Long day care and kindergarten, Edge Hill
A 74 place centre on a quiet Edge Hill street. Four rooms, one educator above ratio through the middle of the day, every meal cooked in our kitchen, and a native garden the children plant themselves.
or call (07) 5550 0150
Four rooms, 74 places
Every room runs the full day, 6:30am to 6:30pm. The fee is the same food, nappies, sunscreen and program in every one of them.
Twelve places for six weeks to two years, at one educator to four children, with sleep and feed routines you set.
Fifteen places for two to three year olds at one educator to five, built around movement, water and words.
Twenty two places for three to four year olds, with the courtyard water channel, sand and messy play at the centre of the day.
An approved Queensland kindergarten program for the year before Prep, taught by a registered teacher inside the long day.
Why we opened
Renae spent a year at a large centre where the roster was cut back to the legal minimum. The ratios were met on paper every single day, and she still spent most of hers covering breaks, nappy changes and lunch runs instead of being with children.
So Sunbird was built around a roster that carries one educator above ratio through the middle of the day, from about half past nine until half past three, which is exactly when the gap used to show. The day's roster goes up at each room door, with names on it. If you want to know who is with your child on a Thursday, read the door.
Required, and rostered
6:30am to 6:30pm
Every hour of this has been decided by somebody and written down. Here is the ordinary Tuesday the film was shot on.
6:45am
Doors open at half past six. Your child has a named primary educator from before their first day, and that is who meets them, at their height, at the door. If drop off is hard we will message you inside twenty minutes and tell you the truth about it.
7:20am
Wendy cooks four services a day in our own kitchen: breakfast, morning tea, a hot lunch and afternoon tea, on a five week rotation published before the term starts. Water is on the table all day and there is no cordial or juice in the building.
9:15am
Talei is registered with the Queensland College of Teachers and teaches the approved kindergarten program for fifteen hours a week across forty weeks, in the room your child is already in. No second drop off, no second car park. The block tower ran for five weeks and the argument about the roof was the point.
10:30am
Josh built the channel and the wheel out of decking timber after a kindy group spent three weeks pouring water down a gutter. Measuring, waiting a turn and working out why the water stops when the gutter is flat. Everything outside sits under a shade sail, and there are two educators in the yard at all times.
11:45am
Every room books the studio through the week. Clay, paint, charcoal, a light table and things picked up off the ground. The work gets photographed and the reasoning gets written down, which is honestly the more interesting half of what comes home in the bag.
1:00pm
Nobody is made to sleep. Cots are checked against safe sleeping practice in the nursery, and the older rooms have a quiet stretch with books before Marnie runs the movement circuit on the beam and the stepping pods, with an educator spotting.
4:00pm
The last of the day goes to the garden the children planted: native grasses down one side, herbs and vegetables down the other, and a watering roster the kindergarten room owns. Whatever comes out of it goes to Wendy, so the basil in tomorrow lunch is traceable to a four year old with a watering can.
Sun safe
Hats and sunscreen from UV 3. In Cairns the index clears 3 on most days of the year, so at Sunbird the hat rule is simply always on, and Marnie checks the reading before the yard opens.
In the wet we move the same activity to the covered verandah. We do not switch on a screen and call it a rainy day program.
Four services a day
Wendy came to us from a hotel kitchen in 2018 and cancelled the frozen supplier account inside a fortnight. Breakfast until half past seven, morning tea, a hot lunch and afternoon tea, on a five week rotation written against the Australian Dietary Guidelines and published before the term starts.
What you pay
Fees, closure dates and the term menu go up in January and do not move until the next January. Any change gets eight weeks' written notice. Here is what the daily fee already covers.
And what it does not
Child Care Subsidy
The claim is yours to make through your Centrelink online account in myGov. We cannot lodge it for you and no centre can. Do it early, because it is assessed on your family income estimate and your activity, and that assessment takes time.
Once you accept a place we submit a Complying Written Arrangement, which is the enrolment record Services Australia sees. It then sits in your myGov account waiting for you to confirm it. Until you confirm, no subsidy can be paid on any session.
When it starts, Services Australia pays your subsidy straight to Sunbird against the sessions your child was booked into. It never lands in your bank account, so nothing about it appears in your own transactions.
Your invoice shows the full daily fee, the subsidy paid on your behalf, and the difference, which is the gap fee. That gap is what actually comes out of your account each fortnight, and it is the number worth comparing between centres.
Subsidy is payable on a limited number of absence days each financial year, and a booked day you do not attend still uses one. Beyond that allowance the day is charged at the full fee. We show your absence count on every invoice so it is never a surprise in June.
Rates, income thresholds and the activity test are set by Services Australia and change, so we do not print them here. Renae will sit down with your own figures and the current rates before you enrol, and we will show you the arithmetic rather than a brochure.
First week was rough and they texted me every single morning inside twenty minutes. Day nine he walked in without looking back.Callum T., Whitfield. Settling in with a primary educator.
We publish the four star ones as well, because a page of nothing but fives tells a parent that somebody is doing the choosing.
Getting started
Tours, the waitlist and both orientation visits are free. There is one fifty dollar enrolment fee per family on your first invoice, and no bond.
Ring us on (07) 5550 0150 or send the form at the bottom of this page. Tours run at 9:30am and 4pm on weekdays and take about forty five minutes.
If we cannot offer you a place on the spot you go on the waitlist with your preferred days and start date, at no charge. Wednesdays and Thursdays fill first.
The offer comes in writing with the room, the days, the daily fee and the start date on it. Nothing is verbal.
Enrolment form, child health record, immunisation history statement, medical management plans, court orders where they apply, and emergency contacts.
Your enrolment sits in your myGov account waiting for you to confirm it. Until you do, no subsidy can be paid on any session.
Two visits before day one, then a short first day. Your primary educator is named before either of them.
Typical wait
8 to 12 weeks for a nursery place.
Kindergarten places for the following year mostly open in October. Ring and ask rather than fill in a form, because the answer changes week to week and Renae knows it off the top of her head.
Where families come from
Sunbird sits on a quiet street three back from the gardens end of Edge Hill. The run below is off peak, in ordinary Cairns traffic.
Worth reading first
What settling actually looks like day by day, what we do when your child cries at the gate, and roughly when the first easy morning turns up.
Read itWho claims, who confirms, who gets paid and what a gap fee is, written so you can read your own invoice by the end of it.
Read itWhat an approved kindergarten program covers in Queensland, what goes into the transition statement, and what a school does with it.
Read itBook a tour
Not an open day, not a Saturday with the good toys out. An ordinary weekday at half past nine or at four, with the rooms running and the children in them.
Demonstration only. Nothing was sent and nothing was stored. On a live site this would reach hello@sunbirdearlylearning.com.au and a booking would be confirmed by phone.
