Facilities and Services
Full day care
Children can attend from 7.30 am to 6.30 pm, they will receive breakfast, morning snack, hot dinner, afternoon snack and tea.
Ducklings: Accommodates children aged 12 months onwards, it has a capacity of up to 10 children and the ratio is based on 1 practitioner and 5 children. The room is equipped with age appropriate equipment, small tables and chairs for the children to sit independently and move around the furniture. The daily plan is child centred and the activities are based on the children’s interests and themes. Children will move onto the Monkey room when space allows.
Monkeys: Accommodates children aged 24 months onwards and has a capacity of 12 children, working on a ratio of 1 practitioner to 6 children. This room may also cater for the ECCE scheme for the older children in the room who are eligible. The curriculum within the room encourages the child’s learning through various activities based on an emerging curriculum, using Aistear framework. Sleeping requirements are accommodate according to parents wishes.
Pandas: The room can accommodate up to 16 children for full day care and 19 children for the ECCE session. The ratio is 1:8 for full day care and 1:11 for sessional times. This room has combined groups from 3 years up of children in their first and second playschool year. Play is extremely important for learning at this stage and we encourage the children to make their own choices and help them to build their confidence and independence. As in all other rooms, the curriculum emerges based on the children’s interests which have been noted by the practitioners in the room, as well as various themes throughout the year, using the Aistear Framework. The ECCE session runs from 9:15am to 12:15noon in this room.
Giraffes: This is our sessional playschool in our new extension and accommodates 22 children, with 2 practitioners but we aim to try and have 3 practitioners as much as possible. This is a mixed group of children in their first and second year of the ECCE scheme. We love to play – it encourages learning without knowing it! curriculum emerges based on the children’s interests which have been noted by the practitioners in the room, as well as various themes throughout the year, using the Aistear Framework. The ECCE session runs from 9:30am to 12:30noon in this room for 38 weeks of the year.
School Aged Childcare: Is now offered in our new extension “The Den”. We start breakfast club at 7:30am until 9am, and the children are accompanied across to St Marys National School for 9.20am. We have 2 afterschool rooms and can accomodate up to 48 children. Children are collected from St Marys National school at 2pm or 3pm, they are provided with a hot meal just after 3pm and a small snack at 5:30pm. Written homework is supervised and we encourage children to stop after 1 hour if their homework is not complete, in order to have some down time with their friends. We try to play outside as much as possible, acknowledging that children have been in school all day and need the space to get outside. Afterschool closes at 6:30pm
Golden Hour is also held in The Den, children can be collected from this room.
Playschool
In our sessional room playschool runs from 9:30am to 12:30pm and can accommodate 22 children. We are registered to provide the ECCE scheme. Please contact management to find out the year your child is eligible. Playschool session also runs in our full day care room from 9:15am to 12:15pm.
Breakfast Club
Breakfast club is now run in our purpose built extension. For those attending St Mary’s National School, children can avail of the breakfast club before school starts. They will receive breakfast and be accompanied to school at 9.20am.
Afterschool Club
Children are collected from St Mary’s National School at either 2pm or 3pm. They are provided with a hot meal. Homework is supervised and the children are then given the opportunity to choose their own activities.
Golden Hour Club
For those children in Junior and Senior Infants who may have older siblings finishing at 3pm, we provide care for one hour, to save parents on collections. Extra hours are available outside these sessions, depending on numbers, please speak to the Manager if you require same.
