Early Learning: A Reflection on The Past

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, 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

early 1990s the majority of centres were community and under 50 places. When we initially opened, my playgrounds included multiple different textures and levels. We had a sandpit, mud patch, heavy landscaping with native plants, natural grass, and swings. In 1993, some services were built with pools for swimming lessons and I see that this now has once again returned to many services in 2021. As Hamilton Road was classed as a major road, we had to complete several sound reports. The council initially wanted a full two-metre brick wall around the centre as a sound buffer but luckily, my grade 9 debating skills enabled me to negotiate moving it just around the front of the large playground. They did however make us dig lower than the road to also create a sound buffer.

At Bright Beginnings Chermside, we had a large number of babies enrolled, some were just 2 weeks of age! All cots had bumpers and quilts and some children had asthma which required the use of their nebulisers daily. There was also a small number of children who suffered from anaphylaxis which back then was not as well-known as it is now.

State schools provided 5-day-fortnight free preschool, and there was a perception that this was “real” learning even though we had the same teacher qualifications. Inclusion support was available, and the agency provided the educator who was employed by them. The associate diploma was offered by TAFE full-time or part-time at night. A large proportion of staff had waivers as they were not qualified, and everyone worked full-time as there were no wage percentages in those days. In terms of paperwork there was no access to computers, so all fees were paid in cash or cheque and forms were filled in manually which took a tremendous amount of time. Centrelink letters were mailed out and there was no cap on hours attending. In 1993 the daily fee was $25, and educators were paid weekly in cash. CCS was paid every three months in one lump sum based on two previous quarter’s usage. So, you were always either paying back or asking for extra. If parents did not sign with their full name on the sign in / out sheet and the centre had an audit you were not paid. I was forever chasing signatures. All programming was completed by hand and was the same circle of planning and individual observations. Parent monthly newsletters photocopied and rooms abuzz with plastic colourful Little Tyke items. We would take photos and drop them off for processing at the local Woolworths and hope the photos were good enough to include in the observations. We had blue tacked posters all around the service as the belief was colour is needed to learn. Education Queensland had a teacher support office in Stafford which allowed educators to access multiple resources to help with the creation of plans and programs for the service.

As I did not have an early learning service to show future enrolments before the opening of Bright Beginnings Chermside, I visited homes of potential families and explained to them my dream of Bright Beginnings Chermside and why it was an amazing early learning service for families and their children.

Unfortunately, my mother and I call ourselves the dinosaurs in childcare as owner independent operators are very rare. I am grateful Bright Beginnings Chermside are still providing families with a choice in this ever-growing corporate world.