Our Ethos
Mission Statement
ARC Family Resource Centre at Raheen using a universal approach to Family Support alleviates unemployment, enhances education, training opportunities, depletes addresses isolation, encourages and supports individuals and families
within the community
Equality Statement
At A Place to Grow, we respect each child as an individual regardless of age,
gender, race, disability, social status or religious beliefs. Each child is offered equal
opportunities to enable the full participation of every child in all activities.
Religious Ethos
A Place to Grow is non-denominational and as such is open to children from all
races, cultures and religious backgrounds. The centre does not promote any particular religious practices.
Our Main Aims & Objectives
- To provide a range of high quality, affordable and accessible options to meet the needs of parents and their children in their early years and throughout their primary school life in a safe, friendly and child-centred environment.
- To provide a wide variety of experiences that will help stimulate the holistic development of each child.
- Priority is always to meet the needs and best interests of the child.
- We are committed to making the service accessible to all through provision of affordable childcare. Having strong roots in our community, we value ongoing input from parents and children, thereby always making our service relevant to the needs of the community
- To provide the children with opportunities and experiences to extend and enrich their learning and development through play and to stimulate their overall holistic development
- To communicate openly with parents / children and other staff members to show transparency in all areas of the service.
- To encourage children to make decisions and choose activities which will promote independence.
- To carry out monthly observations on all children to ascertain their level of development
- To have fully qualified staff with training constantly being updated & accessed to maintain high standards and keep abreast of changing regulations/ requirements & childcare practices.
- To ensure that each child is happy and has fun here in A Place to Grow
- To comply with and work according to The Child Care Act 1991 Early Years Services Regulations 2016 and work under the Siolta Framework, which governs Quality Care to all children under aged 6.
Fees & Subsidies
We offer affordable Childcare to all families including the Free Preschool year ECCE
The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme provides early childhood care and education for children of pre-school age. Children can start ECCE when they are 2 years and 8 months of age and continue until they transfer to primary school (provided that they are not older than 5 years and 6 months at the end of the
pre-school year) – see rules.
The State pays participating playschools and day-care services a set amount per child to offer the ECCE service. In return, participating centres and playschools provide a pre-school service free of charge to all children within the qualifying age range. The service is for a set number of hours over a set period of weeks (see ‘How the ECCE scheme is provided’ below).
ECCE is not affected by the introduction of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). You may get financial support from the NCS towards the cost of childcare for the hours spent outside of pre-school. You can read more on ncs.gov.ie.
Fees are payable on a Monday or the first day of the week that your child attends, by cash/cheque or direct debit. Please do not hesitate to contact us to enquire about our daily/weekly Fee’s on 051428805
Subsidies
Do you realise that childcare can now be very affordable as there are many subsidies available to reduce the cost very significantly. Depending on the age of your child, you may have very little to pay. Find out what you are entitled to by visiting the National Childcare Scheme website.
Affordable Childcare
The image above is from the National Childcare Scheme website.
We strongly advise you to visit this site to ensure you are aware of your full childcare entitlements. There is a subsidy calculator also.
Registration
A comprehensive Child Record and Contract Form must be completed prior to a
child attending A Place to Grow Raheen, Adamstown and Rathgarogue. This is to ensure that all relevant information is available that will help us get to know the child and to ensure we can contact Parents/Guardians with anything that may arise. The Child Record Form enables us to know things about each child- if they have a comforter/ their likes and dislikes. All forms are treated with the strictest confidence and adheres to our data protection
policy and the Data Protection Act 1988 – 2003. Registration of a child is completed by prior arrangement with the Early Years
Services Manager
Curriculum
We operate according to Siolta`s National Quality Standards and the Aistear`s Curriculum Framework.
Síolta is designed to define, assess and support the improvement of quality across all aspects of practice in early childhood care and education settings where children aged birth to six years are present.
Aistear is the early childhood curriculum framework for children from birth to six years in Ireland. It gives information to help plan for and provide enjoyable and challenging learning experiences so that all children can grow and develop as
competent and confident learners. Because early childhood marks the beginning of children’s lifelong learning journeys, this framework called Aistear, the Irish word for “journey”.
Aistear uses four themes to outline children’s learning and development. These themes connect and overlap with each other:
- Well-being
- Identity and Belonging
- Communicating
- Exploring and Thinking
Our three service’s practice the national childhood curriculum. Aistear is based on four themes that all work together to provide structure and support in early learning
which enables all children to become successful learners, confident individuals,
responsible citizens and effective contributors to society. Both centres share staff
and unified values in delivery and practice. Close working and collaboration means.
Outdoor Learning
Learning outdoors is an important area within the curriculum. At both bases, the staff and children use the outdoor area as an extension to their rooms. By providing daily
opportunities for outdoor play and learning, the children have the freedom to experience energetic play without the restraints of the indoor environment. By playing outdoors the children have the opportunity to be challenged and involved in risk-taking activities, large physical play and exercise, planting and growing activities,
den making, and various other activities. This allows children the opportunity to begin to appreciate the world around them through nature.
Polices
The Parents handbook contains a synopsis of all of our policies. If you wish to read any of the policies and procedures in detail please request these from the Early Years Services Manager.
We are here to help
We are dedicated to supporting families in their ever changing needs
You are welcome to call into us or send an email by clicking on the link below
Become Involved....
There are lots of ways to become involved in our work: volunteering, fundraising, work experience, CE Schemes, TUS Schemes and more….
We would love to hear from you. Click below to get in touch
