Elder Street Early Childhood Centre

We are a practitioner research award winning family owned and operated long day education and care service catering for families and children between the ages of 6 weeks and 6 years.  We are licensed for 39 children each day and offer education and care to children in 3 age groupings - an 8 place nursery, a 10 place 2-3 years room and a 21 place Preschool program.  We are located in the main st of Lambton, minutes from the John Hunter Hospital, the University of Newcastle and the major business hubs of Newcastle.  We have been in operation since December 2004 and are owned and operated by Melissa Duffy-Fagan who holds a Master of Early Childhood Education from the University of Newcastle (UoN) and also works as a casual academic for the School of Education teaching in the undergrad degree program of the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education at UoN.  Our team of highly qualified and dedicated educators at Elder St ECHC have worked with us for between 14 years to 2 years.  Our current team consists of 5 University qualified Early Childhood Teachers, 2 Diploma qualifed teachers, Cert III trained educators and we also offer traineeships each year to those interested in gaining a qualification in our profession; these team members join our team for 12 months each year.  Our team of educators works with other services and the University of Newcastle in the capacity of practitioner research.  In 2017 we were awarded the European Early Childhood Education Research Association Award for our teacher research work with the University of Newcastle. This work and accolate positions our service as an industry leader of our profession.

Our last Assessment and Rating process was undertaken in 2013 where we received a rating Meeting the standard.  We have been advised by ACECQA that due to the back log of services in the area who over the last few years have needed to be reassessed more regularly due to receiving a working towards rating, our service is deemed low risk and is still waiting for our next assessment opportunity.  In the meantime we continue to provide our high quality, innovative, research based programs to hundreds of children and families in our region.  

We provide for our enrolled families the following services - meals include breakfast being available if required for early starters, morning tea, a 2 course lunch, afternoon tea and late afternoon tea for late leavers. Milk and water are offered at morning and afternoon tea, with water being available with lunch. Our preschoolers also have the opportunity to snack on fruit for times between meals when they are feeling hungry. We also provide nappies for children from 6 weeks to 3 years if required.  The Centre operates Monday to Friday, 7.00am to 5.50pm, the Centre is closed on Public holidays and for two weeks over the Christmas/New Year period.  We do not charge for public holidays.  We do not charge a waiting list fee.  We welcome all families who are interested in our service to contact us to make a time to view our centre and meet our team.