Serrell Street Kindergarten

UPDATE ON SERRELL STREET KINDERGARTEN FOR 2023 🔔
The day we worked so hard for has arrived!

We can officially announce that the kinder has been SAVED and will remain open in 2023! The incoming Early Years Manager is Glen Education (previously known as GEKA).
https://gleneducation.org.au

They are a renowned operator in Glen Eira and solely manage Kindergartens. They are just as excited as us for the future of Serrell St Kinder. We’re yet to find out exact next steps but should hopefully know a specific timeline soon.

Lots to celebrate at our Serrell Street Kindergarten Open Day & BBQ on Sunday and we look forward to seeing as many of you there who can attend as possible! 🥳🥳🥳

Parents and families! Have your say on the kind of services our local council should focus on for the future in this confidential survey by Stonnington City Council 👇🏽

🧒 As our community grows, the City of Stonnington is planning for the changing needs of children and families in our municipality.

💡 The population in South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor is projected to increase over the next 10 years and with access to three- and four-year-old kindergarten also expanding, we will need different services and facilities to support our community

✋ As part of this, we are planning to develop a new Early Years Hub. This will allow us to provide improved services and facilities for our community. We are also developing the Birth to 25 Action Plan to implement over the next three years.

✍️ To help us understand your needs, wants and preferences for early years services and to help us plan for a new Early Years Hub, we would like to hear from you about:
• The type of services you would like to access;
• How you would like to be able to access the services;
• How we can make accessing our services easier;
• What you would like early years facilities to look and feel like.

Visit Connect Stonnington to take the survey and view our pop-up sessions: https://connectstonnington.vic.gov.au/Early-Yrs

It's been a week of amazing wildlife experiences with some very special visitors to our 3 and 4 Year old classrooms. Thanks Wild Action for an incredible incursion. What a way to end the term. Enjoy the break!

SAVE THE DATE 🗓
It's been an uncertain few weeks but we would love to celebrate Serrell Street Kindergarten with the local community.
Please drop by the kinder for a BBQ on Sunday 9th October, 11am-3pm.
This event is open to everyone, tell your friends, family and anyone you know that has attended or been involved with Serrell Street Kindergarten.
More details to follow 🎉🌭🙌🏾

An Update on Serrel Street Kindergarten for 2023!

The Parents Advisory Committee (PAC) has been in discussions with an Early Years Manager (who specialise in kindergartens only). They are a local provider with an excellent track record and are very enthusiastic about the prospect of helping our kinder and Serrell Street community.

Whilst we can't name them yet, they are working directly with Uniting to undertake the necessary due diligence to present to their board so an official decision can be made to apply for the transfer of licence of Serrell Street Kindergarten towards the end of the month.

All going favourably, this would mean enrolments would be taking place in mid to late October.

The (PAC) unanimously feels this EYM are best placed to ensure operation of the Kindergarten in 2023 (& beyond) and in the long term offer the high quality of care and education we expect for our children. This is a fantastic outcome for the children, parents and community of Serrell Street.

How great are these colours?
We're lucky to have some amazing teachers who do their utmost to create spaces and activities to keep sparking our children's imaginations.

Petition to Keep Serrell Street Kindergarten Open!

Uniting Church and Stonnington Council are supporting the Parent Advisory Committee to take over as a parent run kindergarten . United Early Learning are committed to an amicable transfer. We now need urgent support from the government to support our Parent Provider application with DET and the grants process.

Please can you sign this petition to show your support to keep Serrell Street Kindergarten open!

Don't allow Minister Stitt and the government to fob off the children and families of Malvern East to other municipalities or long day care services!

Our local state member will be presenting this petition to Minister Stitt in show of support next week. Your urgent show of support is appreciated.

This campaign needs you now Keep Serrell Street Kindergarten Open

Update on action to Save Serrell Street Kindergarten:
- Firstly, the church has told us they are committed to keeping the kinder open and will do everything they can to support us in remaining open next year.
- Secondly, following a meeting with council yesterday, the council also pledged their support for us and mentioned they would provide financial support to get us up and running.
- Thirdly, and already under way with the hope we would receive the above positive news, we have commenced the process of becoming a parent run kinder and will be leveraging council and government support to fast track the application process. We did consider other providers but given the timelines and the need for those providers to do their due diligence we have chosen the parent run path which we feel also gives us more control over the running of our wonderful kinder.

- Finally, we wanted to thank all of the parents and community for your support to date. Be that writing to council, DET, local ministers, or completing surveys to help us understand the demand for the service. All of this work has helped us get to the position we are in today and while we're not there yet, we are well on the way to saving our local kinder.

We will be sure to keep you updated on our progress of becoming a parent run kinder as well as any additional info that comes to light. Please feel free to reach out if you have any more questions.

We're taking expressions of interest for 2023 -2024.
Fill in the survey here 👇

Serrell Street Kindergarten 2023-2024 Expression of Interest Please click the link to complete this form.