Childcare at Queen's
About Us
Queen’s has had Childcare provision on campus since 1970. We offer a range of childcare support with our dedicated Daycare facilities and Out of School Club.
Contact UsAims and Objectives
Our Childcare facilities promote the ethos of a happy, caring atmosphere within a stimulating learning environment. We offer a varied programme of activities nurturing the development of the whole child delivered through the medium of play.
Children have an innate interest and curiosity about their environment. As such we provide a full range of stimulating age-appropriate activities that foster the children’s progress in specific areas of learning. These include development in personal, social and emotional skills, language skills, physical skills, mathematical concepts, art and the world around us.
Our varied programmes offer opportunities for indoor and outdoor play and are carefully designed to consider the needs of all the children in our care.
About us
Childcare Calendar
See a full list of important dates, including closures, for Childcare at Queen's throughout the year.
More information
Nursing Room For Mothers
Childcare Services at Queen's has a Nursing Room for staff and student mothers.
Queen’s staff and students returning from maternity leave who wish to continue breastfeeding their babies can avail of a private room to express and store milk in a fridge specifically provided for this purpose. The room is available from Monday to Friday, 8.15am to 5.45pm, and any bookings can be made via QOL under Service Applications / Admin / Nursing Room or by contacting Linda McCord, Deputy Manager, at Tel. 90-97 1288 or l.mccord@qub.ac.uk
NURSING ROOM TESTIMONIAL
Having the facility to express milk for my baby has made the transition back to work much easier than I had initially anticipated. Queen’s Childcare staff were more than helpful in allowing me to access the room before I returned, which allayed all of my concerns around returning to work as a breastfeeding mother. The room is private, comfortable with a sofa and has a sink and fridge for milk storage, all of the facilities which are essential for expressing. Having the room available to express in on the main site has ultimately meant that I can continue to breastfeed my son until a time of our choosing rather than being forced to stop early upon my return to work.
Breastfeeding Welcome Here
Supporting the ‘breastfeeding welcome here’ scheme means that breastfeeding is welcome in the cafes and student areas on campus that have signed up, which include:
- 12 College Gardens (Nursing Room, Childcare Services)
- The Great Hall
- Riddel Hall
- One Elmwood
- Clements MBC
- Clements PEC
- Junction Cafe
- Hope Café
- Krem @ ECIT
A global place to work and play
Our team take pride in supporting you and your child with the care that we provide.
The flags above represent a selection of the nationalities of staff and students that we currently look after within Childcare Services.
We would like to extend a warm welcome to you and your family.
Learning English
Many children in our setting will have a home language other than English. We value this linguistic diversity and try to provide opportunities for children to develop and use their home language in their play and learning.
We acknowledge children will be at differing stages of learning English as an additional language. We realise some children are bilingual from birth because their families will have talked to them in more than one language and some children will be acquiring English as an additional language.
As with their first language, English needs to be learnt in context, through practical, meaningful experiences and interaction with others.
We have discovered children may spend a long time listening before they speak English and will often be able to understand much of what they hear, as such we encourage communication through gesture, sign, and facial expression and use support such as books, pictures and puppets.
We also ask parents to provide us with verbal and written phrases and instructions to help us communicate with your child.
Our Nutrition
Menu Planning (allergies/culture)
At the Queen’s Childcare Services we know that good nutrition is important for growing children and the children in our care are provided with a healthy and diverse menu which has been thoroughly researched taking into account the daily requirements needed.
We design our menus with low salt, low sugar diet plans, and include plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. Meals are also planned around requirements in relation to food allergies, intolerances, and parental/religious preferences. Our allergy management programme will be of particular interest to parents of children with food allergies.
Childcare kitchens have been awarded the top 5 Star “scores on the doors” award.
What our parents say:
“We can’t forget to thank Mark for all the healthy meals he provided. We were jealous that we couldn’t try them.”