We’re lucky as a not-for-profit organisation to be able to operate with a staff-child ratio that exceeds the Early Childhood education requirements. To better serve our children and their families, there is always a Lead Educator, Assistant Educator and full-time float staff in each room.

Our staff speak many languages, adding to the rich cultural diversity of our centre. We’re delighted to provide a service where parents can talk in their home language to a nominated Playhouse representative on request.

We have staff who speak the following languages fluently:

• Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese)

• Korean

• Indian

• Indonesian

• Tamal

• Vietnamese

• Spanish

• Portuguese

• Arabic

• Japanese

We’re pleased to provide all meals for your child at Playhouse - one less thing for you to do at home. Food options include a nutritionally balanced morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and a late day snack. These are freshly made on site in our state-of-the-art commercial kitchen, by our qualified chef. A nutritionist also grades all meals and ingredients.

We cater to all dietary requirements including vegetarian, vegan, nut allergies and egg allergies, and all meat is halal certified. We’re always open to dialogue with you around food options for your children, and to help care for fussy eaters. By incorporating baking into our day-to-day activities, we foster enjoyment of food, cooking and working together.

Flexible meal times are in place to:

• Facilitate the opportunity for siblings to eat and enjoy time together

• Help children learn to listen to their body and eat when they’re actually hungry

• Reduce the need to interrupt children’s play

We welcome the following external providers into our centre each week. Participation in these extra-curricular activities will incur an additional fee.

• Happy Feets: $8.5 per session, weekly sessions are held on Tuesday mornings. Please register here: https://www.happyfeetfitness.com.au/booking/

• Ginger Sports: $12 per session, weekly sessions are held on Wednesday mornings. Please register here: https://gingersport.com.au/services/childcare-program/

• Special Books - making books to signify important and special people.

• Birthday celebrations and birthday baking!

• Campus excursions – visiting UQ’s Anthropology Museum, Library, Art Gallery and the lake to feed the ducks, turtles and eels.

• A Festival of Lights for the Hindi culture and Lunar New Year celebrations.

• Yoga classes are coming soon to Playhouse!

Participation in these activities is always voluntary, and something the children generally love doing. For any incursions, we will always obtain your signed permission beforehand.

We actively invest in ongoing staff learning and professional development. We’re always looking for new and improved ways to care for our extended family. Some of the ways we do this are:

• Connecting with other child care centres on campus and learning from our colleagues

• Taking part in various training sessions at UQ

• Attending professional development and external events, then sharing the information and insights with the Playhouse team.