Community Daycare Registration & Enrolment
Registration
Registration in our Daycare is ongoing, year round. You may inquire about space availability or put your child’s name on a waitlist at any time. Just call the Daycare, at 947-9628.
At the time of enrolment, we will charge a $25 non-refundable registration fee, and require a deposit equal to one half of your first month’s estimated fees.
Enrolment Policy
Overview
The Community Daycare is classified as a licensed group daycare, 30 months to school age. ‘School age’ means that we may take children who are not yet in grade one. (That is, we may take kindergarten ‘graduates’ during the summer before they begin grade one).
Our capacity is presently 25 children, and on any given day we may take two children between the ages of 30 and 36 months. The minimum staff to children ratio is 1-8. We often staff higher than this to safeguard the quality of the program, and to reduce wear and tear on our staff. Managing a large group of children is no easy feat: the whole has a tendency to become greater than the sum of the parts. Further, different combinations of personalities create varying dynamics; some days are far more challenging than others even though the total number of children may the same, or lower.
We have the option of applying for variances to accept up to two children between the ages of 24 and 30 months. Vancouver Coastal Health – Bowen Island’s licensing/regulatory authority – may grant such variances, or not. Needless to say, incorporating children this young into a large group of preschool age children can be difficult. Charming though they are, two-year olds need far more hands-on care and involve a greater degree of pursuit than their older counterparts. Plus, there are diapering, napping, developmental, curriculum and safety issues with which to contend.
Current Daycare Enrolment policy
For the most part, we enrol children into our programs in the order in which we receive their parents’ applications. However, we do reserve the right to manage the acceptance of applications so as to create group dynamics that allow the children (and staff) to have the best possible experiences. This may include limiting the number of children based on age or sex.
For instance, if the Daycare receives, say, half a dozen consecutive applications for four year old boys, the teachers may decide to reserve the next spaces for girls, even if the ninth applicant is a boy. We have learned that groups heavily skewed to one or another gender do not function as well as those with a more even division.
This may mean, from time to time, deviating from the chronological order in which children are placed on the list, depending on circumstances.
Daycare registration is ongoing; parents may register their children at any time during the year, and children are accepted into the program as space becomes available.