Preschool 2 at Maroubra Junction Early Education Centre is for children aged 4 to 5, in the year before school. The room runs on a school timetable rather than the centre routine. School readiness is not tracing worksheets in November. It is two years of quietly building the things that decide whether a child copes in kindergarten, and this is the second of them. We are open 7.00am to 6.00pm, Monday to Friday, on Level 1 at Pacific Square in Maroubra.
What does the daily routine look like?
It follows a school day rather than the centre routine. Crunch and sip at 10.30am, the same as recess at school. Lunch at 12. More structure through the day than the other rooms, on purpose.
By the time your child walks into kindergarten, none of that rhythm is new to them. Being hungry at the right time, finishing in the time available, packing up and moving on because the day says so.
Is Preschool 2 still play based?
Yes. More structure does not mean sitting still and being talked at. The program is emergent, which means it is built around what these particular children are interested in at the time.
Earlier this year that was sharks and the ocean. One question followed for weeks, which became the inquiry project behind our certified Little Scientists House.
What does school readiness actually cover?
Phonological awareness. Recognising their own name and letters. Strong numeracy. Naming and managing big feelings, and the techniques to settle themselves.
Opening a lunchbox. Asking an adult for help. The small practical things nobody thinks to teach, which are exactly what a child needs in week one.
What is a Transition to School Statement?
It is a document your child’s educator completes at the end of the preschool year, setting out their strengths, their interests and how they go about learning, against the Early Years Learning Framework.
You add the family and cultural context. Your child adds their own part: how they feel about starting school, and a piece of their work that they choose themselves.
It goes to their new school so that the kindergarten teacher starts the year already knowing something about your child. Nothing is sent without your signed consent.
Why is the school readiness program two years and not one?
Because the same educators build directly on what was started in Preschool 1, so literacy and numeracy go further when nobody has to begin again. The same is true of social skills, and of managing conflict, which is the hardest of them and the one that takes longest.
What we are aiming at is a child who is socially and emotionally strong. Strong enough to manage themselves on the playground, and confident enough to learn in the classroom. Those are two different skills, and kindergarten asks for both from the first day.
Big school is a big transition. A child who arrives able to make a friend, sort out a disagreement and ask an adult for help will manage it. That is what the two years are for.
Do you help parents prepare too?
Yes. We run information evenings with the principals of the surrounding schools and local allied health professionals, so that you walk into big school informed as well.
The whole class also starts kindergarten together the following year, so your child spends their last year with the group they will walk into school beside.
How will I know what my child did today?
Through the Kinderm8 Family app. Photos, observations, meals and learning moments, posted as they happen rather than written up at the end of the day.
What is included, and what do I pack?
All meals, sunscreen and hats are included in your daily fee, cooked fresh on site by our in-house chef to individual allergy and dietary plans.
You bring a change of clothes. Breaks run at school times, so your child practises opening and managing their own food here rather than for the first time in February.
Come and see the room
Ask to see Preschool 2 on your tour, ideally in the morning when the school day rhythm is running. Preschool 1 is the year before this one.
Maroubra Junction Early Education Centre, Level 1, 142 Maroubra Road, Pacific Square, Maroubra NSW 2035. Phone (02) 9315 5588.