Quality childcare options have long been in short supply in Melbourne’s Northern suburbs.  University Hill has finally addressed this important community need through the introduction of Pelican Childcare within its mixed-use development.  Adjacent the Town Centre, Pelican offers a much needed, high-quality childcare facility for the local community.

The centre is open to children aged between birth and six years with 120 places, which are filling fast as the centre offers a high staff-to-child ratio and a host of well planned activities to ensure children of all ages, needs and nationalities are well looked after each day.

Pelican is a boutique childcare provider with 6 centres across Victoria.  The operators have over four years experience and a strong focus on child care.  As a result of this, Pelican find and retain high quality staff enabling them to offer quality care. The staff are all qualified in first aid and epipen training and Pelican offers all staff a genuine career path through a range of casual and degree level training opportunities.

The Pelican Childcare Centre creates a welcoming environment catering for children of all ages, their parents and staff alike. The centre welcomes special needs children and expects to attract a broad range of children of all nationalities and backgrounds. With a fully qualified in-house chef and nutritionist, children are provided with a diverse daily menu of fresh, healthy and balanced meals, including meals that cater for specific dietary requirements.  

Working together with local schools, the Pelican Childcare Centre will focus on integrating relevant programs for older children. Pelican’s Managing Director, Hugh Ellis said, “We ensure that the children are introduced to the local schools with excursions to meet the principal and current prep class to help the children with this important transition.”

As well as extensive outdoor activities, another initiative is a computer “gym” providing children with laptops for learning with a wide selection of educational computer programs available. “Starting with educational games, we get the children used to using a computer, mouse, keyboard and taking proper care of equipment, this again helps them to feel more confident when they reach primary school.”

Throughout the year the centre also offers a range of different activity programmes with regular excursions and incursions, such as trips to the local pool and farm animal visits to the centre “we have a focus on integrating into local communities, including offering the centre to the local mother’s groups and holding wine and cheese nights for parents within the area to meet in a community setting,” Mr Ellis said.

Operating hours: Monday to Friday 6.30am – 6.30pm