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Melissa Byrne, the director of Anglicare's Marulan and Orana preschools, tells us that the Marulan preschool has been open since 1986, and part of the Anglicare family since 2006.
As a preschool, their enrolments are for 2 to 5 year olds. "We currently have 28 children enrolled in Marulan, so that's 24 families we provide a service for here," Melissa says.
Those families come from not just Marulan township but a few surrounding farms and villages, and even Goulburn, demonstrating that the location where you work as a parent is also a factor that determines how convenient the preschool's address is.
"We also have families as far out as Tallong, Big Hill, Bungonia, Windellamah and Bundanoon."
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Being in a rural centre, Melissa also noted the community feel of each drop-off and pick-up, with parents having a catch up with other parents.
"For us it feels it like a meeting place for the more isolated families. There are some that come from out on properties, so they congregate here for chat in the morning and afternoon."
Melissa said that Anglicare's vision is to look after the vulnerable in society. "Our doors are always open for vulnerable families. We try to make a difference in their life, for the family and for the child.
"We work in partnership with the families. We're not only here to provide education and care for children, but to also assist families in anything they may need to source like other agencies or community health services."
As such, they can assist by putting you in contact with local doctors, speech therapists or any other specialist practitioners who can help.
"We take a holistic view, and we're here to help the family and their children as well," Melissa added.
Their educators range from early childhood teacher to early childhood teacher in training, with diploma qualified, cert III qualified and experienced casuals in between.
"We've noticed in the last couple of years some major growth in Marulan, what with the quarry, more housing and now the new IGA in the centre of town. We've noticed that growth and we see some exciting times ahead for us and what we can offer the community," so Melissa anticipates the preschool growing as the need arises.
Additionally, "we're really privileged being here in the village. We take the children out on local walking excursions. The other day we walked up to IGA to get some of the ingredients for spaghetti Bolognese, then we went to the local butcher to get the meat and then we cooked it for lunch". The whole day was an experience which Melissa said the children really enjoyed.