The Tree House

Level 2, 133 Castlereagh Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
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  • Monday to Friday 7:30am - 6:00pm
Babies Toddlers Preschoolers

Our Program and Approach

At our centre childhood is celebrated. When they play and explore, children's imagination and curiosity is sparked - they enjoy learning, and are inspired to continue learning more.

At Tree House, we provide education and care for Stockland employees and the general community. Our play-based program provides a wide range of curriculum experiences across all learning areas. In our centre, children will be guided to explore art, music, dance, movement, science, numeracy, literacy, and social sciences.

One of our primary aims is for children to develop a sense of themselves as effective learners and to develop positive dispositions about learning. We seek to develop each child’s sense of self, social competence and their capacity for social awareness and social justice.

Our program celebrates diversity of culture, language, religion, gender, family structure and ability, and we pay particular attention to the Indigenous culture, heritage and the history of Australia’s first people.

At Tree House, we are proud of our reputation within the local community of providing rich education and care that concentrates on individual children in a family-focussed and supportive way.

Our centre is a welcoming and nurturing space where each child is immersed in a rich tapestry of educationally interactive experiences – a space where children are supported to be their own, unique selves, growing and developing a sense of belonging and empowerment.

We greatly value the strong relationships between our staff, children and families, and we look forward to the opportunity of including your family in the life of our centre.


Our Special Interest

In addition to the high quality well rounded programs we offer, all our KU centres are encouraged to develop an area of interest.

At Tree House, our special interest is in developing children’s appreciation for and connection with the natural environment and their understanding of sustainability issues. We strive to incorporate Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander cultural perspectives to our curriculum and look to these cultures as a model for sustainable practice and environmental respect. We also seek to guide children’s exploration of the sciences involved in caring for the planet.

This focus is threaded through our curriculum as children are encouraged to care for their environment at a centre level, participating in recycling projects, helping to design and care for their play environments and utilising natural play materials for exploration.

We encourage and guide children to undertake research projects based on their own interests, with a focus on the development of environmental awareness and the interconnectedness of life. While engaging in these projects, children may be involved in cooking, gardening, creating, designing and building, reading, researching and learning to record their findings using a variety of media. We encourage development of children’s literacy skills whilst they are involved in this research.

We feel children benefit from our focus on sustainability and environmental awareness, as they develop an understanding of their capacity to make change in the world.


Our Quality


Our centre has been independently assessed by the Department of Education NSW under the National Quality Standards, and are proud to be rated as Exceeding the National Quality Standard.


However what matters most is what our families think...

"I genuinely cannot speak highly enough of how warm, professional and accommodating all of the staff have been at Tree House. We were warmly welcomed for orientation visits, which I believe made the settling in process much quicker and easier for my girls. The rooms seem full of creative, fun, colourful and varied learning experiences, which was in stark contrast to some other centres I've seen and clearly shows a lot of thought and planning on the part of the educators. The girls have also formed bonds with the educators and other children even more quickly than I thought they would, which makes the morning farewells so much easier! I feel very lucky that our family found this lovely centre." - The Tree House parent

"I have been very impressed with both the facilities and staff at The Tree House. The staff are extremely friendly and are absolutely brilliant with my baby." - The Tree House parent

Our Environment

Each KU centre is unique. The best outcomes for children are created within the relationships and interactions between children and staff and children and their families, not within four walls. We work hard to create beautiful, interesting and homelike learning environments for children – whatever our setting.

Our centre is a fully equipped, state of the art facility that has been designed using concepts to create ‘as natural an environment’ as possible. We have a rooftop atrium that provides natural light to our play spaces, which are fitted out with natural timber floors, plants and wet and dry sandpits. Our centre also features a ‘secret forest’ play area for children.

Our playground is a simulated outdoor learning environment, and whilst indoors includes natural elements such as sand, water, bark, stones, rocks and branches. Whenever possible we avoid using lots of fixed and plastic equipment in our playground. Instead we provide an ever-changing array of challenging and interesting activities and equipment, explored by children and educators together.

We actively encourage children to be involved in the design of experiences and selection of materials utilised. These activities help with the development of children’s gross motor skills, enhancing their overall health and wellbeing as they discover their strengths and abilities and feel inspired to create, imagine and play.


Our Reconciliation Action Plan

KU was proud to launch its inaugural Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in 2016. At The Tree House, we began our journey to develop our centre’s RAP in 2018 and we are proud to present it here.


Other Features

Child Care Subsidy
Designed Centre
Hat and Sunscreen
Transition to School
Public Transport
Play-based Learning
Parking
Cooked Meal
Nappies
Storypark

photo of Kylie Anderson

Kylie Anderson

Director

Kylie is a university qualified early childhood teacher with over 35 years’ experience working with children and babies.

She has been working with KU for over 20 years, and has been working at The Tree House since its opening in 2008.

Kylie has a particular interest in sustainability and environmental issues and is passionate about developing children’s awareness of their role in preserving and managing our natural world.

Our Team

Our team of early childhood educators are qualified, experienced, caring and highly motivated. Several of the team have worked at Tree House since the centre’s inception. All hold specialist qualifications in early childhood education. We believe in the importance of ongoing learning and this is reflected in the study towards upgraded qualifications that many of the team are currently undertaking.

We believe that the positive interactions children have with our staff are the most important component of our high quality program and strive to develop our relationships with the children.

Our diverse team are able to speak a variety of languages including Armenian, Bengali, Cantonese, Fijian, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin and Shanghainese, and bring with them an understanding of diverse cultural child-rearing practices.

The daily fees for 2024 at The Tree House are:

  • Infants: $181
  • Toddlers: $173
  • Preschoolers: $173

This is the full daily fee. If you are eligible for Child Care Subsidy, this will reduce the daily fee you are charged.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, KU has remained very proudly a not for profit provider of quality education for more than 125 years. Our fees are designed to cover the operational costs of delivering the unique KU learning experience, and to ensure KU can continue delivering those experiences for many years to come.

About Child Care Subsidy

Child Care Subsidy is the main payment to assist families with the costs of childcare. It is paid directly to the childcare provider and passed onto families as a fee reduction wherever families meet the criteria. The level of subsidy you receive, as well as the number of hours you will be subsidised, depends on your individual family’s circumstances.

If you do not already have one, you will need a MyGov account linked to Centrelink to claim any subsidy you may be eligible for, and to find out more information, please contact Centrelink on 136 150 or visit https://www.dese.gov.au.

NSW Start Strong Fee Relief

From 2024, the NSW Government is providing additional fee relief funding based on $2,110 per eligible 4 year old child attending a preschool program within a long day care service. This funding is applied as a weekly credit to the gap fee after CCS has been applied or to full fees where a family does not receive CCS. The Start Strong Fee Relief will not impact CCS entitlements.

If your child is 3 years old and not yet 4 years old on, or before 31 July 2024 and enrolled at an eligible long day care service, you will receive up to $500 in fee relief.

Start Strong Fee Relief funding is for children who are 4 years old on or before 31 July 2024, and can only be accessed in one service. This could either be in a community preschool or long day care service. If you have a child who may be eligible, please discuss this with your service Director.

The NSW Department of Education requires parents to sign the ‘Fee Relief Declaration and Consent’ form at the time of enrolment. Your eligibility for Start Strong fee relief Funding is conditional upon signing this form.