SDN Children's Services Inc. Annual Report 2010

Our history
To preserve family life, to educate mothers in child health and to save babies from death and becoming state wards.
‘The charter written by the founders of SDN
‘
Our proud history
One hundred years ago there were very few options for child
care. Many working mothers were forced to leave young children
either with relatives or older siblings or unattended. To reduce
the risk of harm, some mothers locked children in the house,
whilst others locked them out. The 1904 Royal Commission on
the Decline of the Birth-Rate and on the Mortality of Infants
in NSW found that approximately one in ten children did not
survive infancy and that more than 50 percent of these deaths
occurred in the first three months of life.
In response to the Royal Commission and spurred on by the
exclusion of children under three years of age from Kindergarten
Union centres, a group of young women established the
Sydney Crèche Association and opened SDN’s first centre in
Woolloomooloo. It was the first formal child care service to
open in NSW specifically for working mothers of children aged
under three years of age, and was well patronised.
For a modest fee of threepence a day, working women
now had a safe place to entrust their children from
7:00am to 6:30pm. There was little recognition of the word
crèche and within a few months of opening our name was
changed to The Sydney Day Nursery Association. The health
of children was a major concern: before the 1930s, nurseries
were run by matrons and supported by nurses.
The fees received were not enough to run the nursery, and
in the absence of any government support the Association
relied heavily on fundraising. This was the largest source of
income until World War I.
Between 1905 and 1930 SDN expanded to 11 centres. The
history of SDN during the Great Depression is testimony to
the determination and ingenuity of the Association’s leaders.
These women were incredibly resourceful and managed
not only to keep the nurseries afloat, but to pioneer early
education in the midst of the Great Depression. When SDN
was in serious financial trouble and even as the Executive
Committee was considering closing at least one centre, they
were taking steps towards training and appointing teachers
in the nurseries. At the time, such a decision must have
been viewed as reckless; in retrospect it was courageous and
visionary.
At the forefront of early childhood
education
SDN has long been at the forefront of early childhood education.
In the 1930s SDN was the first to combine a preschool program
with long day care by training and employing qualified early
childhood teachers in the nurseries.
In 1931 the Sydney Day Nursery and Nursery Schools
Association established the first training centre for nursery
school teachers in NSW, at Woolloomooloo Nursery. The
establishment of the Nursery School Training Centre (later
Training College then Teachers’ College) responded to an
urgent need for ‘properly trained teachers’ to work in the
newly founded nursery schools.
According to an early prospectus (circa 1939), the purpose
of the Nursery School Training College was:
to offer to the students a professional training in educational
principles and modern methods of teaching children ranging
in age from 18 months to 6 years. Although the training is a
broad and cultural one, special emphasis is laid on the scientific
study of the needs and development of young children.
Initially a two-year course, the training was expanded in
1942 to a three-year diploma course. From its earliest days,
the training was holistic. Subjects taught were scientific,
artistic, and aimed at supporting parenting. They included
Psychology, Hygiene, Child Welfare, Eurhythmics, Infant
Welfare and Mental Health, and Child Development.
Many of the principles on which the Nursery School
Training Centre was founded resonate soundly with SDN’s
contemporary practices. Just as our forebears did, we recognise
the importance of understanding the multiple individual,
familial, social, cultural and political factors that affect young
children’s lives, and we continue to advocate strenuously for
‘properly trained teachers’ in early childhood settings.
Many of the core values on which SDN was built remain
relevant to this day. SDN remains true to the Association’s
initial mission: we continue to operate as a not-for-profit
18 SDN Annual Report 2010