Written by Roisin, Nominated Supervisor, Dashing Ducks Croydon
By about March each year the conversations at drop-off change. Parents who were asking about naps and lunch boxes start asking about big school instead. Is she ready? Should he be writing his name by now? When families go looking for a preschool Croydon parents can reach on the way to work, the question underneath it all is usually whether the year before school will set their child up properly.
It is a fair thing to worry about, and the honest answer is that school readiness looks less dramatic than most people imagine. It is not flashcards. It is a four year old who can open her own lunch box, sit in a group without wilting, and have a go at something hard without giving up. That is the work we do in the preschool room at our Croydon childcare centre, and it happens across an ordinary year of ordinary days.
Preschool and long day care are not two separate things here
In New South Wales the word preschool gets used two ways, which is where a lot of the confusion starts. A standalone or community preschool usually runs school-style hours and school terms, often around 9am to 3pm, and closes over the holidays. A preschool program is something different: it is the educational program delivered to three to five year olds in the year or two before school, and it can sit inside a long day care service.
Ours is the second kind. Our preschool room runs a proper early learning program, guided by the Early Years Learning Framework and led by an early childhood teacher, but it sits inside a long day care centre that opens Monday to Friday, 7am to 6pm. In practice that means your child gets the preschool year without you having to build a work day around a 3pm pick-up or scramble for holiday care in January. It also means the Child Care Subsidy applies to your fees, which is not always the case at a standalone preschool.
What school readiness actually involves
When we sit down with families in the year before school, we break readiness into four ordinary-sounding areas.
Self-help skills. Managing a lunch box and a drink bottle, getting shoes on the right feet, going to the toilet and washing hands without an adult standing over them, remembering a hat before going outside, packing their own bag at the end of the day. Kindergarten teachers tell us this is the difference they notice most in a first term.
Early literacy. Recognising their own name in print, hearing the sound at the start of a word, holding a pencil with some control, retelling a story in the right order, and choosing to sit with a book because they want to. We build this through stories, songs, rhyme games and drawing rather than worksheets.
Early numeracy. Counting with meaning rather than by rote, matching a numeral to a quantity, sorting and making patterns, noticing shapes, and using words like more, fewer, heavier and longer. Most of it happens in the block corner, at the playdough table and while the children set up for lunch.
Social confidence. Joining a game that has already started, taking a turn, disagreeing with a friend and recovering from it, asking an adult for help, and coping when the plan changes. This is the one that takes the longest and matters the most.
What a preschool day looks like at Wychbury Avenue
The doors open at 7am and the first part of the morning is deliberately quiet. Puzzles, drawing, breakfast for the children who need it, and time to say a proper goodbye. Group time mid-morning is short and lively: a story, the plan for the day, and whatever the children have been asking about that week.
After that the room opens into the projects the children are working on, indoors and out, with educators extending what is already happening rather than directing it. Lunch is cooked on site and the children serve themselves where they can, because carrying your own plate is a school skill too. The afternoon holds a rest or quiet period, a long stretch of outdoor play, and something slower before pick-up. Most weeks there is a visitor, a walk or an incursion.
Working with the schools our children move on to
Croydon children head off to a handful of local schools. Most go to Holy Innocents Catholic Primary School just up the road or to Croydon Public School, with others starting in Burwood, Ashfield or Strathfield. We start planning for that from the middle of the year.
In term three and four we bring school routines into the room: a real lunch box a couple of days a week, longer group times, and names written on their own work. We talk families through orientation dates as they land, and where a school asks for a transition to school statement we write one, so the kindergarten teacher starts the year already knowing the child in front of her. If a child is likely to need extra support, we would much rather that conversation happened in November than in February.
The practical details
Our preschool room is for children aged three to five, and most families take three to five days a week in the year before school. Because we are a long day care service, the Child Care Subsidy applies to preschool fees the same way it applies to any other room, depending on your family income and activity level. If you would rather see a number than a percentage, our Child Care Subsidy calculator will give you an estimate of what a week actually costs your family, and our CCS guide walks through the eligibility rules and the paperwork in plain English.
We are a small, family-owned centre rather than part of a chain, so places in the preschool room are limited and tend to fill early. If you are thinking about a 2027 start, it is worth having the conversation now.
Come and see the preschool room
You can read about a program, or you can stand in the room on an ordinary Tuesday morning and watch it happen. We would much rather you did the second. Come and see us at 8 to 12 Wychbury Avenue, Croydon, any weekday between 7am and 6pm, or call (02) 7251 3390 to book a tour. Bring your child and your questions, and see how the room feels.