Rest and sleep time is a nice peaceful time in the centre with sleeping children looking ever so cute on their little beds dotted around the rooms while white noise and lullaby’s play in the background. Perfect time to get some much-needed work done but before the Manager knows it, they have a tour of the centre booked in and new parents and two excited children are waiting at the door, eager to see inside and have a play.
The tour is when the Centre Manager can showcase their centre, show off their beautiful rooms and introduce new families to their amazing Educators, keeping in mind they need to meet their KPI’s and occupancy goals from management, adding more pressure to what seems like a straightforward task. Making parents and children feel comfortable in the environment and with the Educators is the most important part of the tour and filling their wants and needs is key.
Its 2pm and the Centre Manager is yet to complete any of their tasks for the day and as always, they continue to grow. They speak to the Room Leaders to try to get a little quiet time in the office without any interruption but just like that there has been an incident in the kindy room. A child has fell off a bike outside and has sustained some minor cuts and a little bump to their head. The Centre Manager ensures first aid is administered and the child is comforted before ensuring an incident report is completed and signed by the Educators who witnessed the occurrence. They will then ring the parents of the child to notify them of the injuries and of course reassure them that their little one is well. More paperwork and filing to add to the mountain already stacked in the office and without a doubt this will not be the only incident of the day.
Parents begin to filter in to collect their children from around 3.30pm, again this is a busy time for the Centre Manager as it’s a chance for many parents to ask questions about their account, change their child’s days or even just have a chat and of course get all those stories about what their little one got up to throughout the day.
Parents are normally arriving after a long day at work and sometimes this can be a prime time for concerns or complaints to be voiced. Little things like lost belongings or missing socks can become major issues and finding these things in a busy centre full of 90 children at 4pm is something every Centre Manager dreads. This can be a very time consuming and most of the time hopeless task as they normally turn up the next day after going home in another child’s bag.
It’s now 5pm and the Manager was really hoping to get home to their own children, but it looks like it’s going to be another late one with unanswered e-mails waiting, next week’s roster not finished, incomplete timesheets and payday impending, they have a lot to do before close.
With only a few children left the centre is like a ghost town and finally the Manager gets a few priority tasks completed. Then not before getting caught in another chat with a parent who has arrived right on 6.30pm, they haul their pile of paperwork back to the car in hopes that they will get something done between dinner, bath time and bedtimes of their own family. And just maybe after a long stressful day the Centre Manager will get some food and that much-needed toilet break they still haven’t got to from lunch time before starting their busy night ahead.
