It is difficult to provide a definitive opening date, but at this stage we are aiming for October 2025. Once construction is completed in the next 6–8 weeks, we will receive the keys and begin fitting out the centre with our resources. Only after this step can we apply to the Department of Education for Service Approval, which may take up to 90 days. We will keep families updated every step of the way.

During this approval period, we plan to schedule 1:1 tours so you can view the finished centre and we can begin to get to know your little ones. Unfortunately, recent wet weather has caused delays and required the builders to add extra drainage outdoors to protect the centre long-term. While this has slowed progress, we value the builders’ focus on quality and prevention rather than rushing the final stages.

Based on the current timeline, we expect to receive the keys in October, commence tours in November, and open the centre by December 2025 or January 2026.

We have everything ready to move forward as soon as the builder obtains the Occupation Certificate from Campbelltown Council. At that point, we will immediately submit our Service Approval paperwork to the Department of Education. While these two processes are outside our direct control, please know that we are doing everything possible to ensure all areas within our responsibility remain on track.

If it were up to us, we would open tomorrow - we are fully prepared. We appreciate your patience and cannot wait to welcome you into our beautiful new centre as soon as possible!

Our fees are 100% all inclusive for example all incursions and special events, food, nappies, wipes and sunscreen are included in the daily fee. The only exception is baby formula which we don’t provide.

In the past 6 years, we have built a great reputation of genuine care for children and going above and beyond for our families and team. We have such extensive waitlists at the other services, that we would love to support more families in our local community to access our high quality care. This includes being able to care for babies, which we don’t have the facilities for in our smaller services and often have to refer younger siblings to other centres in the area.

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

From the start, we have been extremely passionate about children’s nutrition and wellbeing. We have no budget for food and ensure our menu aligns to the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating so that children have all the nutrients they need to grow happy and healthy bodies.

During Andrew’s time in the kitchen at Macquarie Fields (3.5 years), with a lot of trial and error, he has created a menu that is nutritious, Munch and Move approved and best of all actually tasty. Andrew will be heavily involved in the creation of the menu and training/support of the Chef and Chef’s assistant.

Andrew’s background also includes shopfitting and refrigeration, so he understands the importance of good quality kitchen equipment to delivery nutritious meals in a clean work space - hence why our Minto kitchen is fitted exclusively with commercial appliances. We look forward to showing you the kitchen during our 1:1 tours.

We are in the process of working through our team structure and will start advertising for key roles soon.

We take our time with the hiring process as we are very particular about who joins our team because building and maintaining relationships with families, children, us and fellow team members is one of our top priorities and it is something that can’t be easily taught.

So aside from the obvious need for the right qualifications and background checks, it is also essential we have team members that have a genuine nature, are empathetic, respectful, honest and actually care. These are the building blocks of earning trust.

It’s important the team member is knowledgeable, passionate, driven, eager to learn and....they need to know how to have fun!

We aren’t concerned about finding the right people because we have had years of experience and we genuinely care for our team members. We constantly check in on an individual basis, reinvest in our team and provide them the work/life balance that is so rare in our industry (none of our team members work from home).

The majority of our team have been with us for multiple years and although we haven’t started placing job advertisements out, we have had many educators reaching out to join our team - we take it as a huge compliment that educators are seeing the difference in the work culture we provide.

We pride ourselves on creating a genuinely safe and nurturing environment; it is our top, non-negotiable priority.

Although we can’t control the timing of the build, what we can focus on and prepare for is our safety and compliance measures. We thought we would share some examples of the things Big Bear Academy do to ensure your child is safe:

• We have engaged our security specialist to review the current CCTV layout with a view to triple what is already included in the Minto build to ensure there are no blind spots

• We have engaged our emergency evacuation specialist to create the Emergency Evacuation Plans

• We have three trusted educators who have been with Big Bear Academy for over 4 years and will be working at Minto to ensure new team members adhere to our values around a Child Safe Environment and Child Protection standards

• Our hiring, induction and performance management process is robust with thorough and multiple interview, background checks and trial days. We have zero tolerance for any unprofessional behaviour or attitudes. We have more educators than we need so that we are never forced to keep the wrong educator because we need them for ratio. We can make quick and final decisions if a team member does not have the same level of commitment to child safety as we do

• • We have hired our Assistant Director and Educational Leader and are in the process of hiring our Director who will all commence well before opening the centre so they are across all policies procedures & risk management plans and other key aspects of safety

  • We are investing in a Compliance Officer whose role is purely to review and ensure consistency in all compliance and safety measures and practices onsite at the centres

  • We only use centre devices on the premises to document, take photos, log information or communicate with families. All personal devices are stored away in lockers.

  • We are clear on our supervision plans and expectations to ensure maximum and active supervision at all times

  • We have a strict social media policy where we only upload unidentifiable photos onto Facebook or Instagram. When we first opened we were shocked to see how many centres post identifiable photos of children, so we made a conscious decision to not share faces or identifying details

  • We prioritise both team wellbeing and accountability. Whilst we provide our team with a work/life balance and an emotionally safe environment, we also have a “see it, say it” culture built on transparency and open communication at all levels

  • • All our team members regularly attend Professional Development sessions including topics such as supervision, child safety, behaviour management and refresh their Child Protection training each year

    • These points are only the tip of the iceberg, there is an endless list of many other measures we take to ensure safety and compliance is of highest quality. During the individual tours we will be able to provide more details on how we create a child safe environment for your little one.

    Rest assured this is our biggest focus across our entire organisation. We understand and appreciate the level of trust you give us to educate and care for your precious child while they attend a Big Bear Academy centre.

    We are not a big corporate and we know that building trust, starts with being open and honest about who we are as owners, what we stand for and the systems and processes we have in place. Both yourself and our team members are only ever one in-person conversation (as we visit our centres throughout the week), email or phone call away from contacting us, the owners, directly.