the center too.

As for what we will do when DS1 is ready for school...his first year will be when DS2 starts 3 year old kinder so we will need to figure it out...we both plan on remaining employed to the extent it's up to us, so we will patch together nanny care/after hours care along with daycare/nanny/kinder combo for the little one. And we hope to each have 1 day/week where we can leave work by 3ish.

Clearly, the people in charge do not understand how hard it is to juggle these programs with workplace hours and both my husband and I have about an hour of flexibility around start/end times...but even this doesn't free us up to deal with the community kinder hours.