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Tours & enrolling
Do I need to book a tour before I can visit?
No. Our door is genuinely open — walk in whenever you like.Most centres will only show you around at a scheduled time, with everything tidied up and ready.
We don't work that way. You're welcome to turn up unannounced during our opening hours and see Pumpkin exactly as it is on a normal Tuesday.
If you'd rather lock in a time so Miss Elly is free to walk you around properly and answer questions, book a tour here or call +61411 506 360.
💡 Bring your child with you. Watching how they respond to a room tells you more than any brochure will.
How does enrolment actually work?
- Four steps, and we handle most of the paperwork with you:
- Enquire — send us the enrolment form or just call. We come back to you within one business day.
- Visit — see the rooms, meet the educators, ask everything.
- Confirm — we check availability for your days, send your enrolment forms, and help you sort your CCS before your first day so there are no surprise bills.
- Start — a gentle orientation, plus extra check-ins from us during the first two weeks.
What's the minimum number of days my child needs to attend?
Most long day care centres ask for a minimum of two days a week, because children settle far better with a regular rhythm than with a one day here and one day there pattern. Give us a call and we'll talk through what works for your family and what we have available.
Call +61411 506 360 or send us a message.
My child has never been in care before. How do you help them settle?
- Slowly, and at your child's pace.
- We start with short orientation visits before their first full day, so the room, the smells, and the faces are already familiar. We ask you about the specific things that matter: how they like to be settled to sleep, what comforts them, which words they use for things.
- Then we check in with you more often than you probably expect during those first two weeks.
- Some children walk in on day one and never look back. Others take a month of wobbly drop-offs. Both are completely normal, and we've seen every version of it.
🎃 A child who feels safe is a child who's ready to learn. Settling isn't a hurdle to clear before the learning starts. It is the learning.
Why choose a small centre over a big one?
Big centres often have newer buildings, more equipment, and more rooms. If that matters most to you, they're a legitimate choice.
Small centres like Pumpkin trade some of that for something else: your child is known. Not like "the blonde one in the Toddler room" known. Every educator here knows every child's name, whichis not true at a centre with 100 families. You know who's caring for your child, and you have direct access to the director every single day, because she's on the floor, not in an office.
Your child also moves through all three rooms with us, so familiar faces stay around from their first year to their first day of school.
Fees & subsidies
What are your daily fees?
- These are our 2026 daily rates, before the Child Care Subsidy is applied. Most families pay considerably less than this.
Room | Direct debit | No direct debit |
Nursery (0-2) | $170 | $176 |
Toddlers (2-3) | $160 | $166 |
Preschool (3-6) | $150 | $156 |
What's included in the daily fee?
- Here's the straight answer, so you can compare us properly against anyone else on your list.
- Included in your daily fee:
- All meals and snacks
- Spare clothes if your child needs them
- Your child's full educational program and all activities
- What you bring:
- Nappies and wipes, if your child is still in them
- A hat, and any comfort item they sleep with
What is the Child Care Subsidy, and am I eligible?
- The Child Care Subsidy (CCS) is a federal government payment that goes straight to us and reduces your fees. You only pay the gap. Most working families are eligible for something.
- How much you get depends on your family income, your activity level (work, study, volunteering), and the type of care. You apply through myGov and we'll help you do it before your first day so your subsidy is running from day one.
⚠️ Apply before you start, not after. Families who leave it until later often get a bill for the full fee in the meantime.
What's the 3 Day CCS Guarantee?
Every eligible family gets at least three subsidised days per fortnight, regardless of how many hours you work or study. It applies to children aged 0–5.
This matters most for families where one parent isn't working full-time, or where work is casual or irregular. Under the old activity test, you could lose subsidised hours in a quiet fortnight. This guarantee sets a floor under that.
This matters most for families where one parent isn't working full-time, or where work is casual or irregular. Under the old activity test, you could lose subsidised hours in a quiet fortnight. This guarantee sets a floor under that.
What is Start Strong, and does my child qualify?
- Start Strong is a NSW Government program that funds preschool programs for children aged 3-5. It sits on top of CCS and can reduce your preschool fees further.
- It applies to our Lionfish and Starfish rooms. If your child is three or older, ask us about it — a lot of families don't realise they qualify.
Why is direct debit cheaper?
Automatic payments save us admin time chasing invoices, so we pass that back to you: $6 off every day.
For a child attending full-time, that's $30 a week or $1,500 a year. Setting it up takes about five minutes when you enrol.
Do I pay for public holidays, sick days and holidays?
- In long day care, fees are generally charged for your booked days whether your child attends or not and the place is held for them, and the educators are still rostered on. Most centres, including us, are closed on public holidays.
- Absence policies and holiday discounts vary a lot between centres, so this is genuinely worth asking us directly. Call +61411 506 360 and we'll give you the specifics for Pumpkin in writing before you commit.
A day at Pumpkin
What are your opening hours?
7:30am to 6:30pm, Monday to Friday. That's a full 11-hour day.
We chose those hours deliberately. A 9-to-5 in the city means leaving Matraville around 8am and getting back around 6pm. Centres that close at 5:30pm don't work for that life, and we didn't want families making a career decision because of a pickup time.
We're closed weekends and public holidays.
Which room will my child be in?
- We have three rooms, and your child moves through all of them with us:
• Nursery (0-2) — calm, warm, and unhurried. Tiny routines and a lot of individual attention.• Toddlers (2-3) — built for exploring. Messy play, movement, songs, and stories.• Preschool (3-6) — a genuine school readiness program.
Transitions are based on readiness, not just birthdays. We'll talk it through with you well before a move, and children visit the next room several times before they move up properly.
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Do you provide meals?
- Yes, all meals and snacks are included in your daily fee. You don't pack food.
That's one less thing to organise at 7am, and it means every child eats the same thing together, which does more for a fussy eater than anything you'll manage at home.
If your child has allergies, or your family has cultural, religious or medical dietary requirements, talk to us before you enrol. We'll go through the menu with you and put a plan in place. Call +61411 506 360, or families can drop in around lunchtime and see what's actually on the plate.
What does a typical day look like?
- There is a routine, arrival and free play, group time, outdoor play, meals, rest, and afternoon activities, however it isn't a timetable we force children through.
- If the Toddlers are deep in something outside and it's technically time to come in, we usually let them keep going. Learning doesn't run to a bell.
- Our program follows the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), the national framework built around five outcomes: a strong sense of identity, connection to their world, wellbeing, confidence as learners, and effective communication.
- The best way to understand a day here is to see one. Come in any time.
What do I need to pack each day?
- Less than you'd think:
- • Nappies and wipes — if your child is still in them. This is the one thing we don't supply.
- • A hat — no hat, no outdoor play, and we'd rather not keep anyone inside.
- • Any comfort item they need to sleep — a particular blanket, a soft toy, whatever it is.
- • Spare clothes if you'd prefer them in their own things.
- You don't need to pack food. All meals and snacks are included.
- And if your child comes home in clothes you don't recognise, that's us. We keep spare clothes here for the days when painting, sand and lunch all go the same way. It happens more than you'd expect, and it means nobody sits around damp waiting for pickup.
How will I know what my child did today?
- You'll hear it from the educator who was actually with them.
- Because we're small, the person handing your child back at 6pm is the person who was with them at 11am. They'll tell you who your child played with, what they ate, how the nap went, and the funny thing they said.
- Ask us at pickup, or call during the day if you're wondering. Nobody here minds.
What happens if my child gets sick at the centre?
- We call you. We don't wait to see if it passes.
- Every centre in NSW follows the National Health and Medical Research Council exclusion guidelines for infectious illnesses, which set minimum periods children need to stay home for things like gastro, hand foot and mouth, and conjunctivitis. We follow them properly, including when it's inconvenient because the family whose child stays home today is the reason your child isn't sick next week.
- All our educators hold current First Aid, CPR, asthma and anaphylaxis training. If your child has a medical condition or allergy, we'll build a management plan with you before they start.
A word of warning that no centre tells you: your child will catch everything in their first six months of care. It's brutal, it's normal, and it settles down.
Will my child be ready for school?
Yes and probably not in the way you're expecting.
Parents often ask whether their child will be able to write their name. Honestly? That's the least important part. The children who cope well in Kindergarten are the ones who can open their own lunchbox, ask an adult for help, recover from a disappointment, take turns, and manage their own body through a long day.
Those are the things we work on in Preschool, alongside early literacy and numeracy. Our program follows the NSW Early Years Learning Framework, and Start Strong funding is available for eligible 3-5 year olds.
Safety & educators
Are your educators qualified and checked?
Yes. Every educator at Pumpkin holds:
- The qualifications required under the National Regulations for their role
- A current Working With Children Check — we monitor expiry dates, they don't just get checked once at hire
- Current First Aid, CPR, asthma and anaphylaxis training
Our director, Miss Elly, is a qualified Early Childhood Teacher with over 17 years of experience and she's on the floor with the children, not sitting in an office.
What does "always on ratio" mean, and why does it matter?
- Australian law sets a minimum number of educators per child, by age:
Age group | Educator to children |
Birth to 24 months |
|
24 to 36 months | 1 : 5 |
36 months to preschool age | 1 : 10 |
Ratio is a legal minimum, not a target. Where centres get into trouble is the edges of the day in early mornings, late afternoons, when someone calls in sick, during staff lunch breaks. That's when it's tempting to stretch.
We don't stretch. Every room, every day. It means enough eyes, enough hands, and enough attention foryour child — not a number on a compliance form.
How do I check your rating and compliance record?
- Please do - and check every centre on your list while you're at it.
- Pumpkin is rated Meeting the National Quality Standard, assessed independently against the same framework every centre in Australia is measured by. We've had zero enforcement actions from the national regulator in 18 years. Our most recent compliance visit was February 2026.
- • ACECQA National Register — ratings and any enforcement history
- • Startingblocks. gov.au — the government's parent-facing comparison site
If a centre is reluctant to point you at these, that itself tells you something.
Do you post photos of children on social media?
- Photo and privacy policies differ a lot between centres while some centre post freely to public social media, some use a private parent app, some don't photograph at all. Nothing involving your child's image should ever happen without your explicit written consent, and you should be able to say no without it being awkward. Ask us for our policy in writing before you enrol, and ask every other centre you visit for theirs too.
- At Pumpkin, we use Storypark for everything from daily activity reports, learning assessments, and all communication with families. It's a secure, private platform that only you and our educators can access. If we ever want to share any photos or content on social media, we will always ask for your explicit consent first. You're always in control.
Who can pick up my child?
Only the people you've listed as authorised on your enrolment form. Nobody else, even if they say they're family, even if your child recognises them.
If someone new needs to collect your child, let us know in advance and we'll ask them for photo ID at the door. If that feels excessive, it's meant to. We'd rather have an awkward two minutes at pickup than the alternative.
What if I have a concern or complaint?
- Tell us. Directly, early, and about small things too — we'd much rather hear about something that's niggling you than have you sit on it for a term.
- Talk to your child's educator, or come straight to Miss Elly. That's the advantage of a small centre: there's no escalation ladder to climb, and the person who can fix it is standing right there.
- If you're ever not satisfied with how we handle something, you have the right to contact the NSW Department of Education as the regulator. We'll tell you that up front rather than hoping you don't find out.
Still have a question?
Call Miss Elly directly, or just walk in during opening hours.
No appointment and come see a normal day.