What rooms and programs do you offer?
We run four rooms: Nursery for 6 weeks to 18 months, Toddlers for 18 months to 3 years, Preschool 1 for 3 to 4 years and Preschool 2 for 4 to 5 years. Every room follows the Early Years Learning Framework through play-based learning, with a two-year school readiness program running across both preschool rooms.
- Nursery — 6 weeks to 18 months
- Toddlers — 18 months to 3 years
- Preschool 1 — 3 to 4 years
- Preschool 2 — 4 to 5 years
Which preschool room a child is in depends on the year they will start school, not their birthday alone. Preschool 2 is the year before Kindergarten. Transitions between rooms are planned with you well in advance.
Nursery · 6 weeks to 18 months
We call it the feeling.
The nursery at Maroubra Junction Early Education Centre takes babies from 6 weeks to 18 months. Twelve to fourteen babies, three to four educators, and the same educators every day. You notice the feeling as you walk in: love, calmness and genuine care. This is what builds it.
How many babies are in the nursery?
On any given day there are twelve to fourteen babies in the MJEEC nursery, with three to four educators. Never fewer than one educator to every four children, which is what the National Regulations require, and on many days better than that.
The ratio is not a choice we made. The size of the room is. Fourteen is small. It means fewer competing needs at any one moment, and an educator who can sit on the floor with your baby instead of managing a crowd.
Do you use casual or agency staff?
No. Our nursery in Maroubra is staffed by the same permanent educators every day. Not low turnover. The same people, in the same room, every day.
If an educator is away, the person who steps in is someone your baby already knows. Most often it is the Director herself.
That is the part most centres cannot promise, and for a baby it is the part that matters most.
How does settling a new baby work?
Our orientation period is extensive, and it runs at your baby’s pace rather than to a date on a form. Short visits to begin with, with you in the room, then nearby, then away.
We prefer not to start a baby in care until they are settled. Attachment is built by repetition with the same people, and a baby who has had that time arrives already knowing where they are and who has them.
Why is the baby room so calm?
The MJEEC baby room is calm because needs are answered before they escalate. A baby whose needs are met early does not have to cry loudly to be heard.
Calm is the product of two things. Routines that are genuinely established, and educators who know one particular baby well enough to read them early, telling tired from hungry before it becomes a cry.
You are welcome to stand in the doorway of the nursery on a tour and watch for a few minutes before you decide anything. It will tell you more than we can.
Toddlers · 18 months to 3 years
The year they want to do it themselves.
Our toddler room in Maroubra is for children from 18 months to 3 years. Everything speeds up at this age. Walking, talking, opinions, and not yet the words to explain any of it. A good deal of our job is supplying those words, alongside toilet training and the beginnings of independence.
What is the ratio in the toddler room?
Both ratios apply, because the room spans 18 months to 3 years. Children under two are counted at one educator to every four. Children over two are counted at one to five.
The younger children are always counted at one to four, never at one to five. That is what the National Regulations require, and it is worth asking any centre you tour how they handle a room that spans the two year mark.
How do you build independence in toddlers?
By letting them try. An eighteen month old wants to do everything and can do almost none of it yet. At MJEEC they attempt shoes, cups, taps, packing away and climbing in and out of things themselves.
It is slower and messier than doing it for them. That is the point. Independence is not taught in a lesson. It is a hundred small chances to have a go.
How do you approach toilet training?
As a team with the parents, and only when the child is ready rather than on a date that suits us. This is the one parents dread, and working it out alone at home is genuinely daunting.
Our toddler educators have worked alongside each other for years and have taken a great many children through it. That experience is the reason it tends to go smoothly here rather than turning into a battle.
We run a toilet training information evening for families, and if you would rather talk privately we will sit down with you individually. Then we use the same approach at the centre that you use at home.
Nobody has to work it out on their own.
How do you handle tantrums?
By giving the child the words. A tantrum is usually a child with a feeling much bigger than their vocabulary, and shouting at them does not add words.
So our educators name what is happening. You are angry because the tower fell. You wanted the red cup. Over months the words start arriving before the meltdown does, and that is what self regulation actually looks like at this age.
We do not punish a two year old for behaving like a two year old.
Who works in the toddler room?
The team in the MJEEC toddler room have worked together for years, and it matters here for the same reason it matters in the nursery.
A child in the middle of learning to use a toilet, or in the middle of a hard week, does not want to explain themselves to somebody new.
Ask to see the toddler room on your tour, ideally somewhere near the middle of the day when it is busy. That is when you learn the most.
Preschool 1 · 3 to 4 years
Building a strong foundation for school.
Preschool 1 at MJEEC in Maroubra is for children aged 3 to 4, and it is the first of the two years of our school readiness program. It is also when a child starts to become part of a group. Friendships, disagreements, staying with something long enough to finish it, and the first real steps into letters and numbers.
How do you teach literacy and numeracy at 3 years old?
Through play rather than worksheets. Hearing the sounds inside words, recognising their own name, counting things that actually matter to them.
The reason for starting in Preschool 1 is that nothing then has to be rushed in the year before school.
How do children learn to make friends?
By being allowed to get it wrong. Friendships begin in earnest at three. Choosing who to sit beside, negotiating, being left out, working out how to get back in.
We do not smooth over every disagreement. A child who never has to sort one out never learns how, and this is the safest year to practise.
What do you do when a child pushes or snatches?
We give them the sentence to use instead. Three year olds still push, grab and snatch. It is normal, and this is the stage at which it changes.
I was using that. I do not like it. Can I have a turn when you are finished. Then our educators stay close enough that it works.
Asserting yourself with words is a skill, and it takes a year of practice alongside adults who expect it of you.
How do you build concentration?
By letting children finish. Concentration is the one nobody asks about on a tour, and it is among the better predictors of how a child copes in kindergarten.
If something is going well, we do not interrupt it because the timetable says so.
By the end of this year a child is ready for the second half of the program, the year before school. Ask us on your tour what that step looks like.
Preschool 2 · 4 to 5 years
A day that already looks like school.
Preschool 2 at MJEEC in Maroubra 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.
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.
We also run information evenings with the principals of the surrounding schools and local allied health professionals, so that you walk into big school informed too.
What is your school readiness program?
School readiness at MJEEC runs across two full years, not one term. Preschool 2 is the final year, and the whole class starts Kindergarten together the following year — so your child spends their last year with the same group they will walk into school with. Children build pre-literacy and numeracy, pencil grip, sustained attention, and the social skills that matter most in Kindergarten — sharing, following instructions and managing their own belongings. Our preschool program is led by qualified Early Childhood Teachers.
What do children eat?
All meals are cooked fresh on site by our in-house chef — morning tea, a hot lunch, afternoon tea and a late snack. Menus rotate seasonally and cater for allergies, intolerances and cultural requirements. Food is included in your daily fee, so there is nothing to pack.
Do children play outside every day?
MJEEC has a large all-weather outdoor area with covered shade and a sandpit, so children get outside every day regardless of weather. Because we are on Level 1 above Pacific Square, the yard is fully enclosed and secure, with no street frontage and no through traffic.
How do you settle a new child in?
Every family is offered a free stay-and-play session before starting, so your child meets their educators in the room they will actually be in. We then build an individual settling plan with you — shorter days first if that helps — and send photos and updates through the day.
Our programs — your questions answered
What are your educator to child ratios?
NSW regulations require one educator to four children under two years, one to five for children aged two to three, and one to ten for children over three up to preschool age. MJEEC meets these ratios at all times, across every room and every part of the day.
How qualified are your educators?
Around 80% of our educators hold a Diploma of Early Childhood Education or are qualified Early Childhood Teachers, above the regulated minimum of 50%. Every educator also holds a current Working With Children Check, first aid, asthma and anaphylaxis management training, and child protection and child safety training.
Is your program aligned with the Early Years Learning Framework?
Yes. Every room programs against the Early Years Learning Framework, and our educators document each child’s learning against its five outcomes. You will see this in your child’s learning journal rather than only at parent-teacher time.
How will I know what my child did today?
You will get photos, observations and daily updates through the Kinderm8 Family app, including meals, sleeps, nappies and learning moments, posted through the day rather than summarised at pickup. Educators are also available at drop-off and collection for a proper conversation.
What do I need to pack?
A change of clothes and a comforter if your child uses one. That is it. Nappies, wipes, all meals, sunscreen and hats are provided and included in your daily fee.
My child has allergies or dietary requirements. How do you manage that?
Our in-house chef cooks to individual allergy and dietary plans, and every allergy is documented with a risk minimisation plan developed with you. All educators hold asthma and anaphylaxis management training, and medication and action plans are kept in the room your child is in.
What happens at a stay and play visit?
A tour shows you the centre; stay and play shows your child the centre. You spend time in the room your child would join, with the educators who would care for them, while your child plays. It is free, takes about an hour, and there is no obligation to enrol.
Come and see us before you decide
A tour shows you the centre. Stay and play shows your child the centre. Book both by calling (02) 9315 5588 or emailing info@mjeec.com.au.