One Tree Community Services will be operating an out of school hours care (OSHC) service in the school hall at Lithgow Public School commencing on Monday, May 27.
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The new program will include before and after school care as well as a vacation school program in the school holidays and will cater for children from Kindergarten to Year 6.
During care hours children will enter c-Verse (children's universe) which consists of nine different worlds created by children for children, according to One Tree area manager Tracey Jones.
"The children move around to the different worlds on a map and each of the worlds are set up around the school hall. The children then carry out activities in each world or create their own activity with the resources provided," she said.
Children can visit Active world, Bros and BFF world, Creative world, Chef world, Nature world, Performance world, STEM world, Story world and VAC world.
"All of the worlds link with the 'My time, our place' framework for school aged children," Ms Jones said.
Once activities are completed children mark off the activity on their individual score card.
"When they have completed the required amount of activities they can collect cards, wrist bands and other c-Verse merchandise, similar to Pokemon," Ms Jones said.
Ms Jones said she thought it was important to have OSHC because there was a shortage of high quality OSHC services across Australia.
"It's important to have high quality before and after school care services to support the families of the school and the surrounding community.
"Outside of school hours care matters and children have a right to be simulated and have fun outside of school hours," she said.
She also said having OSHC on the school premises was much better than having to transport children on a bus to another site.
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"I know that when I was deciding on OSHC for my own children this was a big influence on that decision," she said.
c-Verse also had an element of supporting children with life skills, according to Ms Jones.
"We encourage the children to design their own afternoon tea menu, they order their own food using the services weekly budget and ensuring the healthy eating guidelines are followed," she said.
She also said the safety of the children was paramount at all One Tree services.
"We have SAM (safety always matters) and children are assigned daily to be safety Sam and given the responsibility to be safety officers," she said.
Each child is given a walkie talkie to radio through to educators about dangers, spills and accidents.
"We find that this helps encourage the children to be aware of their environment and mindful of everyone's safety," Ms Jones said.
Anyone interested in enrolling their child in One Tree's OSHC program can visit https://www.onetree.org.au or contact 1800 919 995.
The before school program runs from 6.30am-9am and costs $13.
The after school program is $23 and runs from 3pm-6pm.
Vacation care is $50 excluding cost of excursions, and runs from 6am-6pm in school holidays.
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