Introduction/specifics

Welcome to our daycare centre St. Christophorus!

We are a catholic institution belonging to the parish St. Viktor in Damme. Our daycare center is located in Clemens-August-village, south of Damme’s city centre. It was built in 1966 and offers, after various modifications, a place to play and discover for 134 children.

Rooms

Our daycare centre has five group rooms with secondary rooms in the kindergarten area and two group rooms in the crèche area. Every area has its own entrance and is accessible for people with handicaps. The group rooms hold direct ways into the outdoor area. The kindergarten area has three washrooms that are split between five groups.

Though the daycare centre has rooms on the upper floor, children with physical impairments can visit it as well since the rooms upstairs are only a staff room and a tripping space that is also used from external therapists for early support and speech therapy lessons.

Besides a big and bright hall for movement, the centre also has an art studio and a big floor that is always individually used, e.g. as a toy shop or a racetrack for bobby cars.

The cafeteria offers an open breakfast for the children and later serves lunch.

The crèche area additionally holds a sleeping room and a wash and nursing room that the two groups share.

The house has a bathroom equipped for the disabled as well as one for visitors.

Outdoor Facilities

A special feature of the daycare centre St. Christophorus is the spacious and diverse outdoor area. The climbing centre welcomes the children to discover different heights and grounds. A big sandpit with a water pump offers a lot of space to build, dig and play in the mud. Within the sandpit is another climbing centre, and the sandpit is surrounded by a paved way that the children can move forward on in all different kind of vehicles. The children can also use three swings.

The crèche has a separate outdoor area that is separated from the big playground with a fence.

Food

A balanced diet is important for the physical and mental development. Eating for us is therefore not only the ingestion of food, but also a set ritual during the day and a communal experience.

The children bring their own breakfast from their homes with them and have the possibility to eat it between 8:15 and 10:30 . They decide by themselves at what time they want to stop their playing, and with whom and for how long they want to breakfast while being looked after by an educator.

We pay attention to the children drinking enough water during the day. During breakfast sugar free beverages like tea, water and milk are offered while water, with or without gas, is available for the children all day in their groups. As a snack between the meals plates with fruit and vegetables are offered.

Lunch is freshly served every day.  It meets the standards of a balanced and diverse diet for children. The meal plan rotates every 8-12 weeks and considers the season, and, if possible, seasonal offers. The weekly menu is hung up for the parents. 

We want a balanced and to the greatest extent possible healthy diet for your children and do therefore not offer any sweets. We only make exceptions from this on religious holidays or on the children’s birthdays.

Basics

Image of the Child

Our pedagogical work is oriented to Christian values. We see every child as a precious creature made by God. Every child is accepted with its uniqueness, regardless of their religion, origin or social environment. We believe that every child shapes its own goals and relationships and see it as an expert of its own abilities. Children gain knowledge with the help of their natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge by dealing with their environment. We see our task in recognizing the potentials of a child, and to accompany and support its development by creating safe and stimulating surroundings.

Our pedagogical concept

Basics

Our pedagogical profession is characterized by situation-oriented and holistic actions. Active confrontation as a means to communicate by the children and our pedagogical qualified people are therefore the basic prerequisites of our work.

Orientation to the Daily Life of the Children

Following this, the children’s interests and needs are in the center of our work. We orient ourselves to the different individual situations of the children. Treating different topics and working on diverse projects should therefore always be oriented towards the children while it should also be done in a professional correct way so that the children can always be picked up at their present learning and experience level.

Holistic Learning

Being confronted with a matter needs to happen in a practical way, showing that gaining experience and doing research autonomously is in the foreground of a child’s process of learning. A holistic learning approach for the children includes therefore connecting all senses – seeing, hearing, tasting and feeling. Just as important as this is the orientation to Pestalozzi’s head-heart-hand-principle. This is followed by a reflected thinking, an emotional involvement in important decision-making and finally by actions being put into practice by the children.

Observation

To be able to implement the orientation to the children’s lives and the holistic approach it is important to constantly observe the children in a professional pedagogical way. This makes additional actions for the pedagogical work possible. The communicative confrontation, according to participative actions, is an important starting point to turn our basic goals into practice. Participation means to hand the word over to the children and to therefore give them enough room to have a say in something. It is important here to see that solely the children’s participation in the daily life at the daycare centre is far away from a participative concept. The latter rather includes involvement, co-determination and in certain situations even a complete self-ruling by the children. This involvement can e.g. be seen in developing rules together (not affecting certain rules though that are for the children’s protection) or in designing the group rooms and shared rooms.

Children in our centre can experience themselves in different ways: as individuals, as members of smaller playing groups, as members of the whole group and as members of the community of the daycare centre. Our community is based on tolerance, mutual respect, agreements, rules, certain limits and their fulfillment to make our community a positive one for everyone.

Settling in – Berlin Model

To be able to develop positively and to feel comfortable in our daycare centre it is important that the children settle in adequately. Just then it is possible that they unfold themselves as a part of the community. Our institution supports the Berlin model for settling in which has one to three weeks in mind for the children to settle in. This time can be individually adapted.

Basic Approach of the Staff

A certain basic approach is significant for the whole pedagogical implementation and work with the children which ultimately mirrors the social development of the children. We become e.g. assessable for the children through our consequential behavior and give them a certain safety. They can therefore experience that certain actions are always followed by consequences.

Parent’s Work

Our institution wants to be a reliable partner to the families and legal guardians. We start a partnership here that includes mutual acceptance, respect and appreciation. Parents have their expertise in being parents. We have our expertise as pedagogical professionals. Different expectations, wishes and problems can only be solved through open discussions. Points of contacts in this partnership could be:

• Conversations with parents and open house days
• Co-operation from the parents in different committees (e.g. an advisory council from the parents)
• Joint organization of parties and services
• Work shadowing (Experiencing a mid-morning in the daycare centre)
• Letters for the parents

Conclusion

Finally, the personality and dignity of the child are the principles of our pedagogical work. This human right is always inviolable. Human rights are always also children’s rights – children are individuals creatures and have to be respected accordingly.

“We do not get to know the people when they come to us. We have to go to them to get to know how they are doing.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Employee

We, the team at the daycare centre St. Christophorus, are an individual, inclusive and diverse team. This means that we work hand in hand as experienced but also recently trained professionals and learn and benefit from each other. We contribute different qualifications and skills to the team. We are educators, qualified workers for educational theory for babies and toddlers, social assistants, curative teachers, social care workers, so-called ´QuiK-professionals´, professionals for linguistic development and employees with a bachelor degree in Educational Sciences. Our skills and additional qualifications include music education (including playing instruments, rhythmic, dancing), religious pedagogy or aesthetic education.

We are also open for interns and people who want to do a voluntary social year.

Cooperations

Our daycare centre cooperates with different institutions to work towards the well-being of the children we were trusted with. These co-operations include:

• The pastoral work team of the parish St. Viktor
• Early support of the Andreaswerk or the St. Anna-foundation
• Logo therapists and ergo therapists
• Riding therapy and swimming in the integration group
• Elementary school Sierhausen (extra project)
• Youth welfare office and health department (e.g. Dental care project)
• Library Damme (license for libraries)

Teamwork with parents

To achieve successful pedagogical work, a partner-like and trustful collaboration with the parents is indispensible for us. This requires an open and respectful dialogue between the parents and the pedagogical staff. Both parties have to be willing to work hand in hand in support of the best possible promotion of the child. The parents are the experts for their own children, and together we are working towards aims that always focus on the child’s well-being.

Overview

You have already put your child’s name down online? Then we would love to get to know you and your child personally at our centre. We will make an appointment with you so that you have the possibility to look at our centre and to talk about open questions.

The admission usually takes place in the beginning of a kindergarten year, meaning in August, when the big children start school. We can only take in children during the year in case we have open spaces.