Enrolment Terms and Conditions – German Australian Playschool

If you have received an email with an Offer of Place, then these terms and conditions apply.

Your child has been offered a place at the German Australian Playschool, in Turner.

Your child is being offered a place in the Monday-Tuesday class.

Operating hours are from 8:30am to 2:30pm, and children can arrive between 8:30am and 9:30am. See also: After-GAP care arrangements.

Your child’s first week of school will start Monday 3 Feburary 2025, unless you have arranged otherwise or your offer states that your child is starting mid-term/year.

All children are to be toilet trained (out of nappies) prior to starting Playschool. Of course, accidents happen, and that’s fine. Children with medical conditions are exempt from this requirement.

To accept your offer, please follow the steps below.

Step 1: RSVP by email

Please reply to your emailed offer of place as soon as possible, indicating whether you would like to accept the place. The offer is for the child and the class days stated in your offer email, and is not transferable. If you wish to decline your offer, please let us know as soon as possible.

Step 2: Organise a Schnupper session

If you have not visited GAP yet to have a look around, organise a Schnupper session to come in and meet us.

We recommend to come in around 9.00am. Children and parents will get to see and participate in the GAP program and ask all the questions they like.

Step 3: Pay your deposit (then your fees)

Please check the GAP Term Fees page to see how much is due and when.

A $100 deposit to secure your place is due within 10 days of receiving your offer email. (If you have received your offer email with less than 10 days to the start of classes, your full term fees, including your deposit are due immediately.)

The deposit will be attributed to your first term’s fees, so remember to subtract your deposit from your GAP Term Fees when you first pay them. (Your $100 deposit is non-refundable, so if your child does not start in the year they were supposed to, your deposit is not refunded.)

The remainder of your fees for Term 1 are due 15 January. (If you are starting mid-year, your fees are due 14 days prior to your start date.)

Term fees for subsequent terms are due the last Friday of the previous term.

Details on how and when to pay your GAP fees can be here: G AP Term Fees.

Our Toilet Training Policy: If the child is not yet toilet trained by the child’s scheduled starting date at GAP, then the family will be required to release their place, and drop back onto the top of the waiting list until the child is toilet trained and a place becomes available. If, during those weeks while the child is catching up with their toilet training, the child’s place would be taken by another child on the waiting list, the first family may elect to hold their child’s spot by paying term fees: 75% for up to 7 weeks, and full fees thereafter. These weeks are not covered by the childcare subsidy.

If a family releases their place, they forfeit their deposit unless they get another place the same year, in which case their deposit is attributed to their first term’s fees as normal.

Step 4: Complete your working bee hours

As the GAP is a not-for-profit community organisation run by parents, we need help to get the playschool ready each year. Each family is required to put in a minimum of FOUR hours work at one of our working bees (or two people for two hours). Children are welcome, but are your responsibility.

The 2025 working bees will be held:
Saturday 11 January from 9am to 5pm
Sunday 12 January from 9am to 4pm

Saturday 18 January from 9am to 5pm
Sunday 19 January from 9am to 4pm

If you will be overseas or interstate, you can organise (in advance) to do your hours at another time.

If you are starting mid-year, you don’t need to participate in the working bees, but we ask that you make an extra effort to support other special events through the year.

There is a $100 fee payable by 17 February, if you have not completed your hours at a working bee or made alternate arrangements by then. We encourage you to attend the working bees – they are fun, a great way to learn more skills (and pick up some new German words!) and lots can be accomplished!

Step 5: Submit enrolment form, health documents and inclusion form

Returning families: Please log into SmartCentral and review your enrolment details.

New families: Click on the blue “apply” button on our SmartCentral portal (at the link), create a user log-in, and complete your enrolment form.

Enrolment forms should be submitted by email, by 5 January. (If you are starting mid-year, then please submit your enrolment form as soon as possible; usually right after your Schnupper session to give us time to process it and be ready for your child to start.)

If your child has a medical condition, you will need to provide relevant action plans through the SmartCentral portal, and we ask that you bring a full colour copy of any Action Plans to GAP with you and discuss your child’s needs with the teachers – to be doubly certain.

All families will be asked to sign an Inclusion Support permission form as a condition of their enrolment. If teachers decide that staff would benefit from a visit from the Inclusion Support worker in order to better support your child, they will use that form to request a visit. The support worker does not interact directly with your child – only with our teachers.

Step 6: Identify how you will support your child’s playschool

Please note that in addition to the working bee, each family is also required to contribute a minimum of FOUR hours per year of volunteer work.

We also run several cultural events each year and need parent help to organise and contribute to these.

Please ask for the link to the Support Roles spreadsheet so you can sign up for a role.

Job descriptions are available for all sorts of roles we need help with; and for most roles there is helpful info from the previous year’s parent volunteer.

If you have not signed up online already, on your first day, please be sure you see one of our Committee Members, who will help you confirm the role you will take on for the year.

We look forward to seeing you at the GAP!