Kindergarten upgrades celebrated

OFFICIALLY OPEN: Millicent North Kindergarten early childhood workers Cathy D'Onghia, Jo Bowering, Hayley Bell and Tracy Pratt join director Donna Barber (second right) in the official cake cutting ceremony at the centre's open night. As part of the open night the centre celebrated the completion of major ongoing upgrades.
OFFICIALLY OPEN: Millicent North Kindergarten early childhood workers Cathy D’Onghia, Jo Bowering, Hayley Bell and Tracy Pratt join director Donna Barber (second right) in the official cake cutting ceremony at the centre’s open night. As part of the open night the centre celebrated the completion of major ongoing upgrades.

MILLICENT North Kindergarten opened its gates to the community last week to celebrate the completion of several major upgrades.

Despite afternoon rain and gusty winds, sunshine made an appearance as around 50 people gathered at the centre for the open night.

Children played in the new outdoor area before kindergarten director Donna Barber addressed the crowd to explain the hard work and process behind the project.

“One of our valued early childhood workers Tracy Pratt worked with every child to talk about what they would like in the new sandpit area,” she said.

“Together they designed a rough draft of how it would look before governing council member Jess Lyndon took the design home and created one to scale that could be sent to the education department for approval.

“That was approved, but unfortunately for the children and families who were here in 2016 the design was not actually made into reality until 2017.

“One of the reasons we wanted our 2016 families back here to celebrate it is because they were the major design partners in the project.

“It is an amazing play area and we rarely have any issues with the children as it has been designed to give them enough creativity to play as a large group in their own little quadrons.

“There is so much happening in the area that has made it more exciting, adventurous and user friendly.”

RIBBON-CUTTING: Millicent North Kindergarten’s past enrolments Tait Grgetic, Harvey Vanderheul, Zahli O’Laughlin, Mia Renehan, Brax Thomas, Tait Cameron and former governing council member Jess Lyndon were involved in the design of the nature play area and returned to the centre for the evening and to participate in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Ms Barber invited Ms Lyndon and children involved in the design process to cut the ribbon, to mark the official opening of the area.

Another ribbon-cutting ceremony was then held in the centre by Buckmasters.

“Roger Buckmaster and his team were the people who carried out the work as part of a grant for the National Quality Standards,” Ms Barber said.

“The grant allowed us to bring our kindergarten a little bit more in line with the standards early childhood services fall under.

“We could not have worked with a better team of people, if anything was questionable or we were unsure it was only a phone call to Roger or a message to Brett and it was actioned.

“I think to anyone who has not been here since the work has been done it would be an astounding change from what it was like at the end of 2017.

CELEBRATIONS: The Dibley family Brett, Sienna, Cooper and Chloe are among the 50 people to gather at the centre and join in on the celebrations. Brett is a member of the Buckmasters building team completing the indoor renovations at Millicent North Kindergarten.
Pictures: BROOKE LITTLEWOOD