Early Learning: A Reflection on the Past
Janine Schokman > Early Childhood Teacher and Licensee of Bright Beginnings Chermside
My name is Janine Schokman, and I am an early childhood teacher and licensee of Bright Beginnings Chermside. As our centre enters its 28th year, I thought I would reflect on the changes which have occurred within our early learning sector over this time. My mother and I designed, built, and opened Bright Beginnings Chermside in 1993 when interest rates were in the high teens. It was a very difficult process to gain a bank loan as women were not known as financial operators. Before 1992, the Child Care Benefit payment was only available to community centres. Once the government realised they required greater numbers of women in the workforce, the Child Care Benefit became available to families with children in privately owned childcare. Prior to building Bright Beginnings Chermside, I attended the private childcare owners meeting. At this meeting, I was informed of the oversupply of childcare services in Brisbane and that my service would not survive. There were already a few private operators at this time; Rascals, Nurseryland, Mother Duck, ABC Learning and Queensland Childcare Services. In the 1990s the Brisbane City Council dictated centres not to build on main roads due to noise and traffic. All new centres had to be on one level, 75 children per licence and co-located to a school. We needed to prove there was a need for the service through statistical data before council approval was given. Chermside had a state school and was known as an elderly suburb so when we decided to build,
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EARLY EDITION > AUTUMN 2021
it was on the site of an original farmhouse where the previous owner donated the land for the state school. These days it seems on every busy road there are new centres, and we often wonder where are all the children coming from to fill these services? And also, the qualified educators with enough experience to create magic? Bright Beginnings Chermside was initially opened with two licences, a 75 and a 26. With two licences, you needed two separate entrances, two kitchens, playgrounds, laundries and two Directors. Which is why you may notice some double centres are operating from two buildings. When Bright Beginnings Chermside first opened, we were supplied with an equipment list of what needed to be provided right down to how many 1-metre by 1-metre cushions per room. Cloth nappies from Brisbane Nappy Service were delivered to our service and had to be folded using nappy pins and pilchers to keep them in place. There were no wipes at that time, instead, we used face washers, washed terry towelling training pants and washed everything with Milton within an inch of its life. When I was designing the playgrounds, I engaged the prominent playground designer of the time. She told me it was horrific that the licence was for over 50 as in the
