Centres and programs Report
Preschools
KU continued to operate a total of 95
preschools including 85 centre based,
8 mobiles and 2 Learning Together
inclusive preschool programs for children
with additional needs. In the lead up
to the State election, a number of KU
preschools supported the Children’s
Choice Preschool Campaign to highlight
the importance of making preschool
services accessible and affordable for
families in NSW.
Under the PIRP Viability Funding, 33 KU
preschools were successful in obtaining
an additional $369,993 in funding that
was used to lower fees for all families
or to give additional fee relief to families
on low incomes.
With the support of the Independent
Education Union and IBM, a number
of KU preschools participated in the
IBM Kidsmart Project. This includes the
centres being given an IBM computer,
software and child furniture for children
to use and training for staff. This has
been a successful project for many years
and KU will continue to be involved
wherever possible in future years.
During 2007, major building works
were carried out at KU Newport and KU
Phoenix Preschools. Work continued
on the North Katoomba venue used by
KU Blue Mountains Mobile Preschool to
enable it to be re-licensed as a permanent
centre based preschool when the work is
completed early in 2008. Plans and costings
were finalised for a total refurbishment
of KU Isobel Pulsford Preschool as well
as a variety of building projects to be
completed in 22 preschools during the
December 2007/January 2008 period.
Long Day Care
KU operates 16 community-based long
day care centres and 1 before and after
school care, plus 14 work-based long
day care services including 1 after school
care program on behalf of 16 clients in
NSW and Victoria. The number of long
day care centres increased by one with
the commencement of The Joey Club
Melbourne in January.
In 2007 NCAC introduced a system of
spot checks to monitor the ongoing
compliance to the standards.
KU responded to 2 documents on the
review of the NCAC Draft Child Care
Accreditation Standards. The main
areas of concern were the proposed
introduction of one Quality Assurance
System for all service types and the
proposed introduction of a standard of
accredited/not accredited, thus removing
any indication of variations in quality.
Utilisation continued to be closely
monitored in some centres and the
employment of a Marketing Coordinator
to support centres was welcomed.
KU supported the 1:4 Campaign facilitated
by Community Child Care and KU is
represented on the DoCS 1:4 reference
group. Both of these initiatives support
a move to more appropriate staff:child
ratios in the next regulations.
AMEP
The Adult Migrant English Programme
provides language classes for eligible
newly arrived migrants. KU is a part of
a consortium led by acl and KU’s role
is to provide child care for children of
students attending language classes.
Child care is provided in child care centres
attached to the language college (onsite)
or in mainstream child care centres. KU
operates 7 onsite centres in Sydney with
a total capacity of 195 enrolments in the
morning and 180 in the afternoon.
There were 1,560 children in the program
over the 2007 calendar year which was
an increase of 8% from previous year and
152% more than original tender forecast
of 619 children per year.
The largest group of immigrants in 2007
was from Africa and these families were
humanitarian refugees, in particular
from the Sudan, and included a number
of different tribal groups and languages.
Other groups with humanitarian refugee
visas include families from Iraq, Burma,
and Afghanistan. Those on business visas
were primarily from Pakistan, India, China
and Korea and those on family reunion
visas were from Vietnam.
Special Education Program
In 2007 the Special Education Team
[SET] supported 1,202 funded children
with additional needs to be included in
KU centres. Funding to support these
children was provided from three main
sources: SCAN [Supporting Children
with Additional Needs], Department of
Education and Training [DET] and the
Inclusion Support Program [ISA].
As well as participating in the KU
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KU’s 112 th Annual Report 2007