After School Care

Our Centre, Gundoo Day Care was established in 1990 as 81 place centre catering for the children of the Cherbourg community and the nearby towns of Murgon and Wondai.

Our age groups overlap allowing us plenty of flexibility in placing children on transition - children are able to progress through the groups at their own rate of development.

The Centre has four sections -

6 weeks to 2 years
15 months to 3 years
2.5 years to 5 years
3 years to 5 years

Each area has a large supply of resources which are shared amongst groups and we have plenty of outdoor space, with a large outdoor playground provided for each group.

The areas are also attractively decorated with examples of children's work.

Environment

Culture forms a large part of these children's lives and we endeavour to immerse our children in many cultural activities.

Elders from our community visit our centre to talk with the children as well as go on excursions with them.

Local traditional dance troupes also visit us regularly.

Our centre actively participates in NAIDOC week activities. Parents form a partnership with our staff in providing the highest quality of care for the children of our centre and are regularly consulted on the development of their child.

We provide an open environment where parents are encouraged to participate in activities with the children.

Accreditation

Our community is very proud of the fact that we are a three year accredited centre. Previously on two occasions we were accredited for one year.

MACS centres are not compelled to go through the accreditation process, however we found that we have been able to guarantee our community the highest of quality care.

We believe every Aboriginal and Islander child in Australia deserves this quality of care.

With MACS funding very limited, though, we've had to obtain funds through other avenues to provide both air conditioning and central gas heating throughout our centre.

About Us

We are only one of three MACS centres in Queensland (others have been established at Palm Island and Woorabinda).

We provide Long Day, Occasional and Emergency Care (until April 1996, we also provided After School and Vacation Care but because of a lack of space at the centre we've had to forego this program).

Owing to large increases in utilisation in 1996 we had to seek capital funds through the National Childcare Strategy to make renovations and extensions to our centre.

Funds were approved in February 1997 and we set up a Project Committee to plan our extensions. Tenders were called in December 1997 and work commenced in April 1998.

Mother Kate's Early Learning Centre