At Waratah Montessori Preschool we offer a preschool program for 3 to 5 year old children based on the Montessori philosophy of education for up to 29 children a day.
We offer extended hours and a choice of days for the benefit of working parents with a minimum of 2 days attendance a week. The centre is open 49 weeks of the year and children can attend either for preschool hours from 9.00am to 3.00pm or for extended hours from 8.00am to 4.00pm.
All eligible parents are able to access the Child Care Benefit from the Family Assistance Office as we are approved as a "long day care centre".
Children bring their own lunch and fruit for morning tea, whilst afternoon tea is provided for children staying for extended hours.
The preschool is located on the extensive grounds of a local public school in a custom built building with a beautiful shaded outdoor area. It is a small, privately owned centre with a stable and committed staff including a Korean member on 3 days per week.
Our program caters particularly well for the development of children's gross and fine motor skills, as well as literacy and numeracy skills.
We look forward to welcome you and your child, please contact us to discuss your child care needs.
Our Montessori classroom is a vibrant community of up to 29 children aged 3 to 5 years coming from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.
In our classroom, the children are free to move about, to talk among themselves and to choose the activities from the shelves that they wish to work with. The staff spend time with the children individually or with small groups, giving demonstrations of new activities and - supporting or guiding them in their choices. There are five basic areas of the Montessori programme:
Practical Life exercises provide the link between home development of co-ordination, concentration and independence. The Practical Life activities include, pouring, cleaning, dressing skills, food preparation, sewing, social skills, control of movement and art/craft activities.
We include a rich variety of art and craft activities because of the opportunities they provide for the children to develop a variety of skills such as fine motor, creativity, problem solving, self-expression, and most important of all - enjoyment and satisfaction.
Sensorial exercises are designed to help children develop their sensory perceptions through a variety of activities which involve matching or grading objects according to shape, colour, touch, sound and weight.
Language activities are designed to increase all language development in the young child, including vocabulary and phonic awareness as well reading and writing skills for those children who are interested and ready. We use many of the Letterland resources in our classroom.
Mathematical concepts are offered to children through concrete materials which help children to learn to count and recognise numbers.
Cultural activities include flags and puzzle maps for geography, birthday celebrations for history, simple science experiments as well as activities to learn about plants and animals.
Children engage in the various activities depending on their interests and abilities. Staff will take these interests and abilities into consideration when planning for each child while being mindful of offering children experiences to extend them into other areas. However, we always take our lead from the child as we respect that he is guided by impulses which we can only observe and try to provide experiences for.
Fees for 2010 are as follows and are payable 4 weekly in advance:
Preschool Hours - 9.00am to 3.00pm: $55.50 per day
Extended Hours - 8.00am to 4.00pm: $68.00 per day
Guidelines for attendance
These are guidelines only and are dependent on availability. Other options will be considered on application and at the discretion of the director.
Children will generally be enrolled to start at 3 years of age as this first year prepares them for the things that they will be doing in the second year.
Children in the first level, i.e. 3yr olds, may attend for the preschool or extended hours with a minimum of 2 days weekly.
Children in the second level, i.e. those eligible for school the following year may attend for the preschool or extended hours with a suggested minimum of 3 days weekly in order for them to fully benefit from the program.
As the Montessori philosophy is quite different to other educational philosophies it is preferable that children not attend another centre at the same time. This is because it can be difficult for the children to adjust to the different expectations.
Other fees
Parents are required to pay a waitlist fee of $50 with their Enrolment Application and an Acceptance Fee of $300 once they are offered a place for their child at our preschool (minus $50 if paid with enrolment application). These fees are not refundable (except in special cases) and contribute towards the preschools' membership fees to Montessori Australia Foundation as well as towards administrative and maintenance costs.
Parents will be asked to visit with their child prior to a place being offered so that we can determine the child's readiness to start preschool in accordance with our enrolment policy. Click on the link below to open our enrolment application form.
